Monday 2 February 2009

At last, some good customer service

As some of you may know, I left the Maldives last night for Singapore, on my way back to australia. I could probably now pass as a fairly experienced traveller, given that I have been shuttling in between countries by myself for the last 16 years. Usually I travel SQ, mainly because of the ease in terms of connection (MLE-SIN-MEL) and exceptional customer service...at every SQ office except the hulhule check in desk. Don't get me wrong, theyre usually polite if brusque, and don't give me a hard time about a few kilos excess. Its just that they don't measure up to SQ's other international staff.

Last night though, an incident happened that made me shed a happy tear; finally, some integrity in maldivian service!

We were all lined up, waiting to check in. I was at the internet check-in line, as I had already checked in and picked my seat - just needed to drop off my bags. A tourist was ahead of me being served. Just as they finished and were walking off, this loud, rude maldivian guy barged in front of me to the counter. He was wearing the uniform of a nearby resort, and loudly demanded that the staff member put his tourists through first "as they were very important". I was about to tell him that there was a queue and he was welcome to join it when the maldivian supervisor interrupted him and told him to go join another queue, as this was for internet check-ins only.

Yay.

5 minutes later, I was getting my boarding pass when I saw the resort fella go up to the supervisor and say

"hey, why don't you do me a favour; these tourists are 15kgs over-weight in their luggage, why dont you put them through for free?"

Supervisor: "I'm sorry sir, but I can't do that. I can put through about 5kgs for free like I do for a lot of other travellers, but 15? I'm sorry"

Resort guy: "C'mon just do it for me, I'll make it worth your while *winks*"

Supervisor: "If I did that for everyone who asked me to, the plane wouldn't take off. The excess baggage office is there *points*"


Good to see that not all people can be bought.

3 comments:

DarkCasanova said...

yea there are some people still here in de maldives who are kwl like that..btw whats with the goin to aussie bit?and u mention back to australlia means ur studying there or sumthin?? hehe im juz curious :P

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this story.

Nice to know that a few good men still exist. And also women.

emsydo said...

yay. nice to know that you can't bribe your way through every asian country (almost every asian country).