Customer Service

P.S. I wrote this post 3 days ago at that same beach, and due to their HORRIBLE (and not even free) internet service I couldn't connect at all using my laptop.. I was pissed so it might be long :) Enjoy (?)

Customer service is a an art long forgotten in the land of Saudi Arabia..

For some reason, people in this country do NOT understand the concept behind customer service..

They think customer service is how nice you are to your customer who also happens to be your relative, friend, or billionaire/hotshot/celebrity

In other words; “mojamala”

It’s that you treat the customer nicely IRRELEVANT to whether he’s a relative, friend, or billionaire/hotshot/celebrity. Even if he’s a poor person whom you don’t know, you treat him nicely.

It’s not about ethics, or being nice, or any of that stuff; it’s pure business

For some reason, people tend to look to who or what their customer is at that specific moment, and how successful they are at that specific time. Like there’s no tomorrow. Literally. They will not improve their services, seek out more customer satisfaction, or care about word of mouth if their business is doing good right now. They tend to forget that there’s a tomorrow. A tomorrow when a better company (which avoided the first one’s pitfalls) will arise or a dissatisfied customer will stop referring people to them. That tomorrow is a little too late.

Why am I talking about business? Here’s what happened (one of a million stories that happen to me; I don’t know if I tend to look out for myself too much (or nag :P ) or I’m just plain unlucky):

At this beach we’re renting out, there’s a “gym”; a dungeon-like place underground. Since exercising is a very important part of my life, it’s something i take seriously. I’m not complaining about the few essentials that are missing (Free dumbbells for example) or the carpet that lines the floor (no comment) or even the fact that the stationary bicycles don’t have the little foot straps (coz according to the guy; that’s a new model (!!)). I’m complaining about the HEAT. Have you ever been to a gym that’s HOT? How about that? Isn’t that just a bit too excessive? A couple of months ago, I was exercising hard (coz of the deal), so obviously, when you exercise hard, your body heats up. It was so hot to the extent that I had to dunk my entire head under an open faucet of freezing water, twice. When I complained about it that to the trainer, he started giving lame excuses; he stopped after I told him that this is my routine exercise and that I’m not a gym-virgin. I’ve been going to gyms for ages now. When I asked him what the temperature was he said 22. twenty-two?? R u serious?? I SLEEP in 18.. I live in 22!! Their excuse was that this is the optimum gym temperature and that I am just exaggerating!! Being a person who wouldn’t let something like that go, I asked around; the optimum temperature for a gym is around 20, and even lower when it’s underground. When I told them that they said they’ll look into it.
Today I went to then gym again, and this time it was HOT and stuffy. Even before I started exercising. I couldn’t WALK for more than 12 minutes. I could barely do a few situps and pushups coz of how hot it was. And I talked to them again, and even though they were nice and tried to explain their position, they said that it was the normal gym temperature before but “members” were complaining that it was too cold (how could it be too cold when you’re actually working out, it’s beyond me!). obviously neither the employess nor the members have heard of a simple invention called “jackets”. You know, the solution to being cold. The problem is, no one had a LOGICAL answer for me. The second I ask them what SHOULD I do, they start talking about how other members want blablabla. You see, they were nice, but not very logical. I asked to speak to the manager, whom I hoped had a little bit more common sense. Was i wrong. He was a rude, arrogant and bad-mannered. (the 3 pillars of good customer service). When I told him that I was upset, he got agitated and said “why are you upset on my employees? you have no right to do that to my employees” (I think he doesn’t know the difference between upset and angry; no one forced him to speak a language he doesn’t understand, we both speak Arabic, but this is an attitude called “yitlabbash” or t2abba6a sharran تأبط شرا as my mom calls it). Then, he raised his voice saying that he doesn’t want to discuss this in public and that we should either go to the gym or to his office. I looked at him and said “you could’ve said that earlier if u wanted”. He said “ok then go to my office” with this raised tone that I found utterly inappropriate, so I told him that I don’t accept such a tone and behavior, and left him standing with his “employees”.

Now he lost a customer over something as DUMB as this, and he put himself in a horrible position. If the manager of a place treats you this way, then you pretty much know that it’s going down the drain. No improvement, no good word of mouth.

P.S. I think the reason he was acting like that was coz he thought I was a dumb 16 year old whom he could treat this way. Was he mistaken. Had he known the truth, he wouldn’t have dared to do so to a “smart 20-something year old”. Especially if she’s daddy’s little girl :P