How We Rate Establishments - A Guide

Thank you for taking the time to read this as it is an important part of our site. We wish to be fair and credible, and have come up with a system of rating that will, we hope, help you when you rate your experience.

We go by a system of Bouquets (positive experience) and Brickbats (negative experience). This goes from 1 to 5 and will be explained below.

Bouquets

• 1 Bouquet - Service is slightly above average. You are greeted when you enter the establishment, staff are polite and courteous. Good, but so are many other establishments. This is actually the bare minimum one should expect.
• 2 Bouquets - Service is better than usual, with the staff making recommendations where appropriate. Slightly better than before, with decent service.
• 3 Bouquets - Service is good. Staff are prompt and attentive, leaves you to make your decision in peace, does not hard sell, yet will not disappear when you need their advice, opinion or help. Most places would fall into this category or the next category, or even somewhere in between.
• 4 Bouquets - Service is very good. Staff give honest opinions on your choices. If the choice is not good, they will recommend you alternatives that are more suitable, good product knowledge. In the event of a no-stock situation, if there are other outlets, they make an effort to call and reserve or stock transfer the desired product to their outlet if applicable. You will recommend this place to friends and relatives and even bring them there. Most places would fall into this category or the previous category, or even somewhere in between.
• 5 Bouquets - Service is exceptionally good. Staff have very good product knowledge, makes the effort to know your needs and recommends the right product to fit. Answers all questions confidently and promptly, makes you feel extremely at ease in the establishment, follows up if necessary with calls or emails, remembers you by name. If there is a problem with the product, a no questions asked return policy is available. Follows up regularly and remembers you at your second visit especially if it was less than a fortnight back. You will not hesitate to tell all your friends about this place, bring them there and will even bet your bottom dollar on this place. It is quite hard to get into this category unless service is exceptional and truly memorable.

Brickbats

• 1 Brickbat - Service falls slightly below the expected. Nothing major and a little improvement would change things a fair bit. Not too bad, you may still consider going back if minor things improve.
• 2 Brickbats - Service is slow and lacklustre, does not give a good feeling to the customer. Not the worst, but definitely nowhere near a pass grade. You might go back after a few years though if friends ask you won't recommend them, but won't ask friends to stay far away either.
• 3 Brickbats - You are ignored unless you specifically ask for something even if the establishment is empty or near empty. Staff generally do not even acknowledge your presence unless you get their attention. You will only go back if you know things have improved. I know many establishments that fall into this category.
• 4 Brickbats - Service is very bad. You might just go back if there is little choice but otherwise, you won't. Little product knowledge and communication is an uphill struggle. Staff spend more time chatting among themselves and when asked questions, will give you a look like as if you have interrupted a life changing decision on their part.You won't go back unless they do some form of service recovery to retain you as a customer. Some establishments fall into this category or somewhere between this and the previous one, I notice.
• 5 Brickbats - Service is horrendous! Staff have almost no product knowledge, are rude and not helpful at all. They are monosyllabic all the time or at most curt. You won't touch this establishment with a 10-foot pole and will tell all friends not to even bother! You feel no amount of service recovery measures can even save this establishment other than a complete management overhaul! It is quite easy to fall into this category mind you, as customers are after all, sensitive and any sign of negativity is often something that stays in their minds.

Take note that the above rating should serve only as a guide. We hope the above guidelines help when you rate establishments. This is not a scientific system and we go merely by our gut feel and personal experience.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say, so if you feel strongly that an experience of yours deserves X number of Brickbats or Bouquets even if it fell outside of these guidelines, please do not hesitate to rate them accordingly. Would be great if you can also include why you think they deserve such a rating.

If there are any suggestions, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Got a customer service experience to share? Email me to get your story published! Do remember to read the submission guidelines and how we rate establishments before submitting.

Defining Good Or Bad Service

I have received questions from friends on what is good or bad service. A willing smile? A wide variety of products offered? Being able to answer all your queries?

Everyone has his or her threshold for what makes service good or bad. However, some underlying truths remain.

Service is about people, dealing with other people. It is about an experience for you, the customer.

Can we really learn good customer service or how to serve people better? We can probably learn the technical aspects but some things, we need to have a genuine love for. The genuine love for people is a core trait that is often lacking in many in the service industry. As I once overheard, "In service, you need to have a big heart." This translates to having a love for the people you serve.

How many times have we had a bad service experience because providers do not listen, or are too eager to get their point across to you, based on legalities or terms and conditions before first listening to what your problem is?

So, what really constitutes good service? It is the willingness of service providers to listen, do what they can to act on the problem and work to provide a solution for you. Tall order yes? Who ever said being in customer service was an easy job?

On the other hand, us customers have to be reasonable. We should communicate our needs clearly and more importantly, be reasonable. We cannot expect to pay ridiculously low sums and still expect service providers to bend over backwards for us all the time. People still need to make a living and companies need to make a profit to stay in business.

No point listening and then not acting or when one acts on it, one often gets it wrong. That is, if you ask me, bad service. It is just like a restaurant which has the widest variety of wines available yet their waiters keep sending you the wrong bottle, recommending a wine which does not go well with your food, or worse, recommending the most expensive wines just to increase their sales figures. I would much rather go to a restaurant which may not have a wide variety of wine, but the waiters observe and pay attention to my order, offers suitable alternatives if my choice of wine is unavailable and gets my order right.

This willingness to listen, act on it and pay attention to your customers is what makes service good and the experience memorable in the right way.

I am not a customer service specialist. The above is my opinion, as a consumer, on what makes a service experience a good or bad one for me.

Got a customer service experience to share? Email me to get your story published! Do remember to read the submission guidelines before submitting.

How To Submit An Experience

Got a personal experience to share? Simply email me, bouquetsnbrickbats@gmail.com with your story.

To make it easier, below is an example template you can use. The more details you provide, the better of course.

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Name : Your name or a name you wish to be addressed by.
Date & Time : The date and approximate time your experience took place.
Place/Website address : Name of establishment/outlet/store & branch if any or if it is an online order, the URL of the website
Person Serving Me : The person who attended to/corresponded with you if possible.
What Did I Intend to Buy/What I Bought : Some examples could be an online purchase, a pair of shoes, a television set, or even a tour package.
Any Other Relevant Information : This includes information such as any special promotion advertised, length of stay if writing about a hotel or travel experience etc. If none, simply put N/A or None.
My Experience : Write your experience here. Be responsible, civil and above all, honest in your feedback. Credibility is an important aspect of this site and if need be, we will verify your story. We want to be fair to everyone.
Overall Rating : 1-5 Bouquets (1 being satisfactory, 5 being you would certainly recommend this to all your friends) or 1-5 Brickbats (1 being could be improved, 5 being No way will you ever go back there and in fact you'll tell all your friends about the horrible experience you've had).

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Ensure you are using a valid email address that you check often as we may verify your story via email.

It's as simple as that. We will do the rest (formatting your story, editing for spelling errors or grammar if need be etc). We will not, however, dilute the essence of your story so do keep the language adult & civil. We may not publish all stories, and those we deem to be personal attacks on establishments or personnel will not be published.

Take note however, that Bouquets-n-Brickbats may verify your story and as such, as much details of the story as possible should be provided.

We believe in being fair and responsible. Establishments have a right to respond to your stories.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you. Bouquets-n-Brickbats believes in privacy and will never sell your story or personal details.

Got a customer service experience to share? Email me to get your story published! Do remember to read the submission guidelines and how we rate establishments before submitting.

Welcome to Bouquets & Brickbats

Welcome to Bouquets & Brickbats, a website dedicated to sharing experiences on customer service with people. This site looks at good and bad service experiences you may have had in Singapore.

As Singapore has no natural resources, we rely on our people a lot. One of the core industries that our nation depends on is the service industry.

This site was started as a way to share my experience as a consumer with everyone out there and I will be putting up posts and reports on my experience as a customer. Whether I have experienced good service, bad service or just no service at all, I will share my stories here, no holds barred. It will be civil, but I will not pull punches when it comes to service.

However, let's be fair here. I won't be putting up reports on issues such as buying food at a supermarket chain and being given bad "service". This blog is more relevant to the items where one would expect some form of service, like when one buys an electronic device, a tour package, dining at a restaurant, shoes, a piece of property or even a car. Basically, if the service level goes as expected, there's little need to write about it, but if things go beyond the expected, or even below the expected, than it is safe to assume, one can share their stories.

I look forward to constructive feedback and as time goes on, would like to be able to do more with this site so that users can use this as a reference point. If you want to share your stories here, I welcome them but do email me, bouquetsnbrickbats@gmail.com for details on what information is required when sharing your story. I would like to be fair to consumers as well as service providers as well. There's always two sides to a coin.

So do feel free to give suggestions on how to better improve this site.

Gareth Phua
Bouquets & Brickbats

Got a customer service experience to share? Email me to get your story published! Do remember to read the submission guidelines and how we rate establishments before submitting.