Service with a Shrug

Here's a little post about my recent experience with customer service, or rather the lack of it, in Batam. I've been holding off on posting this for a while because I was worried about sounding grumpy. My actual intention is that you'll be able to compare my experiences here with  yours elsewhere, and perhaps appreciate good customer service that little bit more next time you get it! In my experience, customer service in America is (usually) excellent, especially in Iowa; Iowans are lovely. In the UK, customer service is mediocre at best, but as a Brit I felt secure in my ability to complain politely if there was a problem, and to get a satisfactory result. In Germany, customer service was often apalling. I must stress that this may have been down to the foreigner factor - I'm not sure how Germans treat their own, but in my experience servers were often rude and strangely sensitive, as though providing a customer with what they wanted caused them personal pain. Like the time I asked for tap water because I didn't want to pay for bottled water. The guy brought me bottled water anyway and charged me for it, then proceeded to throw a little tantrum when I tried to protest. It's also notoriously difficult to find your server when you want to order something more, or just pay the bill.

So how does Indonesia compare? Well, if customer-service is mediocre in England and appaling in Germany, I'd say it's often just non-existent in Batam. Things that happen on a regular basis here include: servers getting orders wrong no matter how many times you repeat the order (even if you check what they write down); servers bringing the food to your table but not paying any attention at all to who ordered what, so just dumping the food down willy-nilly (willy-nilly? yes! willy-nilly!); and most frustrating of all, is the silent treatment given in response to any kind of complaint.

At the cinema: In Europe, cinema tickets are expensive and the popcorn and soft drinks are a complete rip-off. Here in Batam, cinema tickets are dirt cheap (around $2) and popcorn and soft drinks are still a complete rip-off, but since you're only paying two bucks for your ticket, it's tempting to treat yourself. This is what the hubs and I decided to do on a recent trip to the cinema. We ordered a soft-drink and some popcorn, but accidentally asked for the wrong popcorn. We meant to order sweet popcorn as opposed to salty popcorn, but instead asked for caramel popcorn, which is fancier than regular popcorn and thus comes in a smaller box with a larger price tag. When the sales guy presented the caramel popcorn, we immediately said "oh, no not that one, we meant the regular sweet popcorn." Please note that we hadn't yet paid for anything, or touched the caramel popcorn. Now in my mind, this is no big deal; a simple and easily rectifiable mistake: void the transaction, tip the untouched popcorn back into the popcorn dispenser and get us a tub of sweet popcorn. Right? Wrong. The sales guy proceeded to tell us that it was not possible to change our order. When I suggested that he just void the transaction, he said he couldn't. When we asked him why not, he said it wasn't possible to void a transaction on the till. When we protested that surely it must be possible to void a transaction on this (or any) till, he then explained that he couldn't void it due to a "new rule from Jakarta". And that was that. We were stuck. I guess we could've just refused to pay and walked away without our drink and popcorn, but we didn't because that would be, well, awkward. Before going in to watch our film, we explained what had happened to another member of staff, but she just told us she was new and didn't know anything. When we asked her if there was a manager or supervisor on duty, she just shrugged and smiled nervously. Awesome.

Eating Out: At a mall in Batam, H and I sat down to have lunch. We wanted different things, so I ordered from a waiter, while H went up to the counter of a fast-food place to order his meal. When he came back, I asked him what he'd ordered and he told me "black pepper chicken". When his meal arrived, he ate one mouthful and then realised that he'd been given black pepper beef, not chicken. He called the waitress over who had taken his order and explained the mistake. At first the waitress just stood there, not saying anything, smiling nervously. Then, after H repeated the problem and asked for her to take the meal away and bring the right one, she said she couldn't. When asked why not, she said that H had indeed ordered beef, not chicken. H insisted that he had said the word 'ayam' and not 'sapi' to which the waitress replied "yes but you pointed at beef", referring to the picture menu on the counter. Perhaps H had pointed to the wrong picture, but he had said the right words. When we asked for a solution for this miscommunication, she just shrugged. Once again we were stuck. Again, to me this is a simple mistake that could easily be solved. Instead we were left dumbfounded and annoyed by the total lack of service - no apology, no offer of a solution, not even a smile.

Of course, it's not always bad, but there is definitely a general lack of desire to make customers happy, which to me is the whole point of having a server in the first place, isn't it?