“How often do
you have to deal with unreasonable customer like this?” A friend of ours asked,
after witnessing an episode while collecting his cake at the shop last weekend.
A customer had insisted that she be allowed to cut the queue of 5 people ahead of
her because she was late in picking up her child. Despite being reassured that
we would try to move the line as quickly as possible, she still made a huge
fuss (true story, verifiable if needed).
To be fair,
such customer is still the exception rather than norm. For this, we feel extremely
lucky and blessed. However, we also realized that there have been increasingly more
of such unpleasant situation during the course of this Covid-19 pandemic. Due
to stricter social distancing rule, we can only allow one set of maximum 2
customers inside the shop at any one time. The rest will have to wait for their
turns outside the shop. While we appreciate the rationale of such rule and the importance
to abide by it, this does result in the waiting time for each customer,
especially during peak periods, to increase disproportionally compared to
pre-Covid. While most of our customers are understanding towards our circumstance,
we do get some who complained about having to queue in the heat. But the
consequence of flouting the social distancing rules is severe. And the last
thing we want is to get shut down by the relevant authorities because of this.
Another source
of unhappiness stems from our refusal to bring the cake out to customers on the
curbside. The reasons for requiring such range from “I cannot find parking” to “It
is raining”. And when told that we do not bring cakes out, we are deemed
customer unfriendly and even got the phone slammed on. While we strive to
provide the best service possible, we have to draw the line on what we
can/cannot do for our customers. When customers say that parking is
unavailable, this typically mean that there are no lots along the stretch of
road outside our shop. But there are parking alternatives with ample lots that are
a short walk away (e.g. behind our shop, UE Square, Robertson Quay etc.).
When told about this, the typical response is “that’s so far away”. And as far as rain is concerned, customers must also understand that we are not waterproof. If
our staff get wet bringing the cakes out in the rain, they will still have to
complete their shift in their wet attire and risk falling sick thereafter. Sometimes
we do wonder if our peers who operate out of the malls get such requests. Or
maybe it’s just because we happen to be located street-side. However, we are not
without a heart and do make exceptions, e.g. when customer has a baby in the
car with nobody to attend to.
But as we say
at the start, most of our customers are understanding and reasonable folks. And
we value such business and will continue to serve our customers diligently and
to the best of our abilities…
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