Lazy Customer Service
The flipside of stalker customer service is the lazy kind. Where they don’t care or act like you’re quite rudely interrupting them. The most recent personification of this has been the staff at the ODEL Roots. This time I think I managed to get the concept down in a photo. Above is the juice guy, leaning on a fridge as he’s flirting with the cashier. His expression is like, ‘and what are you doing here?’
Customer service can be rude and fast, like at certain kades. At some places that’s part of the charm. At the most basic level, however, they have to vaguely pay attention to you. I don’t know what it is about the ODEL Roots, but they basically don’t acknowledge what you’re saying. Not that they don’t hear, but humans usually give a nod or some symbolic gesture that information is received. None of that. The cashier just kinda lolled her head around to pass the order to someone that had already heard.
You get that a fair amount here, especially at bars, or places that are irrationally busy. They’ll ignore you for the longest time and then act put out when they finally have to acknowledge you. By irrationally busy I mean that they just haven’t managed a predictable flow. Places like House Of Fashion do this well and make money. Many places, like most bars, will have one person per task and no flexibility. As in, one person that does the actual task and like three people doing God knows what. And those people often won’t even pass a message to the guy that can actually help. You make eye contact and they’re like, ‘I am not a protocol droid, I only move glasses from here to there’.
Anyways, it’s annoying. It’s not like people even have to work harder, just make eye contact and be a decent chap. For more on a specific instance, check out the YAMU review of Roots.
Posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2012 in Business, Colombo, YAMU.
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
The chutzpah of this government knows no bounds. Every government since Independence has had to balance placating Sinhala nationalists (AKA racists) while at the same time actually running a sensible, inclusive nation that doesn’t send minority citizens, capital and foreign investment fleeing. Basically, they’ve had to pay lip service to nationalists while at the same time trying to run an actual nation. Every government has also generally failed, SWRD being killed by a nationalist monk and everyone after almost losing the country to various rebellions. In that context Mahinda is actually doing a better job by virtue of not being dead and not losing control of the country. But he’s still not doing a good job.
Indi i agree with you fully maan, and this also got to do with how the typical Lankan psyche works as well ( i.e: dont blame me , but the other guy thingy)
Indi i agree with you fully maan, and this also got to do with how the typical Lankan psyche works as well ( i.e: dont blame me , but the other guy thing)
I have had the same experience at ODEL Roots. I waited for sometime, but two guys behind the counter was playing some sort of a trick on the third and none of the three were even remotely interested in taking my order. I tried to get their attention by saying “excuse me” but to no avail. After another 15 seconds I moved on to purchase a soft drink from one of the other outlets.
Sad state of affairs.
When living in Sri Lanka, we’re never likely to be short of customer service issues to report.
During my last trip, I was particularly amazed by the lady at the Mlesna shop at Crescat. When we walked in, she was clearly angry or to the most part, unhappy from an incident/reason that did not involve us, but…anyway, she glanced at us, and continued talking to her colleague about this whatever that was below being pleasant. We stood there for about 2 mins (which is very long, when you count the 120 seconds..), because we specifically needed about 10-12 boxes of tea and that quantity was not readily displayed/available on the shelves.
What surprised me even more was the lack of interest even after we walked off; it did not bring them to the realisation that customers had walked in, waited for them, and walked off. It did not prompt them to at least say, “sorry, can we help you?”.
I ended up getting my tea from a different outlet, but these first points of engagement do not realise that, that sort of unpleasant attitude can drive away foreigners (the very clientele they aim to serve) who are far more sensitive than most of us locals. That doesn’t in any way mean that we as Sri Lankans should be as tolerant either.
For people who don’t have a knack for sales/customer support, pay-on-commission is the way to go. The more sales you bring in, the more you get paid.
No matter how small your company is or how cheap your products are, it is still important to maintain a good service. In this example, the stall can’t be just thinking about “hey we’re only selling smoothies”! They should service their customers well because if they’re satisfied, it would call for a repeat purchase!