Boos and Bouquets

Ever heard the mantra, 'the customer is always right'?

Apparently most persons who deliver customer service in Jamaica have not. So we are showing them up.

If you have had a good or bad customer-service experience, share it with us, leaving nothing out, and we will publish them for you in the Outlook Magazine every fortnight. Include name of place, address and telephone numbers.

Send your experiences to: lifestyle@gleanerjm.com and read about them on Sunday

• Boos

I felt very insulted and abused at Jamaica Colours, a restaurant in Portland.

A friend and I went there to have dinner, and after an extremely long wait, I went over to the persons in charge and asked how much longer the meals would be ready. One man who was conversing with management immediately snorted and balked saying how dare I ask such a question as a Jamaican as I should know all about 'soon come', and the meals would come when they came, and I just had to wait.

I was totally upset. The persons were French and so I addressed them in French to guard them from further impoliteness. I was about to walk out when another came over and apologised saying his mother was in France and he was the only cook in the house.

We stayed, but we will never go back. One fish was undercooked and we did not enjoy the meal after being so insulted.

The proprietors are French and the place is full of Jamaican memorabilia, but it is an insult to our true Jamaican spirit of welcome and charm. They need to do better; they cannot come here and be rude to Jamaicans, or spoil our service reputation

- L. Jefferson

• Boos

Do you like visiting a store where the owner watches you like an hawk? Where the sales person is told to be on your heels, making you feel uncomfortable every move you make? Well, Cordelia Enterprise is the store for you.

These are customer-service experiences to remember. It all started in December 2009. I had just purchased my dinner at a restaurant across the street when a friend of mine asked me to follow her into a store called Cordelia Enterprise, in Ocho Rios, to purchase a pair of shoes. We went over to the shoe section and asked for the size we wanted. The salesperson went for the shoe and while she was gone, the security guard approached me and told me I had to put my food in the bag storage area.

I refused, because my food was in a sealed box in a sealed bag with no space to hold anything else, and I didn't want to leave my food in someone else's possession. The owner came over and asked me to do the same. Again I refused and told him there is no possible way I could steal something and place it in the bag, if that's what he was worried about. He verbally attacked me and was in my face, telling me to leave and that I should not buy anything from his store, and that the salesperson should not sell my friend the shoe. We left, and that was that.

Three months later, we decided to go back with another friend. This time we saw some rings that we liked, so we asked the salesperson to let us try them. Before the salesperson could even take out the rings, he shouted from the cash register, 'those rings can't fit your fingers, so don't even try them on! We started to argue with him, then we decided to leave.

Another acquaintance of mine went into the store with his girlfriend, they were there for a while perusing the store and talking, when the owner approached them saying, "do you think this is a park or somewhere to hold a conversation? Go and find a room or a park."

Later that same day, a friend of theirs went into the store to purchase a dress that she really liked. When she reached the cash register she asked if she could get a discount. The owner grabbed the dress from the young woman's hands and said "No discount. No discount; my price is already set." The young woman just left the store.

I know you might be thinking that the people around me and I don't mind the bad customer service and the owner's rotten attitude towards his customers. But sometimes when you see an item of clothing in a store and you already envision yourself wearing it, no matter how bad the customer service is and no matter how much you hate spending your money with them, you just decide to buy the item anyway.

Please note, even though I just made the statement above, I have decided to stop visiting that store, and I have made it my mission to discourage other people that I know from shopping there.

- D. Neverson