Sunday, September 24, 2006
the one with the mislead footspa
went for a supposed complimentary footspa at some newly opened spa place at taka. despite the thought of fending off eager beaver sales pitches/ consultants (nothing is for free right?), she took it up anyway cos she's a sucker for foot anything (pedi, reflexogies, spa and what have yous).after three smses and a phone call reminder from THE spa, she made extra effort to be there 15min before the scheduled appointment thinking that they must be really packed back to back and cannot afford to have anyone late.
that was not the case however.
consultant: hello ms belynda, we're very sorry but the footspa will not be available until 45min later. would you like to have a back massage or facial instead?
ms bee: huh? i'm early for my appointment and you're telling me there're no available slots when you've supposedly reserved the footspa for me a week ago?
consultant: yeah, i'm very sorry but ...can we offer you the back massage?
ms bee: and i was so looking forward to it especially since you guys have been so enthusiatic in reminding me to come on time today.
(thinking): oh, so it's a case of the spa overbooking/ overpromising no? what the hell, it's free so she's not gonna make an issue out of it. back massage it is then.
apparently she's not the only one with ruffled feathers. as she was walking out, she overheard a disgrunted husband telling the staff off for making his wife wait 45 min for the footspa appointment when they got there on time too.
decor and ambience was really impressive, and the massage wasn't too bad either.
but really guys, if your objective is customer acquisition through complimentary services, she would expect YOU TO WORK harder at the basics. like getting requests right and have some decency to let your potential paying customers know early if you're not able (for some lame reason or another) to fulfil that request.
and by doing that, you've just lost a potential customer. singapore's small and the industry's competitive so if that's the way you wanna handle your business, good luck to you and your team.
bee wrote this at 10:12 PM
