a critic's critique

i suddenly remembered that i had to write about something. a critique on customer service and it's importance. speaking for the millions out there who pays a great deal of scrutiny to the attention given to them, as well as how others treat them when they hold close to their hearts the 5 word mantra: the customer is always right.

others may have various forms of the mantra such as "the customer is your boss" or "i pay and you serve", but at the end of the day, we are all human beings and being critical is our nature.

take one case study: Banquet Food Court at Sengkang. i was queuing up to get 2 packets of fried udon for my friends who were obviously starving from food deprivation. well actually there wasn't much of a queue to be honest. however, what made it seem like a queue was the horribly delayed response from the person behind the counter. the lady, probably sick and tired of her work, rather flipped over the takoyaki balls slowly than attend to an eager customer who was going to provide her with her day's pay. so mistake number one: never let your customers wait for assistance.

okay, so i've already made my order. it was twenty minutes past two on my watch as i stood like sir stamford raffles waiting for the delicious looking udon. five, ten, and eventually fifteen minutes later, the udon was prepared. about time i say! how long could it possibly take to fry 2 packets of udon when i was the only customer? given another 5 minutes and probably i could have at least a medium rare sirloin with garlic mushroom sauce topped with baby carrots, juicy broccoli and whipped potato. i admit i was impatient, and the least i expect of the lady behind the counter was to assist me in taking a look at those udon. that was mistake number two.

somehow i started to think, maybe they needed to make those udon from scratch. and of course i am not that stupid.

and finally, mistake number three, when i was handed the "goods" there wasn't even a simple "sorry for the delay" or "i'm really sorry we had to refine the oil to make good oil to fry your udon sir" or whatever. none at all. simply put it: lack of empathy. apparently flipping takoyaki balls is like digging treasure. maybe there would be a thousand dollar note in one of the takoyaki balls on the hot plate.

and i must say, service was extremely poor.if i were to rate it on a scale of ten (which i am going to do so now), i'd give them 2 out of then. 1 point for the bare minimum standard of attending to customers (like duh) and 1 more point out of compassion.

and you didn't know i could be a critic. in fact, anyone, can be the unknowing critic.