Customer Care, I Just Don't Care!

I was telling a colleague that perhaps it's Asian culture that we aren't "ranters". We aren't straightforward and we never really say what we mean. We are such "yes" people and we usually end up just mumbling and keeping complaints to ourselves. It's quite rare that you would find somebody making a scene at a restaurant or a shop. Hmmm... that's probably why blogs have the power to make or break a product/service.

I've experienced quite a number of bad customer service. And I've just had more than enough of it. So allow me to blog about it a bit. I won't be naming the companies because I am not out to "break" them, I hope they or similar companies would just take a hint.

• This company is a well-known courier worldwide whose local HQ is somewhere along Pasong Tamo. I had quite a lot to say when I complained about their service. And I got a very arrogant reply, "We're the best here, maghanap kayo ng ibang mas magaling sa amin." (find someone who's better than us).
  

• This resto is named after a day in a week. I think they cannot keep up with the demand when they are full. My friend had to wait about 20 minutes just to get his extra rice. We also had to wait more than 15 minutes just to get our beverages served.

I've been seriously canvassing the past few days for a laptop and this is what I could say about the bad service I've been getting:

• This PC shop is known for express service. They'll tell you they can build up your PC in 2 hours, 2 hours to the second power and they'll show you how annoyed they are when you follow-up with them. Yeah, express indeed, I had to have my PC revived 4 times in less than a year. I met the owner of this chain of stores and realized that the saying, "The root becomes the fruit" is very true indeed. After buying 1 PC from them and spending again just to keep it up and running, I won't consider buying from them ever again.
  

• I was very much disappointed in the leading competitor of the PC shop mentioned above. I couldn't understand why the salesperson seemed hesitant to bring out the laptop from the shelf. Maybe he thought I couldn't afford to buy one because I was just wearing a white Bohol t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. What made it worse, one of their staff kept bumping into me without even saying sorry. I know your shop is just like an eskinita in Park Square, but hey you can always say excuse me if you need to pass. Disappointed, I headed over to Octagon (right in front of you) and got much better service and attention. Electroworld, which is beside you, gives much better service as well. Sayang, mabait pa naman your owners.
  

• Another PC shop which I think needs to improve their customer service is a shop named after the seat of technology in California. It may not be an actual city, but it's where Mountain View is located and where a lot of new technologies were born. I wanted to check out a Compaq laptop in that shop and the salesman told me, "Naka-lock po eh." Isn't that why you have keys to open it? I'm not going to ran out of you shop with it. Hay nako.

Yes, it's really annoying. In the US you get automatically greeted by shop attendants when you enter a store, any kind of store. Sometimes it could get quite disconcerting, but eventually you get the hang of it and you just happily greet them back. Everybody there asks, "How are you today?" - even in the cafeteria pila.

Oh well, the quest for the best laptop continues. Have you ever experienced such atrocities? Forgive me for ranting :p