Sincere service

Is our Filipino service rather slow or am I just always in a hurry?

I once talked to a South Korean national who visited the Philippines last year and she asked herself the same question. She gave a helpful explanation though. She mentioned that with warm weather, one's muscles tend to be relaxed and that could explain why a warm-weathered populace tends to move slower and tire more easily. But more than just the weather, perhaps it's our Cebuano islander mentality. Islanders are known to move at a calmer pace than mainlanders.

Yet, no matter how I try to justify it, I still believe that good service is of primary importance to any establishment. I cannot justify to myself why a sales personnel in an (air-conditioned) department store or a teller at a bank has the right to be slow and grumpy. If they are having a bad day, they shouldn't bring a foul, lazy mood to the workplace and rub off all the negative energy to their customers.

I once went to a department store of a major mall here in Cebu City and I went to the dressing room. After deciding my chosen two pairs of jeans didn't fit me, I went out and placed the pairs on a pile of other pairs of jeans. To my surprise, an elder saleslady looked at me, asked me to avoid crumpling the jeans and to return them myself. I was surprised. Excuse my princess mentality, but I wanted to retort that if I had to fold the jeans myself, then what was her job as a saleslady? To simply stand on her two legs till closing time? Countless times have I encountered sales personnel at grocery marts and bookstores who tell me "out of stock", but then I seethe in irritation when I scour the items for myself and find the supposedly out-of-stock item. Telephone service may be difficult as well, especially when my call is referred to several other people (at a pace so slow that I wonder if their office must be so huge) before my questions are answered. Many restaurants provide good service, but the serving time of the food can feel like ages.

Lest I sound bratty by now, I'd like to commend the excellent service crew at certain Shell gasoline stations, where the crew's energy is so positive, you feel like getting a full tank at every visit! With their upbeat "good afternoon" and active hand gestures, they know how to project genuine care for the customer. At the Jollibee located along P. Del Rosario St., their service is quick and cheerful. Even when you suddenly change your order (an irritation to many cashiers), they maintain their cheery smile and quickly swap your order without breaking a sweat. I'd feel like ordering another burger in a heartbeat. In clothes boutiques where the sales ladies are helpful in choosing good colors and cuts, I can affirm my choices and make purchases that I feel are perfect.

It's a customer service maxim that "the customer is always right". Customer service can make or break an establishment. In our lovely city and in a time where we are aggressively developing our tourism sector, shouldn't world-class service be a major part of the criteria? In our age of modernization and globalization, must we stick to our snail-paced kind of service? Or shouldn't we up the ante and quicken the pace to respect other people's time? That should go not only for foreign tourists but consistently for locals as well.

If an establishment has a rude customer, then that's only one customer lost. But if the establishment has a rude sales person, then many customers are lost. Business establishments and their personnel should recognize that they should strive to please the customer, who is the source of their fortune.

"To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity." - Douglas Adams

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