Customer Service in Malaysia

On my way to work today, I stop by a Dunkin Donuts (DD) shop to get my morning coffee and some donuts. I don't do this everyday, let me tell you that. I just love to indulge in good coffee just to motivate me to go to work early on a Monday morning.

So, since it was pretty early and perhaps I was their first customer of the day and it is Monday, the server attending to me today was not too friendly nor smiley. I am not a cheerful happy morning person my self and I rarely take offence to such behaviour. But somehow today I was a bit offended. Me being me, I keep it all to myself and rant out on my blog instead.

So, I wanted to get iced latte and some donuts to go so when I walk in there is no welcome greeting (that is fine by me) and there is no "what would you like to have?" or "can I get your order?" from the staff. She just stood there looking at me while I look at the menu. After telling her I want iced latte without whipped cream, she went straight to making my drinks. It took her about 3 minutes or so and once finished, she asked whether I want anything else. Which is good coz I do want some donuts. Who went in DD without getting donuts is a weirdo in my book.

Anyhow, after telling her I want sugar raised, chocolate and blueberry filling she told me the total costs. I think it was less than RM 20, RM16.70 or sumthing but since I have no small notes, I had to hand her RM50 note. She asked whether I have smaller notes and I told her no, I don't but I have small change. So I fished out 70 cents from my purse and put it on the counter. As she was counting my balance, I told her, "here, I have shillings". She just handed me my balance and said, "we have so much shillings already".

I was surprised. I remember when I used to work as a cashier during semester break long long time ago, I begged for small change. Normally I asked for small change like 10 - 50 sen max but there will be time when we ran out of shillings that we asked for 50-70 sen. But today, I offered 70 sen and she rudely refused. Whoa... Probably she was mad that I gave her RM50 notes so early in the morning and she is now running out of RM10 notes. I've been in her shoes, that is why I didn't lash out. I simply said, "okay" and walked out. 

I have several other bad examples to share but I think, it all comes down to education. People working in customer service line, need to educate themselves well on how to treat customer courteously. I am not a difficult customer, so why did I do to deserve such a treatment this morning?

There was this one time my sister and I had the worst customer service experience at a Pizza Hut in Kampar that we immediately e-mailed a complaint whilst having our meal. We did not scold the staff or anything like that coz to me, its not their fault they are behaving that way. They did not get the proper training,  that's all.

 

photo from reflectionofsanity.blogspot.com

I was in Mid valley Kuala Lumpur a few months back. At that time, Antipodean, a new coffee joint just opened. It was noon I think and one of the owners were there. An expatriate, and he was showing his staffs who are mostly locals on how to properly wipe a table. I am sure that they were also taught on how to greet customers and how to take orders etc because I always had good experience having coffee there. Antipodean in Mid valley is just a normal coffee shop. No fancy furniture or deco, nothing. But they serve awesome tasting coffee by great servers. I could just sit there alone, having cups after cups of coffee. Totally addictive!     

Customer service in Malaysia is nothing to brag about. Some Starbucks joints do have those amazing servers that will try to make you smile and left an impression on you and there are some who tried too hard and left the wrong type of impression in your life ( I encountered those too) So, as a customer dining and transacting in Malaysia, I advice you to lower your expectation so that you would not be too dissapointed. If you have a fickle partner who had the tendency to complaint and lash out at every minor or major faults, I advise you to quickly run before your partner exploded in front of everyone (I encountered this too but too bad it was a drive thru transaction thus I had no where to run)

Have a great week ahead peeps!