Customer Service in Singapore

I recently quitted my temporary job as a customer service officer at one of the children-centred shopping mall in Singapore. Though I worked for a brief period of 3 weeks, I have noticed a certain trend among shoppers here.

Firstly, there are more locals than foreigners interested in free gift/lucky draw coupons redemptions.

Secondly, there are the different attitudes displayed by customers coming forward to make redemptions. It is this second point that gives me the greatest source of amusement and head-shaking.

I did my own personal survey of customers making redemptions over the counter. I am apologetic to say that I observed that Chinese customers ( I am a Singaporean Chinese) tend to be most demanding, cheapskate, rudest and disobedient lot. Why? Because they always force or persuade customer service officers to bend the shopping malls's terms and conditions and policies to maximse their gift redemption gains!!! Whereas the non-Chinese customers accept and understand the T&C's totally-ie there is no bargaining or favoritism to be shown to customers who do not meet the terms for free gift redemptions!

Moreover, Chinese customers also luv to resort to threats such as 'I will complain to your manager if you don't give me what I want' . As if CSOs will be sincerely frightened by their unreasonable behaviour for truth do themselves at the end of the day.Non-Chinese and foreign customers are usually more understanding and friendly. They won't threaten to complain unless they feel they were sincerely mistreated by the customer service officers. And not because they are not able to get free gifts when they do not meet the redemption requirements in the first place.

I have so many stories of rude and unreasonable customers that I will only list a few. But now I do understand why it is hard to improve service standards in Singapore. Because it takes 2 hands to clap. Besides having excellent customer service staff we do to a certain extent, need more well-mannered and understanding customers!