Sri Lanka It's Happening

October 21, 2005

Dr. Hans Wijayasuria, the CEO of Sri Lanka's most successfull listed company has made some comments about customer service at a recent event. Sri Lankan business must heed his advice. Receptionists, Counter clerks and sales persons think they are kings and queens and customers are their faithfull servants.

Let me relate an experience yesterday at Expographic bookship in Battaramulla.
Expographics has a moderate collection of non fiction books at a price that may be somewhat more reasonable than at other bookshops but their sales clerks negate that effect.

When I walked into the store I asked the girl at the counter if gift vouchers are available. They were. I informed my intention to obtain vouchers and went to browse. It was only after I returned with a handfull of books to the counter that they began the preparation of the vouchers. It wasn't as if the counter clerk was busy. I was the only customer in the shop at the time. Sri Lankans don't read.

Vouchers it seems need to be printed, the counter clerk wasn't familiar with the software and fiddled with it for a good fifteen minutes! At this time a friend walked into the store and I had a chat with him so didn't mind the slow service. After fidgetting for a further 10 minutes the girl charged my credit card for the books that were chosen and said gift vouchers cannot be paid by credit card.

Can you understand the logic of that? If the card is good for books how come it's not good for credit cards? It was at then that I gave them hell. I asked the payment for the books be cancelled. No sooner I said that, they were quite happy to accept payment for the vouchers with the credit card.

It seems that the staff at Expographic lack the intelligence to read at least the covers on the books they sell.

Posted by raditha at October 21, 2005 10:52 AM