I was in Japan for a holiday. When I went shopping, I realized that almost all the shop attendants were polite and helpful. My sister wanted to buy a bag but was vacillating among the colours available. The sales attendant was still smiling, waiting patiently and not looking irritated at all. After my sister made a decision, the sales attendant brought her to the counter to make payment. The sales attendant wrapped up the bag nicely and walked out of the counter to pass the merchandise to her personally. I feel that the Japanese treasure good customer service and they are also proud of their jobs. Regardless of the things you are buying, the shop attendants will treat you politely and with respect. However, in Singapore, I observed that it is difficult to find such good customer service. If the same situation occurred in Singapore, the sales attendant would most probably get restless and frustrated with my sister. In Singapore, good customer service may probably only be seen in shops selling branded or expensive goods or when the customer is dressed up to the nines.
To communicate effectively with people from a different country, being able to speak their language is important but it is not the only means of communication. Understanding each other’s cultural norms and values is also essential to ensure effective communication. For example, good customer service may be treasured in Japan but it may not be the same in other countries. If we know that some people do not like us to take so long to decide what item to buy, we should not waste their time and only return to the shop when we have made up our minds. This applies to other types of cultural values too. We should respect other people’s values because we want others to respect ours too.
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3 comments:
I do agree that in Singapore, it is hard to find places with good customer service. I remembered when my friends and I went to a higher end shop in Singapore wanting to look for a present for our friend, the sales assistant simply ignored us when we walked in. Even when we wanted to take a look at their merchandise, it took quite long for us to be attended by a sales assistant.
Perhaps it's Singapore's culture to be 'kiasu', in the case would be wanting to get the best bargain. Being in the service line before, I wouldn't deny that if a customer demands alot and ends up not buying, I will tend to show my displeasure which is wrong. But at the same time, I got such attitude when I'm a customer too.
Effective communication is thus important because we need to know what the customers want and at the end of the day, leave a good impression on them. In the case of foreigners visiting our country, good customer service will thus help promote our reputation and further boost sales in the future.
I am not too sure about overseas, but in Singapore, I do have the impression that sometimes, the level of customer service is also dependent on our dressing.
Personally, I feel that we are judged immediately when we enter a shop based on our dressing and seemingly, the level of customer service seems to be related to this dress code. Perhaps, our dress code communicates with the sales attendant as to whether we would be potential customers and thus the sales attendant will adopt a different attitude?
Yes, I agree with you that Japanese respect their job very much and they always try to do their best for it. There is another story i heard from radio long time ago. The DJ mentioned that there was some part-timers working as tissue distributors at the railway stations. If they were Malaysians or Singaporeans, for example, they might just distribute two or three packets of tissue to one person to end their job faster. However, they did not do that but insist to distribute only one packet to one person even if the person was asking for two. This was because they think they should do their job as requested and should not cheat.
In Singapore, sometimes workers give impression to the customers as they are unprofessional because they just want to get their job done but not focusing on the quality of what they have given. It is utmost common in small shops and especially, as mentioned by joo soon, when we are in casual dress code.
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