Case Study 2: From The Torture Chamber To The Spa -

Costs and Opportunities in the World of Customer Service.
I went into a well-known shopping department store in Singapore to buy my wife a birthday present. There was not a soul in sight to help me even find the ladies wear department, let alone be of any actual assistance. It was lunch-time during the week and I was desperate! a) I had a meeting in 30 minutes that was going to last all afternoon, and even worse, b) it was my wife’s birthday today and I was meeting her for dinner immediately after work. I simply had no other choice than to get something for her now.

I spotted the Information desk and gratefully loped towards it, only to be met by the vacant, distant eyes of a lobotomized individual who grunted at me. Incapable of coping with what I knew lay ahead if I actually tried to commence a request for help here, I turned and bolted for the escalator, hoping that the department that I needed would appear by divine intervention.

Which, to my utter astonishment and relief, it did! Thanking the almighty, I strode to the counter and waited an interminable amount of time until the lady at the service counter finished doing something irrelevant with some old tissue wrapping paper that ended up all over the floor and under her feet. I recomposed myself and smiled, telling the lady about my situation in a self-deprecating way, expecting that she would laugh and wink knowingly about what a typical “bloke” I was, and then lead me by the arm to the perfect gift that I would just buy and then all my problems would be solved.

But no, this was not to be! She had clearly been let out at the same school for etiquette that her Neanderthal colleague had graduated with flying colours from. Looking slightly frightened and bewildered she pointed somewhere else in the store and released a flurry of abbreviated and randomly connected words that sounded something like someone coughing up a bone in their fish head soup.

That's it! I am out of here! I cannot stand it for one secong longer! Get me out!!! I fled down the escalator swearing loudly and sweating profusely. I vowed never to ever set foot in this place again, which I haven’t in the ten years since that diabolical event. In desperation I dived into the shop next door (a direct competitor) and could not have had a more different experience. It was akin to escaping the torture chamber and miraculously ending up in the spa. I spent nearly $400 instead of the original 200 or so that I had kind of thought about at the beginning of this quest Because the lady there asked me questions and showed an interest in me. She asked me about my wife, how old and tall she was, what her favorite things are and what color her hair and eyes were. She gave me a range of options and then suggested some complementary accessories that worked beautifully with the gift. She was wonderful, and I just wanted to buy the whole shop from her!