Customer Service: We Have A Long Way To Go

One of the things that I noticed while my stay in UK was the good customer service. And that is why if there were occasional bad tempered, moody people to attend a customer, they were highly noticeable.

Now here in Pakistan it is the other way round. If customer relations’ people (be it be on shops, in offices or at restaurants) are nice and helpful you suspect if they are out of their minds.

A recent example of bad customer service was at Red Onion, a restaurant, where we (Khala, Sanaa, Fati and me) went to have a pizza snack a few days ago.

When we went, more than half of it was empty. Still we were lead to a seat in a corner at the last of the restaurant. We didn't mind. We just asked them to turn on the fan or the AC as it was hot. To this the manager started a long tale about how only 5 minutes ago a "breaker" had short-circuited and the electricians were working on it, implying that the AC could not be turned on. My Khala pressurized him a bit by raising the voice a few decibels that if the AC could not be turned on, we should be given a place where the fan was working at least. This resulted in a cool breeze from the AC within 5 minutes. {;-) Cruel us!}

Then the manager came again to take the order. We all told him at least thrice that we wanted a "thin" crust. And again when he turned while repeating the order he said "Ok THICK Crust". To that all four of us nearly yelled "THINNNN". This embarrassed him a bit and said, "Ok sorry, thin". {Silly man :-P}

Then we asked for "plain water" and got "mineral water" and we asked for "cold water" but we got "room-temparatured water". We asked for a salad bowl so that we could fill it up in the salad bar "ourselves", and the waiter who brought the bowl was adamant that he will fill it for us. :-P {Good that Khala scolded him a bit. ;-) heheheeee}

Finally the filled salad bowl (filled my Khala and Sanaa) and the pizza came to the table. Thank God both the things were good to eat, otherwise we had a strong urge & tendency to burn down the restaurant at that time. ;-) LOL

And this is just one example of poor customer service. There are many many more. ;-) Will bring them to you shortly.