September 10, 2005
Service culture?
I have a new routine! Every Saturday I go to Tekka Market to buy vegetables for the whole week. Giuliano told me about "Victor's stall", "the only stall with music" in the market run by a funny & friendly "ah beng"-like guy. I went there few weeks ago and immediately became a devoted/faithful/loyal/weekly customer. Its not only vegetables that are fresher at his stall, not even the music that they play.. I think it is much more about service that you get there. These people are extremely friendly and although they're super busy, they notice you looking puzzled and ask if they could help. They seem to know their customers names, are very efficient and you always feel taken-care-of. And all this without making you feel watched, pushed or intimidated. This is an art and sensibility that only few people in the service industry really have...
Service culture is something that is discussed very much in the local media right now. Leijonakaupunki realized that they need to improve on the service culture in order to become a world-class city, a prime tourist destination with the x-factor. I personally don't mind "silent treatment" in shops, or coffeeshop staff asking "what you want?" - we had something like that in Finland, but what really gets on my nerves are sales girls that follow after you frantically folding clothes that you just touched & trying to lead you away from the stuff that you're interested constantly offering smth on the other side of the shop.
Last weekend we had an interesting encounter at one supermarket. The cashier looked at our shopping cart and said: "cheese, ah?". "yes,cheese" we mumbled. "only two items, ah?", "yes", we wondered if she's disappointed. She started keying in the prices & muttering "goat cheese with ash.. ash.. ash.." glancing at us occassionally.. "Hmm.." we thought.. Then she cheerfully handed us the change and when I turned back to look at her, she seemed to be still seeking eye contact with us.. "How weird" I thought... And then it downed on me that it must be an attempt to improve service standards and that there were instructions given to her by the managers - to try to engage customers into conversation.. This encounter was really surrreal..
One thing that still surprises me is lack of bureaucracy in here. Everything is implemented straight from government/ministers' mouth to reality. The national day rally delivered by PM was only few weeks ago and this was when the need to improve service culture was officially mentioned for the first time. Right now media is buzzing about it and I'm sure sales staff are already trained how to serve properly all around the country. The efficiency is especially visible, whenever you have to encounter official bodies, such as Ministry of Manpower (these kind of places are notoriously slow everywhere else). For example, Kaj just transfered his employment pass to the new passport. It took him one visit and some half an hour to get it done. Imagine doing something similar in Finland... :( This immediate efficiency of Leijonakaupunki is smth really "potentially missable" in the future...
Coming back to the service culture in Leijonakaupunki - looking for the reasons, why the standards are so low, some people pointed out that nice customers get good service, but nasty people get back what they deserved.. :) So lets sit back and wait for the call to improve customers' behaviour and customers' culture.. he he...
Posted by gkligyte at September 10, 2005 11:50 AM