Keeping ’em happy-The lengths that service providers go to, to keep their customers satisfied.

TO what extent will service providers go to please their customers?

In the case of wedding planner Stephen Foong who has been in the business for 30 years, it can entail flying a bride via helicopter from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur just so that she can appear fresh and rested for the wedding dinner.

There is the touching story of Kabab and Quarma, a Northern Indian restaurant in Jalan Yap Kwan Seng in Kuala Lumpur which has since ceased operation. When two customers showed up on the very day that the place was closing down and the kitchen cleared, the owner took the trouble to run to a nearby shop to fulfil his customers’ request for ice-cream and insisted that it be on the house as a thank you gesture for their support.

Service above self: Allen Teh (far right in grey T-shirt) during a teambuilding programme that stresses the importance of communication via activities like war games. Customers don’t care about your problems; they just want service, he says.

Then there is another about a Starbucks employee who sat with a customer after reading her latest status of glum on Facebook.

Ask him what customer service is and Allen Teh of Center for Customer Care (CCC), which conducts training workshops for organisations that aim to achieve maximum business profitability through service excellence, comes in with the science.

Emotional quotient

The root word, according to Teh, 47, who has been coaching others in the art of fulfilling customer expectations since 2003, is emotional quotient (EQ).

“In the service line, EQ is the understanding that attention, respect and the service provider’s time are what customers want at anytime,” he says.

Teh’s advice is a reminder that anyone who has signed up for a career in the hospitality industry will have to put service before self.

One example given by this self-styled service guru who is known for his mystery shopper masquerades is the character of Stevens, a butler, in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains Of The Day. In one chapter, Stevens continues to serve at his employer’s banquet despite the knowledge that his 72-year-old father has just suffered a severe stroke. By the time the banquet ended, Stevens father had passed away.

While there will be very few who can emulate Stevens’ example in real life, Ravie Naidu, 46, who started as a waiter in the hotel industry in 1982 and is now general manager of D’Tandoor that operates a chain of restaurants in Malaysia, is one example who comes close. He remembers his posting as the night manager in Puteri Pan Pacific in Johor Baru during the 1990s.

“At that time, my shift was from 11pm to 7am. Imagine! I had just got married and when I got back from work, my wife would have already left for work. When I was about to go to work, she would be sleeping. It lasted a year before I decided that there had to be some work and life balance as I was starting a family,” says Ravie, now a father of three.

It’s not about you: Ravie Naidu of D’Tandoor says service providers who don’t believe they should give in to the customers are in the wrong line of work.

Long hours, says Ravie, is something that those in the hospitality industry will have to endure and he truthfully admits that without the support of his wife, Para, 42, he would have kissed his career goodbye a long time ago.

Without question, for a job that extensively exposes one to the human element, there are days when one will have to handle the drama and idiosyncrasies that come with it. In a field where brickbats are more abundant than bouquets and rants more than raves, there are times when things can go very wrong and the service provider gets an earful even when he is not to be blamed.

Foong, 53, remembers one wedding when the mother-in-law had a stroke and fainted at the main table. Foong had to quietly engineer the transfer of the poor woman to hospital via the hotel’s back door so as not to upset the wedding guests.

In a separate incident, a power cut caused a ballroom of wedding guests to dine in candle light but due to the heat, the guests left before the ceremony got into full swing and the wedding ended in disaster.

Ravie recalls one incident when he found what looked like a bomb next to the ballroom of a hotel that he was then working for. After evacuating the hotel and calling in the bomb squad, he found out that the device was a dud and someone had played a hoax.

Summing it up, Foong, who does not hide the fact that his cholesterol levels have gone haywire due to the stresses of his job, says that at such times, there is nothing to do but be patient in which case, Ravie agrees that it is one virtue which a service staff must have in limitless abundance.

Difficult customers

The keyword here, according to Teh, is “emotion management”. In stressing the EQ point, Teh says the customer service staff should remember that they are like actors and actresses and their job is to please their audience which is the customer, no matter how they feel at that time.

Having a giving nature that is completely free of egoistic tendencies also goes a long way as service providers must realise that customers will have the tendency to be selfish.

“They don’t care what kind of problems you have. They just want to get the kind of treatment and service they have paid for ... that’s it,” states Teh frankly.

As for giving the fussy customer the boot, Ravie simply has this to say: “A waiter who is going to ignore a fussy diner will inadvertently lose him to the competitor.”

A smile to go: Starbucks marcom director Sydney Quays says the job requires cheerful types who are friendly with customers.

This is not to say that service providers are “yes men”, because there are times when the customer cannot be king.

Car racing champion Admi Sharul, 39, who is also a safety driving instructor admits that though politeness and tact is a de rigueur standard in his courses, he once had to order a driver out of a car after he repeatedly ignored safety instructions.

“I was not afraid of the repercussions because he was driving recklessly,” says Admi.

For this father of two, recklessness, even within the confines of the Sepang race track, is not a matter to be taken lightly, having survived a car crash in 1994 in which he suffered neck injuries as a passenger.

Another interesting observation in Teluk Batik, Perak, also reveals that not all customers can be placated by niceties. In a tense showdown between a banana boat operator and an irate customer, one of the operators’ team mates, in recognising the starting signs of a heated argument that was on the verge of becoming physical, promptly “attacked” his own colleague and shouted at his own man for being a trouble maker. The “attacker” then swiftly removed banana, boat and his entire team out of sight, putting a full stop to further trouble, an example of reverse psychology at work.

Later, when the situation had quietened down, the banana boat operator revealed that if the argument had gone on, it would be disastrous as he has suspicions that the customer had ulterior motives.

“If the customer had laid hands on me, the other beach boys would have gotten involved and that would be bad for business. Yeah, I’m a bit sore that I have lost revenue for the day but it’s better for all concerned,” says the operator who spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the end of the day, says Foong, it is crucial to preserve dignity. In his case, he had no choice but to call off a wedding just 10 minutes before the registration ceremony after the groom confessed to him that he was married before.

“I just couldn’t let the marriage go on until I was sure that the groom had the all-clear from the proper authorities. This is my reputation we are talking about because if anything happens in the future, I would be called up!” says Foong.

Right response

Teh does not think that mindsets will change. “Customers are more concerned about their bill of rights and not their code of conduct. In the end, we can’t change the customers. Service providers will just have to change the way they behave and react in response to different types of customers,” he says.

Of course, everyone is well aware that customers are equated to sales and in today’s competitive scene, keeping a customer happy is still top priority.

This is why Ravie stresses on the importance of intelligence and the innate nature to please on the service provider’s part. Those who harbour thoughts that they should not have to give in to the customer are obviously in the wrong line of work.

“Ultimately, what will make a customer return is the comfort he gets from a service provider. Another thing that can take a service provider very far is when your take the effort to surprise and delight the customer. A complimentary drink or a platter of fruits are gestures which will make him feel valued,” says Ravie.

“What we also want is a smart service provider who can read a customer’s mind. Let’s say if you notice that a customer has been looking at the menu for a long time, then you know it’s time to make suggestions. What we are also looking into is a manager who is able to lay down a standard operational procedure to ensure that there is communication between the kitchen and the service team. This rids the problem of waiters who do not know what an establishment has or does not have on the menu which can irritate the customer to no end.”

That is why, according to Sydney Quays, 41, director of marketing communication at Starbucks, it is important to choose the right people for the job – cheerful types who will not hesitate to greet every customer as soon as they walk in and who are not shy to engage in small talk.

In addition to personality, Quays also reveals that training is another essential aspect to maintaining service standards and all 1,500 employees working in this coffee chain have to go through weekly training sessions in product knowledge and service procedures. Classes are limited to no more than 14 people per session and are conducted in the U-shape formation for better attentiveness.

The subject of training service providers on the art of treating customers right has evidently become serious business as more organisations recognise its importance.

Telco giant Maxis, for example, has a two-floor, 1,500sqm, RM5.5mil learning facility in Plaza Sentral in Kuala Lumpur. In 2008, the Maxis Academy clocked a total of 187,000 training hours and close to RM10.5mil in training costs (excluding running costs).

Even Teh’s outfit, which includes war games and drumming circles into its training programmes to encourage better team rapport, is not doing too badly having recorded a revenue of RM200,000 in the last nine months from his corporate clients.

“In whatever field, there is always an element of customer service. When you look at it as a whole, each and every one of us is deemed as service providers. This is because, no matter what line one is in, we will inadvertently deal with customers albeit they are termed differently. A famous movie star, for example, will have her fans. A ruler will have his subjects. Employees will have their employers,” says Teh.

So ultimately, everyone will inadvertently have someone to please and this is where the importance of understanding the needs of a customer will work to the benefit of all, concludes Teh.

Published in The Star, Star Two, May 17 2010