Mugigae @ Bugis Junction

These few days, I have been going around town, in search of a dress for a wedding reception. Actually, it is just an excuse to get more pretty clothes.

However, there were some not so pleasant experiences with the sales persons. One such bad experience was at Mugigae at Bugis Junction. No offense, but this was yet another shop which employs foreigners, mostly from a country that does not speak English. I do mind a little for I just feel that they should at least try to learn how to speak a little English. It will be of great help to them. The operative word here is "try".

In any case, I digress. All was going well and I have finished trying the clothes. I was quite undecided though for it was only the first shop my Mum and I had gone into to try clothes. I liked the dress (90%) but had just wanted to exercise all my options first.

Therefore, I asked the salesperson if she could 'hold' the dress for me for a few hours. It is not even for a day. If it were Dorothy Perkins or Topshop, they would have held it overnight for me. I suppose they were trying to send out a message that their clothes are not mass produced. This I understand. Now, if only they put it across the right way!

Salesperson (avoiding my question on whether she can hold the piece for me): This is the last piece already.

I(smiling, in fact almost apologetic since I was the one who was undecided): Yes, but can you hold it for me, for awhile?

Salesperson: No we cannot hold for you (pause and no eye contact all the time), if you want to hold must put deposit.

I (getting a little annoyed but trying to calm self down): OK, so how much deposit do I need to pay?

Salesperson (still no eye contact): The deposit is non-refundable.

I: I understand. So how much IS the deposit?

Salesperson (paused for one second): 50% (Can't quite remember if it was 50% or 30% as I was already mentally calculating whether to ditch the whole idea of buying the dress).

I (being a little mean now and wanting her to calculate the amount): So how much is that?

Salesperson (paused to do mental calculations): $50...and it is non-refundable.

All this time, she was just folding up the clothes that I tried on and tidying up, giving me only sideways glances. Her actions were haughty and her tone, not so good. I smiled and walked away. The message that I got was either: if you do not have the cash, don't buy; if you can't make up your mind, don't buy; you do not have the shape to carry our clothes so better don't buy; all of the above. There was to be no deal with this shop. Not today, not for a very long while, even though they sometimes have clothes that I like.

I can understand if you want to make a quick sale. I can understand if you want to close a deal and up your sales for the month. However, I do not think that speaking rudely and giving out rude non-verbal actions would be able to save your monthly sales figures, if there really is any saving to do. In the end, she did not manage to clinch a deal. She also managed to help her bosses lose a repeat customer.

Come to think of it, this was the same shop who had the very bad, old habit of adjusting the rack of clothes that I have just gone through. I was there earlier than Mum and so decided to take a look-see first at the various shops. Every time I finished with going through one rack, they immediately rearrange it.

I am not sure whether they were taught to do so but whoever thought of this logic is not making much sense as the non-verbal message that you are sending out to your customers is this: You have messed up my display.

Well, I think that it is meant to be messed up. Not so much as to mess up, but to go through. If not, how are we to see how the clothes look like. And it is not as if there were Call Numbers like library books. We do not jumble up any sort of number or order. It is true that a shop should look neat and that one should treat their customers like Gods, but I would not go to the extent of sticking so close as to almost hug the customer and I would wait till the customer has walked far away, or even out of the shop before I rearrange.

Under normal circumstances, if I see a salesperson start to 'ruffle' through the hangers randomly, I would just walk out of the shop. Why bother seeing since you do not want me to mess it up? Then of course, I am learning to be tolerant and so I continued to browse.

I suppose customer service issues are everywhere as we are all humans and handle things differently. The thing for me now is to learn from these different situations as I will soon be joining this line of profession again very soon.