Customer Service - Australia's Failure...

Australia does not fare well in the customer service field, I am talking shop assistants and restaurant wait staff in particular. Our Australian hospitality and customer service just does not even compare to what you get in the states. From the minute you walk into a restaurant you have at least ten people doing various things for you at your table and they are all polite and friendly (even if its a little fake) you can see that they really work for their tips. By comparison in Melbourne you will be lucky if the wait staff notice you in the first ten minutes of you turning up at the establishment, when you FINALLY get someone to take your order they expect you to be polite to them and know exactly what you want, more over you might get a grunt in return. When the food finally arrived (its known in Aus that if you order a cow it takes about as long as someone does to go to a field, locate said cow, slaughter the cow, cut the piece of meat from it and then cook it), the food is then dumped in front of you, again may be you will get a grunt from the wait staff if they are the "friendly" sort, oh btw Melbourne's service is not too bad compared to Brisbane, but lets not go there.

When walking into a store in Australia someone usually shouts or calls out from the counter of the store usually saying "everything alright?" to which the standard reply is "yes thanks, just looking" then the shop assistants usually just ignore you and pretend you dont exist, unless you want to make a purchase at which point they usually look at you in a surly manner as if they are doing you a favor. As a result most of us Aussies rarely go out and worse still the experience of shopping whist semi enjoyable is still lacking.

In comparison to the Lush in Seattle, I walked in with the sole purpose of buying 1 small bottle of body wash and that was it. Within the minute of me walking in, the sales girls greeted me and were on to helping me make a selection, then after that was made the sales person kept showing me more and more merchandise that I might have been interested in, long story short I escaped from there with two body washes and a tin for my shampoo...best bit tho I got 5 samples of other products I might like to buy in the future. I thought that this was too good to be true and therefore put it down to the "up sell".

So then I went in today with the acid test....now you have to understand I have a certain pride in Aus I WANTED these guys at lush to see I was not buying anything and i WANTED them to be as rude as their Aussie counterparts are...in short I was expecting to be ignored and on the receiving end of incredible rudeness. So I walked into the store and was again greeted within the minute of entering, when I said I was "Just Browsing, thanks" the shop assistant was overjoyed...to my amazement she started showing me things that she thought I might be interested in, she gave me a trial of several moisturizers, foot scrub and hand creams...I went in for nothing and I got a mini manicure. Even when I walked out of there empty handed the girls in the store were cheerful and waved good bye to me.....

I nearly had tears in my eyes because these guys had proved to me that the States really take customer service seriously - we Australians have a long long way to go .... now every time I get ignored and grunted at I am going to feel so sad that our wait staff (who by the way get paid more than their US counterparts) are just not up to scratch. And we wonder why so many people love America and want to live here, and I must admit I am a little green.

Valentines Day

Valentines day in Australia is understated  when compared with the States, may be its because Hallmark have more of a presence in the States than Australia. Its definitely a day when all the restaurants, gift shops, chocolate shops, jewelery stores and even hotels make a bucket load of money out of all of us saps (big and small spenders).

But I think in Aus especially we have forgotten what the true sentiment behind Valentines Day is. Most guys think its the day that they are guaranteed of getting lucky in the sack and all it costs them is a couple of flowers and a bar of dairy milk, their girlfriends, wives and mistresses dont mind this one bit as its one day out of the year that they can all relax about their hips and figures and just gorge on chocolate, in Aus we even bring our pretty flowers to work (this is mostly done so that we can rub it in every lonely, dateless woman's face at work).

I was reminded by the friendly guy working in Monorail Coffee shop yesterday what Valentines Day is all about. When I had made my purchase of my morning Coffee he wished me a Happy Valentines Day. In fact today (which is Valentines Day) I got wished a couple more times by random people on my walk through downtown. Then I remembered that Valentines Day is a day that is meant to celebrate love, not just the romantic love but all the kinds of love that is out there. This made my day as the more I think about it the more I am surrounded by love.

So thanks for the reminder Seattle, I will never again turn my nose up at the V Day again as its one day out of the year that I will take the time to sit back and think of all the people that love me and that I love back. I need no cards, roses, romantic gestures, expensive gifts, dinners or chocolates (although those will NEVER be rejected) when I am just so lucky in Love.

Happy Valentines Day