A&W horrible language proficiency

I'm writing this post regarding the branch at 1-Utama.

As written earlier, I shall resume my Ripple Effect Series.


It's such a shame that in other countries, fast food restaurants are known for having standards such as their quality of food and services.

As consumers, one of the most vital aspect in a F&B business is communication. Restaurants need to communicate with us as consumers to know what we want devour for the day. Otherwise, we might as well go to 7-11 and grab a maggi mee hot cup.

(couldn't go too near to snap a direct shot of their faces)

It's forgivable if the employee at the counter is new and has difficulty coping with the orders of the consumer.

It's forgivable if the neighbouring employee is also new and couldn't help much to understand what the consumer is trying to order.

BUT, it's not forgivable if every single employee in the branch cannot understand what you're trying to order. What worse, the manager is not at his/her position to ensure that everything is going according to what a consumer expect to experience in a restaurant - a decent customer service.

You speak to them in english, they speak to you back in malay.

"Hi, i'm dining in."

"Oh okay. You nak order set mana?"

You can seriously try to insist them on speaking english, but to no avail.

" I would like to order a mozza burger set."

"You nak regular atau large?"

Frustrating as it is, if that's not bad enough, what happened to me and my gf was that the portion they gave us was ridiculously little. At least, not according to how much we paid for.

"Can you adjust the portion of the fries? It's too little."

"Apa? You nak order extra fries?"

"No, I'm requesting that you add more fries because it's too little. It's not what I paid for."

They would start putting their fingers on the machine, preparing to key in "one more regular fries".

It's frustrating enough that you cannot communicate with a toddler and want the toddler to cooperate with you on certain requests.

But it's a catastrophe to not able to communicate what you want to an ADULT on SIMPLE requests.


I urge my readers, please take that bold step to make a change. If they do not get you what you want, DON'T LET THEM compromise your requests!

Insist they you want to see the manager or someone who can actually understand english. Make sure you get what you paid for. Stop having that mindset of "It's malaysia lah, what to do.. nothing can be done about it.."

It's due to this mindset that our customer service in Malaysia is never improving but always deteriorating.

Thanks for your time, please do continue to tune in my series.

God bless, cheers.

Operator, the line is dead.

I'm pretty sure by now your exposure to certain varieties of advertisements consist a dialogue between an operator and a consumer.

Often time, it's a foreign one, specifically the United States.

Recently, I've contacted a few major companies to investigate and do some purchases for my stall. It's vital to get your products at the lowest cost to cut down your budget.

Companies like FNN was decent in terms of their operator service. Just some minor miscommunication which led me to another 2 more calls in order to reach the appropriate department.

After that I contacted Walls ice cream. The operator who answered my call had a decent service too. However, after requesting me to contact their supplier, who was a Digi user (Digi sucks and yes, that's only thing I'm extremely bias about), this was roughly how the dialogue went. (The dialogue is summarized to the important points only)

Me : Hi, ms XX.

XX : Halo.

Me : Is it possible for me to purchase your product directly instead of buying from the hypermarket?

XX : Yes yes, you can.

Me : What is the minimum requirement to make an order?

XX : 10 cartons. That'll be 6 tubs of ice cream.

Me : Okay. How much that'll be?

XX : How much ah.. er.. err...

(10 seconds later)

XX : Can you contact this person? Her number is 016-DIGISUCKS.

After contacting her and investigated the pricing, I did some calculations to do a comparison between buying from them directly and from a hypermarket.

Wa-lla!

The price has no difference or whatsoever.

Instantly, I contacted Ms. XX to find out whether she got the pricing messed up or anything like that.

XX : Ohh.. you see ah, the hypermarket make big orders one. Big order got ..

Me : Discount?

XX : Big order got discount. They order at least 50 cartons ..

I was thinking in my mind, that'll be 300 tubs.. and the fact that certain hypermarkets keep running out of stock begins to cause suspicion.

To my dismay, we had no choice but to resume purchasing from hypermarkets since there's any difference.

Meanwhile, humorous encounters with operators such as kickapoo and MBPJ occurred.

The kickapoo operator was literally whispering on the phone. I had to glue my ears so that I could at least grasp a gist of what she was uttering.

It was until a certain point I had to request to increase her volume.

Me : What..? I, I can't hear you. You're speaking really soft, can you like, speak louder?

Angry Kickapoo Operator : MY BOSS' LINE IS ENGAGED. CAN YOU CALL BACK LATER?

Meanwhile, the MBPJ operator was.. well, rather ..

Operator (Machine, fast paced) : Terima kasih kerana menghubungi MBPJ. Untuk *mutter mutter*, tekan "0". Untuk mengulangi, tekan bintang.

Obviously, the rational choice would be to click the star button.

Operator (Machine, fast paced) : Terima kasih kerana menghubungi MBPJ. Untuk *mutter mutter*, tekan "0". Untuk mengulangi .. (the line got cut off).

I had to redial and was obliged to click the "0" button.

The first line I said to the operator was,

"Do you converse in english?"

"Yes I do."

I didn't mean to offend her but it's not like I had choice of,

"For english, dial 1."

"Untuk Bahasa Melayu, tekan dua."

Just one last experience with operators, our most familiar and often called operator.

McDonald's delivery service.

During peak hours, you usually get 2 replies. One makes you angry and the other really makes you angry.

"Sorry sir, the nearby outlet at your area is busy. Can you wait for another 45 minutes to an hour?"

That reply, makes you angry.

"Sorry sir, we cannot receive anymore orders. We are fully occupied."

Now that, really makes you angry.

Anyhow, it was 9p.m., when I made my order, stomach was growling and I received the first reply.

Fine, I'll wait. Since it's late and I don't want to go out and dine. I'm paying for the delivery service anyways.

1 Hour later.

1300-13-1300.

The same operator picked up my call.

Me : Where's my food? It's already an hour and I don't see it yet.

Operator : Oh, can you wait another 25 minutes?

Me : 25 minutes!? Excuse me, I'm really hungry.

Operator : Hahaha.

HE LAUGHED. Now that really ticks me off. He thinks I'm cracking a joke.

Me : Is there any way, McDonald's can compensate my time and starvation? Because this is one really dissatisfied customer.

He knew I was serious when I mentioned that I'm really hungry. He quickly changed his tone.

Operator : No sir, there's nothing we can do about it.

Hmm, I'm lovin it huh?



Thanks for your time.

God bless, cheers.