Hi,
The service level in our city, Hong Kong is deteriorating! Can you believe it?
4 incidents in a week:
1. I visited a CD and Video shop a few days ago. I chose 2 DVDs. A shop staff approached me. I thought that she was trying to help me. But she just asked me to handle her DVDs with care or the plastic package will be broken.
2. I dined at an Italian Restaurant the day before yesterday. The receptionist was so rude that I thought I were back to the 60's. When my soup came, I still had not been given any spoon and forks. When my main course arrived, I even did not had my water served.
3. Yesterday, I had my dinner in a famous Chinese Restaurant. It is a chain-restaurants and I hoped a better service could be expected. But what I found was a cockroach in one of my dishes. I told the waiter and he just said that he would check with the kitchen. No appology! I asked him why he did not appologized for the coackroach. His answer was unbelievable. He told me that it was not his fault. He would check with the kitchen afterwards.
He came back a minute later. He said that the kitchen told him that it was not their problem. The cockroach might get into the dish after it was delivered to our table!
4. I must be having a bad week. I dined at a Japanese Restaurant tonight. After I had almost finished my dinner, I found that there was still one dish missing. I called for help from a waitress. She returned and said that the dish was already recorded in the computer and asked me to wait.
10 minutes later, I requested help from another waiter. He checked and told me the same story. Then, another 10 minutes later, I asked another waitress to check. I requested her to check it seriously as I had already been disappointed by two of her colleagues. She came back and explained to me that the dish was recorded in the computer but there was no such order in the kitchen. She told me that I could cancel the order. Interestingly, there was no appology!
What happened to our city?
Our government can only give us 2 directions for our economy for the future. One is Logistics and another one is Tourism.
Our infra-structures are too expensive for the logistics industry to grow. The only hope seems to be our tourist industry. Can we survive from our competitors in the region with such kind of service level? I am really doubt.
Customer service is something very interesting. Everybody understands it when they are on the receiving side, but not the case when someone is on the giving side.
I had been in the service industry for more than 16 years before I become a coach and trainer. I understand a sercret of great service. If you are also in the service industry (Who is not?! everyone is serving someone else!), you should understand it too.
I will talk about it later.
Keith
