The clock has just gone a couple of minutes past the hour of 8, in the evening. My wife, Jeannie, (with a comma “,” after “wife” and “Jeannie”; you may think it as my wife and Jeannie [two persons]. However, it is grammar, punctation and English that’s making it look tricky. Or, I am trigger happy with dotting my essays with commas) and I; were on our way back home, just after dinner.
We had a very simple, no meat (we consciously work at reducing meat consumption. We had meals with meat over the last two days) dinner at one of our favourite dining spots, Star Bhavan.
Star Bhavan is the place to be for simple, good Indian food. Jeannie ordered a tosai (soft version) and a hot Nescafe, and I; I ordered my usual chapati and Nescafe Ais (Bahasa Malaysia spelling for “ice), “kaw”. Kaw or kaw-kaw in Bahasa Malaysia means strong / strongly / bold, in English.
My “standing instructions” or usual request is that they have to serve their “achar”. Their achar (pickles in English) is usually lemon pickles, simply a mouth-watering food “delicacy”(?) worth dying for… Not in the literal sense. I am just trying to emphasize…oh, you know what I mean.
My meal was ultra simple,…well, at least the chapati is. Some may argue that “Nescafe” is a rich man’s coffee, simply because it is quite premium-ly priced when compared with anything from almost colourless liquid, to what looks like muddy water, to something that has a faint resemblance of coffee, to coffee from coffee beans grown in unkempt forests and jungles. Here, I have to note that there are quite a few, very small local coffee set-ups that are good. A good example is the “famous” Taiping (1) Coffee, direct from the coffee mill there. Known as Aun Tong coffee mill in Assam Kumbang, it has to be a “must visit”. There’s a lot of history and mystery linked to it. You can read more about it in my article, “Taiping Town Of Heavenly Peace” (2).
Coming back to “Jeannie and I were on our way home, just after dinner”. The time was just after 8.00pm. Jeannie gets a call on her mobile phone, showing that the call was from one of the most prominent international banks in Malaysia. As she answered the call with “Hello”; the call was immediately put on hold, with one of the bank’s advertised messages coming on. This went of for what seemed like eternity – over 15 seconds.
Then, a guy comes on the line, stating that because Jeannie is one of their valuable customers; they would like to offer a credit card cash loan. Jeannie politely declined the offer.
The guy went on, “Last time the interest they (the bank) offered was 9 over per cent, now, it is 4.79%” or something like that. Jeannie had her phone on loudspeaker, so I knew what was going on.
Jeannie, again, politely declined the offer.
My pet peeve is questionable customer service!
Here is this guy calling from a reputable international bank, hoping to get a business deal from Jeannie. As soon as Jeannie answered the call, it was immediately put on hold, with a advertise message filling up or standing in for the 15 seconds or so wait that we had to endure. It is glaringly noticeable that this bank’s representative was not focused on his prospective customer – Jeannie.
The call should never have gone to being put on hold. The bank representative should have waited for his call to be answered or cut off. It gives the prospective customer or customer the feeling that she is not his focused priority, that he was multi-tasking(?), that he did not give his prospective customer or customer his undivided attention. How do you call someone up in hopes of procuring business from them and put her on hold? To top it all, no apology for this blunder.
Someone messed up big time. Not this guy. 😰 Then, who? 🤔 Hmmm!
NOTES
1. Taiping is a city in the central state of Peninsular Malaysia, Malaysia.
2. https://leatherpotato.com/2021/10/18/taiping-town-of-heavenly-peace/