How May I Help Hate You?

sales·per·son noun.
A person employed to sell merchandise (as to customers in a store or to customers that are visited)

cus·tom·er noun.
Someone who pays for goods or services

There's something about the majority of Malaysian salespersons that just irks me to no end.

Forget about the "customer's always right" adage, that's practically non-existent in this lovely country. And "service with a smile" Hah! They may wear the smiley face badges on their shirt but look higher and you'll see a row of gnashing teeth
(....okay - am exaggerating).

But my point is, good service is very rare here. For some peculiar reason, the simple definitions of 'salesperson" and 'customer' elude them. But most salespersons know this definition:

sus·pi·cious adj.
Arousing or apt to arouse suspicion; questionable behaviour giving reason to imagine ill; suspicious behavior.
And they tend to put these words together ------ "suspicious customer".

I'm going on and on about this because of a conversation I had with my friend recently. We recalled an incident that still sticks to our memory despite it happening 5 years ago.

It was a month before Raya and we were out shopping with our other girlfriends. We stepped into a renowned fabric store to look for materials to make our baju raya. There were wall to wall rolls of gorgeous fabric and we went around looking at the ones which caught our fancy.

And then SHE came. A salesperson. A fierce-looking, dour-faced, scowling salesperson. She gave us all a disapproving look and just stood there. No 'Hi' or 'How can I help you' or anything pleasant like that. Just a grim, surly glare.

So we (the nice group of young ladies) decided to break the ice.

"Hi! I like this one. How much is 3 meters of this fabric?"
"I don't know"
"Is this Korean silk?"
"I don't know"
"uhmm... Do you have it in blue?"
"I don't know."
"...maybe in the storeroom...?"
"Here only. Don't have here means don't have."

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( ice unbroken ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

So we gave up and moved on to look for cotton materials. She grimly followed us. Fine. No biggie. But it felt more like 'stalking' than 'following'. Everytime our eyes met hers, she'd give us that grim, disapproving, suspicious look. I mean COME ON! We're not shoplifters. And even if we were, how the hell were we going to smuggle out huge rolls of fabric that are thick and 6 feet long?? Stuff it down our pants? Would look a bit odd, wouldn't it?
Might be a flattering look for young men but still ridiculously impossible.

We couldn't take her glowering presence much longer and proceeded to take our business elsewhere.

Another incident happened to me a few months back. It was at a gift store where I queued up to pay for my goodies. The customer in front of me changed her mind about buying a little teddybear and she left the store with her other purchases, leaving the teddybear on the counter. The salesperson rang up my purchases but mistakenly included the little teddybear.

So I told her that I'm not buying the teddybear, and that it was left there by the lady before me. She stared at me for a second and said "Saya dah punch in." (I've punched it in)
I smiled and said "I'm sorry you did that but I don't want to buy the teddybear."

She thumped the little teddybear on the counter and said "Saya kata, saya dah punch in. Tak boleh buat apa2 dah. Bayar jer lah." (I said, I've punched it in. Can't do anything about it. Just pay up.)

And I look at her squarely in the eye and nicely told her that I'll pay for my purchases but not the stinkin' teddybear.

She sighed a huge sigh and once again thumped the bear on the counter to emphasize her point, "Fine. You taknak teddybear ni. You pergi cari barang lain yang sama harga" (Fine. You don't want this teddybear. Then go find another item of the same price.)

And I stood there completely baffled.

Why the heck should I fork out more money than I intended to in the first place? I wanted to buy greeting cards and wrapping paper. I did NOT want to spend RM75 on a damn teddybear and I'm NOT going to spend RM75 on something else I didn't intend to buy.

So I told her all that (very politely, I swear!) and said that if it's so much trouble for her, I'll just put back my goodies and leave.
And she goes "Tak boleh! Saya dah punch in." (Cannot! I've punched it in)
[You can just imagine what I felt like punching right then]

I asked to see her supervisor. She growled something to her friend (who had just stood there enjoying our little battle) and a young man came to the counter. I explained to him the situation. He poked a few keys on the cash register, it popped open, he rang up my purchases (minus stupid teddybear), took my money and handed me the bag with a smile.

The last thing I saw before I left the store was the young man in a heated discussion with the nutty salesperson, shaking the teddybear in her face.

My point is simple. Customers are your bread & butter. You're nice to them - they'll like doing business with you - they'll come again.
AND they might even tell other people how nice you were and those people will come and do business with you. The cycle is endless and you'll end up having a lucrative business.

Perhaps it's best to provide an incentive to salespeople to be more 'friendly' and 'helpful'. Commissions and other monetary incentives would probably be a workable solution.
At least I THINK it would be a workable solution.

I mean, there ARE salespersons who treat you like crap despite their commission-incentive just because you're not dressed in Armani (and therefore shouldn't be in their oh-so-posh boutique). And those who openly roll their eyes and sigh when you enter the store (because you've 'rudely interrupted' their very important gossip session).And there are salespersons who tell you the price of an item with the most condescending look on their snooty faces

A sullen salesperson or one who makes customers feel uncomfortable is definitely a turn-off. Why should we pay you for your bad service? And nothing's stopping us from telling others about your bad service.
And at the end of the day, no one's the loser but you.