What is Good Service? NUM experience....

The local brand New Urban Male (NUM) took SG by storm a couple of years ago with their colorful flip-flops that every teenager longs for at incredibly expensive prices. They have since branched out to Tees, Shirts and other apparels. They are known for funky, tacky, cheeky taglines on their tees.

I have never stepped into one of these shops before Dec because of one of the range of Tee that I'm interested in....(shhh secret)

That is because the whole place looked very male-dominated... my feel of the shop was confirmed when I checked their website to look for store locations. It was about 235men! *gulp* None for the ladies? Hello....

Okies.... I picked up the phone to call them to check if the Tees that I wanted was available in their stores. I had to call 3 different shops in order to find the "correct" one... Sigh... poor explanation on their websites on what does the different categories mean, it doesnt help that the person over the phone doesnt give proper information on the relevant store and just kept saying that its not the correct store... FINE!

I went down to the outlet at Cineleisure, level 2, there was a flip-flop store & the Tee store next to each other... But they seems like they dunno much about each other's products... FINE!

One gentlemen came forward to welcome me into the store.. well, there wasnt anyone else in the store... and there was 3 of them chatting with each other. At least there's some form of service...

I made my enquires only to be met with interesting response... I asked for my range of tee because I was getting more than 1 piece... He had the look of shock on his face and started looking around the store and replied:" We have them all over the store, we'll have to look for you, which color and which design are you looking for?"

As he eyes start to wander around the shop for the colors and type.... my eyes had to follow him as well.

Question: Dun they know the products layout? Why is he so blur?

It took us a while to find all the colors & designs that I wanted... except for one of them... out of the color.... So I asked if the other outlets have them. They did a call and checked, yes, its available.

Cool!

BUT they do not do stock transfers between stores on their own.... they can just give me any tee and I'll have to exchange it on my own.....*scratch head*even Giordano does it! But FINE!

Then the most amazing thing happened.... it took 4 "men" a full 5mins to fold and put 4 tees into a paper bag and tape the bag up.... 2 use eye power, 1 to hold the bag the last one to figure out how to stick the bag closed....

Its the slowest form of service I have ever received, I almost wanted to jump out of my skin at the slowness of their packing service. And they work here? Me the part-timer can do all that in a flash and will be ready for the next customer! *yawn*

So I went over to the next store for the exchange... since there was also NO one in the store... they knew what I wanted before I completed my sentence.... according to the previous store, they told this 2nd store to put aside the color & size of the print that I wanted... by that, the 2nd store means that it unfolds the tee and lay it on the top of the pile of tee, like a flag! I dun really see that as a reservation.

Since there was no other customers, I guess it was not a big deal... FINE!

I wanted to do the exchange... so the guy who ushered me in waved the new tee to two other guys at the counter, gave them instructions to take out a form for me to fill in and I promptly took out the exchange piece for him. And the two boys have to repeat the instructions between themselves like 3 times, before they understood what that form meant.

The two boys filled in the information of the two tees with MUCH difficulty.... not just poor product knowledge slows them down but BAD spelling too!! I am super shocked lor! Simple form... took these two boys another 5mins to fill in... *yawn* *yawn*

They are the most blur bunch of sales or store managing folks I've ever experienced. I wont consider myself very widely traveled... But I definitely have been to quite a few places in asia, north america, europe, pacific area and I have never never have to meet with such lousy & poor service at the speed that makes me yawn.

Come on NUM, wake up before more jobs are lost, more sales fly out of the window. Wake up your idea!