"Go home, Suzie Wong!"
I was at a mall in Manila not long ago when I stumbled across a donut franchise not available in Singapore. Intrigued I took a peep and was immediately greeted with enthusiasm by a young Filipina girl working there who gave me a donut to try at no charge, invited me to take a look at the store’s offerings and even asked some locals to give up their seats for me.
Thank God for such customer service!
Thank God Filipinas and Filipinos are now here in Singapore working in retail, restaurants, etc.
Compared to the mainland Chinese they are a breath of fresh air.
The Filipino service staff not only speak excellent English but most of them have a service mindset the mainland Chinese lack.
However, it is important for customers to know how to show appreciation too.
I observed how some Filipino service staff greeting customers who completely ignored them. I was at Holland & Barrett, 313@somerset in the late morning of March 28 when I saw Joy and her colleagues cheerfully greeting Singaporean customers walking into their store. Not one of these retards returned their greetings. Some even stared when Joy and her colleagues greeted them. Do these morons deserve any customer service? Nope, the customer is NOT always right.
This comes in the wake of the disclosure that millions have been spent on improving service and quality standards, yet consumer complaints have skyrocketed in the past decade.
According to CASE (Consumers Association of Singapore), complaints have steadily grown over the years, from 13,995 in 2000 to 21,782 last year – representing a jump of more than 50 per cent.