Monday, September 28, 2009

Ikea vs Court

If you had switch on your radio in the car, or just watching any tv advestisement lately, you must have notice the Court's ad for stock clearance...should be their closing sale, or meaning the Court is finally closing down. I use the opportunity to look for a better sofa, so I head on to the nearest Court after office. I went in the store, and first come to my view is a row of chairs, new and old, listed nicely, waiting to be purchase by the customer, and the price tag is very attractive, RM10 for a looking-new chair. So here i go, even not needing one, I help myself pick up a chair, and 'boom' the wooden chair's top drop to the floor immediately. Look like the condition is not so good though, I think. So I pick up another one, now I am clever enough I sit on it to try first. To test the chair withstandibility to the maximum I sit on two legs of the chair like a rocking chair, and suddenly I heard someone shouting at me, ' Hey, you buat macam itu, mesti lah dia rosak, kalau semua orang buat sekali, saya tak payah juah lah' , i turn my face to this fierce, unfriendly salegirl, she is showing a I-not-welcome-you & you-better-go-face. Ashamed by that, I make myself stand-up and explain to the girl, I want to buy that is why i need to make sure the chair is really in good condition.The salegirl's reaction is 'I-not-really-care'....so I just head for the main door, and would not want to look back. Inside my car, I keep thinking is it me who is rude that the salegirl has to react that way? Then I am thinking should I just write to complain to their management about the girl attitude toward customer? Then immediately I think of Ikea our foreign major furniture seller who is so successfully conquer the Malaysia's market, people go to buy, carry, and instal by themself yet it is everyday crowd everytime i visited the store. What is the reason that Ikea is so successful, wheress the Court is closing now?? I think It is buried deep inside the culture of the store, which put customer satisfaction first as the soul of the spirit of the selling team. Customer went to the Ikea are actually encourage to sit, lying, twisting and testing the product, they even go to the limit to allow return of their product purchased within 60 days if you are not satisfied with it. Try to compare that with the Court where I was humiliated just to test a chair. Attitude is something Malaysian company need to learn from the international company, our kampung boy and girl is always lack of it, shame on our culture which is suppose to be more polite. I finally realise why Dr Mahathir included the Pendidikan Moral in the secondary school the time he was in power. I would not spare my time and paper to complain the salegirl, she already learning the hard lesson - unemployement soon, if the lesson didn't teach her anything, I would not want to waste mine too.