Some said it is restricted to Kuala Lumpur, not whole Malaysia. Obviously, life in Kuala Lumpur and other part of Malaysia are different. In Kuala Lumpur, if you unable to aggressive while driving. You will deemed uncompetitive to live in Kuala Lumpur. A lot of people who came from our own Kampung would find people in Kuala Lumpur is uncourteous. I personally also find Kuala Lumpur people uncourteous but when I go back to my home town. Those who work in my home town would find my behavior uncourteous even some people in Kuala Lumpur would feel my behavior incompetitive to live in Kuala Lumpur.
Lets look at the comparison with Singapore to see whether the poll reasonable or not.
Reader Digest conducted 3 test. We have same ranking on dropping paper test (20th) which I feel is reasonable.
We rank higher (25th) than Singapore (33rd) on Holding door test. Which I think also reasonable. Majority of Malaysia would agreed with me.
However, in purchasing test, Kuala Lumpur(32nd) ranked substantially lower than Singapore(22nd), 45% vs 70%.
If you been to Singapore before and buy something from Singapore retailer. You will always greed with "Thank You". You would really feel customer is king. But you would not feel that in Malaysia. I have such feeling long time ago. But I really in doubts, as Singapore, as a develop country should be less courteous than Malaysia. Now my feeling has been proven correct by Reader Digest survey.
Once, I even hear a person call up to a radio "Call In" show mentioning that she is a retail assistant. She said on air that the people she most dislike is her customer who spend little but act like a big boss. I think this is the attitude of majority of Malaysian. Only you able to buy the whole shop you will be entertain courteously.
I have discuss this with my boss as I am still young when I went to Singapore at that point of time. My superior told me that Singapore is a service society. Their service industry is world class standard. Their airline, port service, hotel services, retail services is good while Malaysia just transform to Manufacturing economy from agriculture economy. Thus, that is the different.
Now, Malaysia manufacturing industry has been threaten by China low cost counterpart. Malaysia has been slowly transform to service economy like Singapore. We slowly gain competitiveness in traveling and education industry. Which we attract business from China big spender. Our Port of Tanjung Pelepas has give some uneasiness to Singapore Port Authority. Our low cost carrier Air Asia slowly gain competitiveness even our Malaysia Airline (MAS) still unable to compete with Singapore SIA. Our Parkson has invaded China Market.
However, we still have a lot to do in term of customer services. Our banking services. Which is worst than civil services after Pak Lah become Prime Minister. A cosmetic company in Taiwan has engaged a human resources consultant who train SIA staff to train their beauty consultant. Would any Malaysia company do that or would our MAS do that? Malaysian really has to improve their courtesy to compete in service industry if all our factory slowly move to China. Complained on loss of money in banking industry and on loss of item while traveling via our airport cannot be left unattended. Lets correct and improve our courtesy to improve our ranking in next poll and indirectly improve our competitiveness in our service industry
TechnoratiTag: Business Commentary competitive Economics Economy Malaysia Opinion Social
