An incident that I witnessed not long ago illustrates how service failure can be a combination of an individual's working style and management failure. But this example also shows how customers, by being too accommodating, permit service failure to persist. Thus, our Singaporean culture of not speaking up when something goes wrong, is also part of the reason that things are the way they are. Which is another way of saying: We get the service we deserve.

 
At Pepper Lunch Express

The guy in the white polo shirt stepped up to the self-service Pepper Lunch Express at Raffles City just a second before me and so got to place his order first. He chose the Chicken Pepper Rice. The employee -- a young woman barely past 20 -- then disappeared into the kitchen and didn't come out to take my order until a while later. So, by the time I was placing my order, white polo was receiving his.

Salmon Pepper Rice - picture from Pepper Lunch's website, www.pepperlunch.com.sg

Stall assistant: Sir, your Salmon Pepper Rice.

Guy: Huh? Not mine.

Stall assistant: Yours. You ordered this.

Guy: I did not. I ordered Chicken Pepper Rice.

Stall assistant: You said Salmon.

Guy: I said Chicken.

Stall assistant: Oh, er.... but it's already made.

Guy: But I said Chicken.

Stall assistant: So, then how? Can you take this?

Guy: Er... Okay, lah.

Stall assistant: $6.20 please.

I took a quick look at the menu board as did the guy. The Salmon Pepper Rice was $6.20 all right, but the Chicken Pepper Rice was $5.50.

Me, to white polo: They should give you a discount, a discount on the Chicken price. They should be paying you to overlook their mistake.

Guy took up my suggestion. To the stall assistant: So, got discount or not?

Stall assistant: Cannot. The cash register don't allow.

Guy: Then at least I should only pay the Chicken price.

Stall assistant: But you are taking the Salmon.

Guy: How can like that? (smile)

Stall assistant: This (pointing to the cash register) cannot.

Guy: Aiyah, okay, lah.

Me to myself: What! You wimp! How can you give in so easily?

From a management point of view, this incident is worse than it looks, because the employee succeeded in covering up her mistake. However, some companies will not see it this way. They will see it as a good example of the employee having handled the situation in the company's best interest, persuading the customer to accept the erroneous goods and handing over the full price for it. Such a view, though, is very short-sighted.

In this incident, the transaction records would not indicate anything abnormal, and hence, the management would not even know that something went wrong and that they didn't have a fully satisfied customer.

If a discount was given -- and if the cash register provided no such option, the employee could well have given it discretionally and shown a shortfall in the cash collection -- it would prompt the management to ask the question: What happened that a discount was given? That should set in motion certain corrective measures to avoid a repeat of such a situation.

You might say: But the employee was not empowered to give a discretionary discount. She would get scolded for doing so and for creating a shortfall in the cash collection. If so, that again would reflect a management attitude that is inimical to providing good service, where the priority is accounting, rather than customer satisfaction.

I wouldn't be so quick to say Pepper Lunch Express' management is like that, though the fact that the cash register was not programmed to allow goodwill transactions did suggest that such situations had not been anticipated. It could well have been simply a case of the employee thinking that her response was the ideal way to handle the error. 

In this other incident below, you'll see how, even when employees are empowered to do their jobs, they choose not to.

 
At Carrefour

I was #10 in the queue at a Carrefour market check-out. The overhead sign said "Express Lane. 10 items or less." It was obvious to everybody that #7 in the queue didn't belong there. She had a trolley with easily 30 to 40 items, while everybody else had either a hand basket or simply cradled their two or three items in their arms.

The woman had a teenage daughter with her who, some time later, noticed that they were in the wrong lane. "Mommy, this is the Express Lane," she said, in a voice high-pitched enough that everybody else could overhear.

"It's okay one lah," the mother said, sounding a bit annoyed that her own daughter was drawing others' attention to her. I don't know whether she hadn't known earlier, but now felt she had invested too much time in the queue to abandon it, or she knew from the beginning that it was not right, but wanted a quicker check-out nonetheless.

The surprising thing -- well, this being Singapore, maybe it wasn't such a surprise – was that customer #8 behind her said nothing. Neither did #9. I myself would have except that I was a bit too far away.

Fortunately, the system at Carrefour's Express Lane was that of a common queue served by two check-out cashiers. In time, the woman and her daughter reached one cashier and, naturally, with their trolleyful of purchases, took a long time.

My Carrefour receipt

Customer #8 went to the other cashier and was quickly served. As did #9 and then me. While my five items were being toted up, I told the cashier serving me, in a voice loud enough so that both cashiers could hear me, "Don't you guys enforce the Express Lane policy? What's the use of having a sign if you keep allowing people to flout it?"

"Do I have to write to the management about this?"

At which point, the first cashier quickly told her customer, "Ma'am, this is actually the Express Lane. Next time, could you use the other lanes please?"

Ah ha! The fact that she knew exactly what to say indicated that she had been taught. She had simply chosen to pretend not to see the problem until I spoke up.

It's the same attitude we see all over Singapore. We let the unreasonable and obstinate get away with bad behaviour. Smokers smoke in no-smoking areas. Passengers eat on buses, or push their way in at train doors without allowing others to alight first. Shopowners place stools to "reserve" parking lots in front of their shops for their regular customers, and cinema patrons talk into their cellphones while the show is going on.

And nobody speaks up.

© Yawning Bread