Do We Just Not Get Customer Service?

NOT so long ago some friends of mine came up to Brisbane for the weekend. I showed them the sights: Southbank, the Queensland Museum, the Downunder Bar, Kangaroo Point etc. Even caught a Broncos match with Hamish once Leanne had headed home (they won unfortunately).

What struck me though wasn't the fact that it rained pretty much the whole time they were up here (and sunny either side of their stay), but rather Leanne's scathing comments on the service they'd received at a restaurant they went to. I can't remember the exact words, but the general gist of it was that she'd rather have dental surgery done by an arthritic dentist using rusty pliers than have to go through that again.

Search an Australian news site for "customer service", "tourism" and "Australia" and it won't take you long before you start coming across articles like this and this that bemoan the poor state of customer service in our tourism industry. And it's not just tourism either: this article complains about the poor service he received in a Canberra store compared to a New York online retailer.

So do we just not get it?

Having travelled widely - albeit mostly in the budget section - I can personally vouch for the fact that we are by no means the worst when it comes to quality customer service. Spend a bit of time in France and see how much help you get from some local hoteliers. Likewise in some parts of Italy, where tourists will always come visit just because it's Italy, and you have to visit Italy at least once in your life.

In comparison to places like the USA, Greece and Sri Lanka though, we have a lot to make up. While I realise my position as a tour guide meant I got to know tourist operators quite well, the welcomes I got from the crews on Paros and Santorini after six months away meant I'd go back right now if I had the cash. Likewise it was refreshing to dine alone in the States but still have an attentive waiter/waitress that knew when I needed my beer topped up. Likewise in Sri Lanka I never came across a hotelier that wouldn't give me the keys to his house - come to think of it, one actually did!

So how does Australia pick up its act? Australians being so anti-tipping doesn't help - why put in the extra effort when you're still going to get paid the same as Joe Average standing next to you?

One suggestion in this article by Clive Dormanis that we need to actively train customer service staff in, well, customer service:

So much of the "product" is what we call service. It's not rocket surgery. In my opinion, too many people in the customer service side of tourism are being dragged in off the street without specialist training. And it just doesn't cut it for the industry to be whingeing about the mining industry stealing all its best staff.

 This ties in with what an outsider has to say:

I’m no tourism expert, but I’ve seen too many industries respond poorly to structural and cyclical threats (retail is an example). The main solution has been to cut costs, damage product quality and wreck brands. Company morale falls and staff only turn up for the pay cheque. Decades of hard work are lost in a few years as even loyal customers start to give up on the product. Innovation and great leadership are lacking.

As an observer outside the tourism industry, it seems so much money is spent (and often wasted) on attracting tourists to Australia, and not enough on improving their travel experience and encouraging repeat business. Do enough international travellers to Australia rave about their experience upon returning home? What about domestic travellers?

While we have the natural beauty that makes people want to come here, what we really need to do is start getting people coming back. To do that we need to invest in our customer service staff - there will certainly be some short-term pain, but imagine the long-term gain.

Of Religion, Atheism & Fanatics...

WATCHED The Blind Side on the idiot box tonight. A nice enough movie, with Sandra Bullock managing to portray a feisty yet caring mother to perfection. Had my late grandmother been rich, American and from the South rather than relatively poor, Australian and from the Deep North I could see her being pretty similar to Bullock's portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.

What got me thinking though was a comment on the movie's Wikipedia page. Apparently Bullock wasn't convinced she was right for the role. As she said in this interview, Bullock was intimidated by what the article describes as the Touhy's "evangelical Christian faith". It was only after meeting the Tuohys that Bullock felt she could take on the role:

"One of my biggest concerns stepping into this was how people use their faith and their religion as a banner, and then they don't do the right thing," explains Bullock. "They go, 'I'm a good Christian, and I go to church, and this is the way you should live your life.' And I'm like, do not give me a lecture on how to live my life when you go to church every week, but I know you're still sleeping around on your wife. I told Leigh Anne the banner waving scared me because I've had experiences that haven't been great. I don't buy a lot of people who use that as their shield. But she was so open and honest and forthright. And I thought, wow, I finally met someone who practices but doesn't preach—someone who blazes trails, and they do it as a family."


The Tuohy's religion is respectfully covered in the movie. You know that the family are strong Christians, yet it's not shoved into your face like the ground does when you fall over. You can argue that the Tuohys taking in the homeless Michael Oher is in the truest Christian tradition.

Do you know what? What to me is exactly what religion should be about. Right now religion's copping a hammering left, right and centre. Some of it's entirely self-inflicted, like the Catholic Church's continued paedophile priest problem or the various fanatics from all religions claiming theirs is the only true way and that if you're not doing it their way you're all going to burn in hell. The continued opposition to gay marriage by organisations like the Australian Christian Lobby doesn't help matters either. Some comes from our increasing scientific knowledge, which athiests suggest are proof you'd get just as much spiritual guidance worshipping a bag of Doritos as Divine Deities.

Question has to be asked though whether a evangelical atheist is any different to an evangelical religious types? As much as I hate people trying to convert me, calling someone's beliefs into question doesn't necessarily end with someone walking off in shock like in the movie Dogma. To use a personal example, I have a very religious friend while I consider myself agnostic, yet religion isn't something that comes up between us. She has her views, I have mine, and while they differ we respect that about each other.

And it doesn't matter if you're religious or not; the Ten Commandments are a pretty good way to live your life. Athiests and agnostics will probably ignore 3 (do not take the Lord's name in vain) and 4 (Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy), but the other eight are still pretty much spot-on.

Granted, there will always be people who do stupid and evil in the name of religion: seriously, where in the Bible does it say two people who love each other can't get married because they're the same gender, whereas a man and woman can definitely get married even if it's only because there's a child on the way after a one-night stand?
But while people like the Tuohys can use their faith to change someone else's life for the better then shouldn't we focus on that as being a positive for religion?