Career Worth Living For!
It is closed
Staying at a mainland hotel can be quite interesting. Here are two episodes I experienced recently:
1. Coffee Cup
After lunch at the hotel’s (rather empty) western restaurant, I ordered a coffee. It was served in 5 minutes but the coffee cup was stained (as in not cleaned properly) along the rim of the cup as well as the sides.
So, I signalled the waitress and informed her of the situation and asked for the cup to be replaced.
Another 5 minutes later, the waitress came back to me with what I thought was a replaced cup of coffee. Much to my amazement, the cup was still stained and didn’t look like anything was changed.
Puzzled, I looked at the cup for a moment and then, thought to myself, “Hmm.. which part of my description of the problem and which part of my request that they change the cup did they not understand?”
So, in order that I can get to drink my coffee sooner, I brought the cup with its content to the restaurant drinks counter where they prepared the coffee. I pointed out, in Putonghua and I am native to Putoghua, that I would like the cup changed as it was dirty.
The response I received was this:
The waiter went to the stack of cups on the shelf, looked at every cup there, and mumbled to himself, “They are all like that…”
An onlooking waitress suggested to him, “Why don’t get the cup from the sanitising machine?”
The waiter did so, poured my coffee into the “clean” cup and placed it in front of me.
I looked at the cup. And I think the cup looked at me. It is still as dirty as before. I returned to my table, took out a piece of tissue paper and wiped off the stain myself.
It took more than 20 minutes to have this little problem resolved. I should have just cleaned the cup myself in the first place.
2. Fitness Centre
I had some time after work one day and had wanted to go to the hotel fitness centre to get some exercise. I changed into my exercise gear, put on my shoes, grabbed my towel and headed for where the fitness centre was supposedly located (as indicated in the hotel directory and keycard envelope).
When I got there, I found myself in a billiard room filled with people and shrouded in smoke. I didn’t see anyone exercising except for some who were “exercising” their arms with the billiard cue. I asked around and no one knew where the fitness centre was located.
So, I strutted to the hotel front office reception and asked for directions. The receptionist gave me the directions and I promptly thanked her for her help and off I went to get myself an exercise.
When I arrived where the fitness centre was supposed to be, it was locked and it complete darkness. I thought it strange because the hotel directory stated that it closed only at 11pm and the time then was only 9pm.
So, I walked back to the hotel reception, walked up to the same receptionist who gave me the directions, and asked if someone could open up the fitness centre as I would like to use it.
She replied, “Oh, it is already closed for the day. It is not operated by the hotel but it is outsourced to a private company to run.”
At that moment, many thoughts raced through my mind, many of which are not flattering.
Why did she not tell me in the first instance that the fitness centre was already closed? Why did she have to direct me to the centre just so that I will find it closed and then waste the time coming back to her just for her to tell me that it is closed?? I doubt I will find satisfactory answers to these questions anytime soon.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Ethan Pang on April 15, 2009 at 11:19 pm, and is filed under Blog. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
From the two incidents you have shared, it is obvious that the services provided by the employees are poor and way below wha we understand as international standard.
It similar as the service industry I have tried in China before. It seems that many people have not the heart and attitude to serve but one to earn a living. Such attitude will take time to change and needs much training and education in order to improve. It is really unpleasant not to have one’s simple requests, like having a nice and clean cup of coffee, fulfilled in a hotel one is staying and hoping to have a good time in.
But then, China is still developing as a world power. If given training, times and guidance, it will surely be able to provide world class services in the tertiary industry. After all, all the other so-called developed countries all had to go through this route. The spectacular Beijing Olympics is the solid proof of China’s capabilities.
I wonder if it will be useful to the upgrading of hotels in China if they send representatives to hotels around the world to observe their operation. The fact that the receptionist failed to mention the gym is already closed beforehand is a lack of alertness to the needs of customers.
about 1 year ago
Quite funny, esp. the experience you had in the hotel’s restaurant.
Poor quality of service does not only occur in China, we can experience the similar cases in everywhere. Because there are so many factors affecting the service quality, e.g. personality, attitude, value, education level & training opportunity.
Here is my “wonderful and memorably” experience in HK. A week before, I went to a salon which is recommended by my sister to have my hair cut (shampoo, cut and blow-dry). There were only 3 hair stylists in the salon, and 4 customers in the process of perm / ion straight / treatment.
I waited for 1 hour to have my hair cut. However, the stylist first question was asking me “Can I not wash your hair before cut?”, I had a feeling of unsatisfactory instantly (but haven’t expressed to him). As my hair is long and curled, I doubted that he can cut my hair nice without wash it. He responded that he is good enough to do so and I let him to continue.
15 second later, I realized that I went to a wrong salon! The stylist cut my hair within 10 minutes in an unprofessional way, which shows that he is quite fresh to his job – no hair cut skills at all. After that, I was still treated poorly … wait for 30 minutes to have my hair wash and another 20 minutes to blow-dry and gel.
The worse thing came in an hour later. I left the salon and I was shopping in a mall, my sister found that there was some white foam on my hair ~ it was the hair gel ~ that’s awful!
I think that this terrible salon service is due to immature skills of the unprofessional hair stylist. I will not go to that salon to have my hair cut again and I think the owner/senior hair stylists have the responsibility to train and manage their junior staff. However, I saw that stylist seems quite nice to other customers and he was also responsible to perm / ion straight hair … maybe his skills is not as bad as I think, just he got his strengths on other aspects. >~<
I always believe that no one is perfect (or have whole-person development).
about 1 year ago
No matter how fast the buildings are piling up and how much income of people is increasing, if Chinese don’t pay attention to the soft side, for instance, the services, Chinese economy would be still far away from the western
about 1 year ago
Yup, no matter how good the hardware is, if the software is not great, then the result is mediocre.
This is not just a phenomenon in China. I experience people with such mindsets in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore as well. It is just that they surface in other ways.
about 1 year ago
Just read in the papers today that two men in Hong Kong had actually argued and threatened each other over a seat in the MTR.
Now, how civilised and cultured is that?
It is also interesting to note that most people on the MTR will not bother to give up their seats for people more in need of a seat – like children, old people, pregnant ladies.