hmm

u noe i was just thinking, sometimes singapore can be so absurd.

lets talk abt service, the most trivial parts of it, since the biggest problems always arise from small things, from MY point of view

if u go to the supermarkets in singapore often, u will realise that promoters of various foodstuffs in the supermarket are unwilling to offer their products to children. normally, when these promoters see children, they will ignore them. very very seldom will they actually offer these children food samples. and i applaud these small handful who offer food samples to children.

when my friends and i go to supermarkets and walk past these promoters, they'll mostly pretend we werent there, even when we ask abt the food they are promoting, they will just dismiss our queries or answer briefly in a totally slipshod way. but its like, when i go with an adult, ah then things are reallie different. the promoters will coo away in ur face, urging u to try their food samples and to buy their products. this reallie pisses me off. okay, maybe u ppl out there might wonder to urself what this crazy girl is ranting about, but the biggest problems reallie arise from the smallest things. small things, like this. ppl always think that children are poor and...generally penniless, as compared to adults. well yes, i cannot blame them for thinking that way. after all, most of the time, we dun look like we are buying anything. but does that mean we arent entitled to the same treatment that adults get?some adults also walk around without buying anything u noe. and seriously. how do u noe tht we arent rich enough to buy the stuff u are promoting? do u have to force us to take out wads of dollar bills and wave them in ur face like a fan before u are willing to extend the same treatment as adults to us? when that time comes, i wun even bother to look at u crawling back to beg me to buy ur food. humph. and just smth to think abt, what makes u think our parents are not with us? my mum always sends me to walk alone around the supermart to do market survey for her. and i believe she isn the only parent, no?

*u noe, on a sidenote, maybe all parents should send their children out on "market surverys". not for the food, but to actually test the quality of service from these promoters. would be fun, dun u think?

another thing, service should begin at home. If u observe carefully, most of the time, foreigners(in this case, it means tourists) are treated much much better than Singaporeans(general term for ppl who live in singapore. PRs foreigners and singaporeans). As in, besides the fact that foreigners get all the smiles and Singaporeans dun, ppl are also generally more polite and courteous towards foreigners and not Singaporeans. Yes, I noe and I understand why Singaporeans are always treated fairly worse than foreigners. But still, isn’t the government always harping on providing good service to consumers? Aren’t we consumers too? Good service is impt for the growth of the economy of a country. I agree that foreigners play a part in contributing to our economy, but isn’t it true to say that we, the ppl who live in this country contribute much more to the economy? After all, we are here all year round.

U noe the GEMS(it stands for Go the Extra Mile for Service, in case u didn noe) campaign set up in Singapore? Well I definitely hope that kinda treatment extends to us countrymen! I seriously feel that service providers should extend equal treatment to ALL consumers, regardless of whether u are rich, poor, tourist or not. After all, tourists can SEE. Though they will no doubt be superb-ly flattered by the first class treatment they get, they will nonetheless be critical when they see the difference in treatment between tourists and non-tourists. What will they say then?

Besides, how do U noe whether a tourist is a tourist or not? Some tourists may LOOK and SPEAK like Singaporeans, so unless they whip out their identity card or in this case, passports, u wouldn noe, would u? so lets say u meet a tourist like that and make the mistake in thinking he is Singaporean, when he is not. And u extend the cool, indifferent, or maybe even hostile kind of treatment towards serving him. What kind of impression will U, as a service provider leave on him? Or even worse, what kind of impression will Singapore leave on him? U wouldn want to make that mistake, would u? man, wouldn that spell doom for u! worse still…if he is a columnist in a newspaper, or a critic. What would he write? I wouldn want to imagine. SO, to prevent this kind of mistakes from happening, (or happening again, for ppl who might have made the mistake once already) GIVE EVERY SINGLE COMSUMER THE BEST SERVICE THAT U POSSIBLY CAN.

And my, when that day comes, there will only be choruses of praises in the air, and no one will ever criticize service in Singapore again.

Blogged @ 7:37 PM