What Does It Takes To have Your Service?!!!

[SilverBeast]

I was moving round a few "reputable shops" to finally put my foot down on getting an 88 key workstation. To my disappointment, I ended up with none simply because none of them delivered the service to earn my hard earned dollar. To begin with, there was no service at all because I just walked into the shops and I was treated like the invisible man! At one particular shop, I was the only customer roaming around the kybd section, but despite seeing human staff, there was just nobody to serve you. Geezz, Is it the trend of this monopolised industry?!!! :x

I can tell you that this is not the first time I had walked into these shops and with the same treatment...or should I say without any treatment.

Really, do you have to go up to the sales person to slap a stack of money on the desk and say, "Hey, I have this S$X to spend on buying an 88 kybd. Convince me to part with my money to get one from you." :?

Who shares my experience?

 

[Scream_ed]

You can go to Luthers at Peninsular Plaza if they carry the model you want. They have a good reputation for good service. Just hope there won't be anyone who'd come along and break that tradition.

 

[jbarks]

Well, there are two sides of the coin... I know that at Swee Lee you can ask the people there and they'll be more than happy to help you out. Look for Adam. The thing is that if they just go up to you it might seem like they're badgering you to buy something, so it might go both ways. It doesn't hurt to ask

 

[Mobius]

Try luther, they are yamaha's distributor as well. they provide top notch service.

 

[Cheez]

Well, you have to ask them to help you. Swee Lee's people usually helps you if you ask them. If you don't, you're invisible. Of course, even if they turn on the keyboard for you (which will take about 5-10 minutes), they will have to hunt for the sustain pedal (if they ever find it), try to hook it up to the amp (and a lousy one so you can't hear good definition sound from the keyboards), and leave you standing trying to play the keyboard without a stool. Yamaha is better - I've better experience there with the sales guy in the keyboard section. I know the somebody at City Music personally so it's much easier.

To get their attention, you HAVE to have one keyboad turned on. Then what I usually do:
1. Turn up the volume to moderately loud;
2. Play some quick and tricky jazzy improvisation to start getting their attention;
3. Play Richard Addison's Warsaw Concerto (because it's loud and sounds technically difficult)
4. If still not response, play opening bars of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor
5. After that, play the rhodes, e-piano, clav and some B3 using different styles using the controllers at the same time
6. Make sure you play a lot of lower registers and then higher registers to show that you are testing the action of the keys throughout and testing the sound quality (particularly the main piano sound)
6. Look around the keyboard conspicuously, particularly at the positions of all the ports at the back

Then the person in charge will drift over and ask what you are interested in... :wink:

 

[duskalways]

hahaha. cheez should write a handbook on 'how to get the salesman's attention!' :smt006

 

[Indigo_blues]

the other day at swee lee all i did was go stand in front of the fantom 88 and before i knew, the salesgirl went "Can I help you?" ...

 

[Guest]

i get pretty good customer service when i go to swee lee. i wanted to buy a stand, i went in with my uniform and this malay guy asked me what i needed. i asked for a stand below $15 and he pointed one out to me. i came back the next day in my uniform with the money. when he saw me, he got stood out of the counter and got the stand for me. and he gave me a $2.80 discount!

maybe it's juz my luck :wink:

 

[SilverBeast]

Thank u guys for replying..my partial intention was to vent it out. That's why no shops were mentioned.

But since everyone is mentioning names, I can honestly say that the warmest service I have experienced so far was at Luther's and by the humble man himself. All I bought from him then was a cheap kybd stand, but he gave me a lot more sincere info when I asked about some kybd stuff. He really reminds me of another sincere sales staff at Combo Shop I met donkey years ago whom I called Mr Bix and another one at Swee Lee (darn forgot his name) when it was at Plaza Sing back then. That's service!

Chester - Let's see...S$15 purchase gets S$2.80 discount. Then I wonder if I could get a 15% discount for a Fantom X8! :lol:

indogo_Blues - Who's that girl? Maybe you looked handsome. :lol:

Cheez - I agree with you that I could have asked for help. But, as service providers, don't think that by going up to ask a customer "Can I help?" is intrusive. Even if the customer indicates otherwise, adding an assurring word "If you do need help, just ask for me" warms the situation. Trust me. At least I as a customer wuold appreciate it if my presence is welcomed. Anyway, perhaps you could add one more tip into your "manual" - wear something with the words showing "I'm here to buy. Serve me." :lol:

I can frankly say that in general, good service in SG is overcast by the bad. Perhaps it just was not my day then. :wink:

 

[soft]

i think we can give and take a little. be nice to them and they will reciprocate. me as a salesperson would really hate it if someone use the "i have money, come and serve me" attitude. :wink:

 

[Fallen]

Well, i did went to a shop and look at some guitars, no body "saw" me. I ask if i can try a epiphone 100 guitar, the guy gave me a strange look. Maybe i tried a low end one? Then he went and set up for me, i tried it ( he still looking at me from the table ) in the end i put it back and nvr think twice. I did want to buy something from there. The epiphone custom caught my eye. Too bad they lost a customer.

Some place do have great service, maybe u got to look right in their eyes?

 

[mingguan]

To get their attention...
2. Play some quick and tricky jazzy improvisation to start getting their attention;
3. Play Richard Addison's Warsaw Concerto (because it's loud and sounds technically difficult)
4. If still not response, play opening bars of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor

Not everyone can do that leh...

 

[SilverBeast]

Soft, don't get offended by that statement I made. It was just a form of sarcastic humour. Within that big dark cloud of poor service providers are those who think they know how to "see" paying customers, but too bad, they are "blind". If gold was so easy to find, everyone would have jumped onto that bandwagon.

 

[aireydon]

hmmm..i tried at a few, so far :

yamaha:
i tried the mo8 (at 3k..its the cheapest 88 weighted key workstation!!!) at tampines ..i was playing with it for almost 5min (on, but no speaker/amp on) and no body chupped me. i had to ask one of the staff to turn on the speaker. he was very nice and turned it on , but it was a pathetic small moniter speaker...the piano sounded bad , organ sounded bad, cant heard the drums , only the lead sounded audiable. but the person was very patient and admitted that he was a guitarist and didnt know how to operate the mo8 or motif. ..

i appreciate the patience and honesty but i went to plaza sing, tried the mo8 again, (it happened to be on and hooked to a decent amp this time), and i was HOOKED,,,the sounds sounded worlds apart and i cant keep my fingers off it ...for 15 min!
so much injustice was done to the mo8 at tampines!!! but the best part is ...nobody attended to me.....i was as loud as the some guy trying the digital drums further back....


luther is the best...everting was ON-ed, they attended to u the momnet u stepped in...patiently anwered every question.

i got some help from adam at swee lee ..hes good...but basically like someone mentioned, u need ard 5-10 min to get the board On-ed and hooked and leave u tryin, standing without a seat ...and most of the time they , like yamaha, dun have keyboard staff around to answer tech questions.

Citymusic:Best keyboard tech know how staff obvioously have to be @Citymusic....i asked 4 different guys there 4 diff times and each guy can answer my question...from sequencing to oscillaters to expansion boards .

 

[newbie100]

citymusic has the best sales people and they are selling KORG which is the best brand for live show!

swee lee has the worst salesmen, dun noe anything and dun let you test the products. swee lee can have old models selling at prices 10 years ago?!

yamaha depends on situation, becos .the salesmen are comission based
so they only serve people well with buying potential