Article 6.
CUSTOMER SERVICE AND A COUNTRY'S PROSPERITY                                                  THE PHILIPPINES AND SINGAPORE                                                                                             (article published in TROTTER MAGAZINE, PHILIPPINES ")

QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE

The economies of countries stand or fall by the quality of customer service provided. That is why I would never visit the Philippines as a tourist – and am loathe to do so as a businessman.  It is why I prefer to base myself in Singapore when I am in Asia and do my business from there. Everything works, the quality of service is generally high and the overall experience of the visit is invariably positive – despite the coldness of many Singaporeans.

It starts at the beginning, or to be more precise on arrival at the airport.  Changi Airport in Singapore is a joy.  Having walked from the gate through a bright and colourful airport the first person you encounter as a visitor is the immigration officer who smiles pleasantly whilst he or she takes your passport and processes your documentation.  There are no glass screens to create a barrier between visitor and official. In fact there are candies on the counter to help you overcome the effects of dehydration after a long flight.  At Changi Airport your cases invariably come off quickly, the luggage carts are bright and shiny and it is easy to exit through the green channel. Furthermore the system at Changi Airport  for finding and getting  a taxi is the best in the world, it is so efficient.  As soon as you are in the taxi you find yourself being driven along  a well-maintained highway where the traffic moves at a fair pace and the roads are bordered with beautiful pink-flowering shrubs.  This is quality customer service!  Without exception the lapsed time between the wheels of the aircraft touching the runway and me entering my hotel downtown Singapore is one hour or less. That’s a high quality customer service experience. 

By comparison when you arrive on a foreign airline at Manila Airport you would be forgiven for thinking you are on a different planet.  As you make your way up to the dark depressing immigration hall you are faced with crowds of people loosely grouped into six or seven queues. For a first time visitor you then have the ordeal of trying to work out which queue to join.  If you make a mistake you can waste half-an-hour in the wrong line before being forced to join another queue and wait all over again. After what seems like hours  of standing and inching slowly forward you are met by a grumpy customs official who has never learnt to smile. In fact the customs officials are the only people in the Philippines who do not know how to smile.  I think they make the assumption that all people trying to enter the Philippines are criminals.

Having had your passport stamped you then push your way to the right hand side of the arrivals hall to locate a cumbersome rusting baggage cart before struggling to the left hand side of the arrivals hall to retrieve your luggage from the crowds of people lined up three deep around the creaking carousel.

It gets worse.  Having handed bits of paper to various officials going through the green channel (in Singapore they don’t require these bits of paper) you then have to find your way to Hell.  This is where your host (who has come to meet you) will be located and it requires much ingenuity and knowhow to find him.  Nobody of course tells you that you have to walk through the airport concourse, cross a road and then go down a ramp to be faced with a swirling chaotic dense mass of people – all perspiring under the intense heat.  In my opinion this is a good illustration of the word ‘Hell’.  Your host might just be there – but where do you find him (or he find you)  amongst the thousands of  people congesting and congealing so tightly there together?  As a virgin globe-trotter you might start to panic at this stage – but as  a veteran Englishman  I try to retain my cool –it could be worse – I could be at an English soccer match. 

My name is Freemantle so I barge my way through  to a section of the greetings area with the sign‘F’ where I am supposed to wait. But there is no one there with my name up and nobody around who bears any resemblance to my host (who I have never met before).  Meanwhile on the edge of the crowd police officers are blowing whistles and urging parked cars to move on. They  don’t. They can’t. Nothing moves more than one inch per hour.

My mobile phone is hidden away in my hand baggage to prevent it being stolen. 

At this moment a Filipino angel appears, attracts me to a booth and offers to rent me a cellphone for 50 pesos to make one call (mercifully I have come equipped not only with a few pesos but also with a scrap of paper with my host’s  mobile number on it). I eventually I make contact with my host who is stuck in a traffic jam the other side of the airport having arrived two hours ago and circled the arrivals area twice trying to locate me. He gives me the number plate details of his car.

Half-an-hour later  and with great relief I see his number plate inching towards me.  We load up and then inch forward before joining another traffic jam.  The traffic jams continue all the way to Makati for just over an hour.  This enables me to get a good view of the type of traffic Manila has, the bent and battered buses polluting the atmosphere with black smoke,  the continual honking of horns (you never hear these in Singapore) and  the dark crumbling EDSA highway. Overall it is  general impression of decay, darkness and squalor.  Not a very good first impression I am afraid – and I’m now into my fourth impression and fourth visit and it has not got any better over these three years.

The five star hotels in Manila (such as the two Shangri-La’s and the Pan Pacific) are of exceptionally high quality. They are excellent.   The four star hotels have cockroaches in their bedrooms (I’ve seen them, I’ve killed them) and prostitutes hanging around outside. But then they would put me up near P.Burgos Street in Bel Air. 

Getting exercise in Singapore is easy, you can take a brisk walk along the river by the Esplanade towards Boat Quay and Clark Quay,  or through the botanical gardens, or up the East coast.   Getting exercise in Manila is dangerous. There are pot-holes in most sidewalks and crazy drivers instantly available to knock you down should you dare step onto the road.  As for exercise around IntraMuros…. I won’t comment.

That’s why I prefer to stay in Singapore. It is all to do with the standards of service and the ‘total quality experience’ offered by a city to its visitors – from immigration officials through airports, transportation, banks, hotels, restaurants and the rest. 

However there is one key difference between Singapore and the Philippines.  Filipinos are incredibly beautiful and friendly people – all over the world they are much loved for their charm, hard work and positive spirit.  If I was twenty-one and single again I would find it easy to fall in love and marry a Filipino (many British men do).   Conversely many Singaporeans tend to  be cold and indifferent.

The quality of the service in Singapore emanates from its persistent drive for efficiency whilst the quality of service in the Philippines has nothing to do with efficiency (inefficency is prevalent)  but derives from the fantastic warmth in people’s hearts. 

I love Filipinos. I just hate Manila!  If only we could create a blend of Filipino warmth and Singapore efficiency then we would have almost perfect high quality  customer service.

                                                                                                              ARTICLE COPYRIGHT © Dr David Freemante