Read Bean Rest. vs Customer Service Slogan

“Customer is the king” ….

How many of you that never read or heard the above slogan ?

I believe that most of grown people have ever read or heard the above slogan and never say the disagreement of the above statement.

Except me …; I am not the one who buys in the whole idea of the above slogan even though my career path starts in service industry.

Most of the service practitioner take that slogan without even understand the reason behind the statement and how to put that into reality.

Last night, we were having dinner at Red Bean Restaurant, Kelapa Gading. Since we are not a smoker, automatically we chose the non smoking area.

Not within a minute, I smell a cigarette flavor in the air. Then I realized that there’s a family who sat behind me, light her cigarette.

Well.. I didn’t mind somebody smoke when we were sitting in the smoking area, but since I was in the non-smoking area, I felt annoyed with the situation. So my husband asked the waitress just to confirm that we didn’t choose the wrong area.

Then the lady stopped her smoke activity, but it was only temporary. Not more than 30 minutes, she continued her smoke.

Short stories, we claimed to the restaurant manager. Not because we hate smoker, we complained because the manager ignored our right as a customer.

But what surprised me was the manager’s comment, that he didn’t have the right to ask the lady top stop because there’s no sign of “non-smoking area”. So my husband pointed the sign of “non-smoking area” around the restaurant.

Can you imagine the answer ? The restaurant manager told my husband that customer is the king and he didn’t have the right to implement the rules of “non-smoking area”.

…. SPEECHLESS ….. that was my first reaction …

No wonder the implementation of “smoking” and “non-smoking” area in Indonesia ever went well. The entire fine was just only a “written” fine, no one got fine by the police. Not because the police do not have the guts, it’s because the police officer were the one who loves to smoke.

The smoking area versus non smoking area only applicable to certain place, but if the customer didn’t obey the rules, the person who have the authorization to implement the policy also don’t have the guts by hiding through “The Customer is The King” statement.
Yes, the customer is the king, but the customer also has to follow the rules, the policy. If the customer didn’t want to follow the rules or the policy, doesn’t mean that the authorize person have to follow the customer’s.

Customer is the king means that as a service provider we have to understand customer’s right when we implement or make a policy. As a service provider we have to be objective and honest in delivering our product or policy.

Whilst as the customer, we also have to follow the rules, the policy. We can not be the ego centric person, like that lady.

I’m wondering if she goes to other country will she follow the “smoking” rules. I bet that she will follow the rules.

Suddenly I remembered my former boss comment, who is an expatriate, when the government announced the smoke regulation.

Cynically he told me that it’s a waste. People in Indonesia never follow the rule, especially where “money” is the God in Indonesian rule…

….SPEECHLESS ….