The luxury brand shops and large retail outlets in Macau are resplendent with soft lights and bright lights, designer goods, calm music, shopfittings worthy of the palaces of the rich, security guards to signal the value of the goods on sale, and offering the flattery afforded to society’s affluent. They serve customer satisfaction and responsiveness by providing putative choice of highly priced items, even though this is often a disguised version of telling the customer what he or she should want to have, i.e. a neat marketing ploy. Their products are pre-designed, already finished before you buy them, so all you have to do is to choose from what’s on offer and pay up (and, indeed, often ‘pay through the nose’, i.e. huge, overblown prices).
Let us be more mundane: how often do we Macau citizens really receive outstanding customer service for everyday items, and where do we go to get such service? The answer: regularly, from Macau’s small, family businesses. Here are some real-life examples.
Let us say your apartment needs to be refurbished. Forget the glitz and the glamour of the big shops; go to the family businesses in Macau, where the owner is keen to meet your needs and wishes precisely, completely and with full and friendly communication. For things as simple and straightforward as curtains, furniture, plumbing, doors, windows, everyday home items, electrical matters, it is the family businesses in Macau that give real service. The owner comes to your apartment, often on the same day that you contact him or her, even if it is in the evenings or a Sunday, and spares no expense of time in understanding your needs and fulfilling them. No task is too small or too large for them, from changing a lock to a fullscale entire apartment refurbishment.
Or how about getting something as simple as a suit, shirt, dress or skirt without ‘paying through the nose’ in those fancy shops which try to sell you would-be status by buying one of their designer products? No, Macau residents know that you can get excellent madetomeasure items from family tailoring businesses in the ‘three lamps’ district of Macau, and at a price to suit your wallet. Indeed Macau residents buy off-the-peg designer clothes but then take them to a local tailor to be adjusted to fit them.
Here’s another recent real-life example. I asked the boss of a local family-owned supermarket if the supermarket could provide some items which are not normally held in stock. A few days later I received an email from him, telling me that the stock I had requested was now on the shelves. Now that’s real service. The boss, with a huge amount of work on his plate, took the time and care to meet my request. Could you imagine that happening in a large chain store supermarket, a luxury brand shop or an upmarket store in Macau? Of course not; you get what they offer, take it or leave it.
Another example: I wanted to buy some jewellery in Macau, so I went to a small, longestablished family-run jewellery shop in Avenida Horta e Costa (Go Si Duc) in Macau. I told the owner very precisely what I was looking for and he said that he would obtain some examples for me. Just a few days later he phoned to tell me that the examples had arrived. I came, I saw, I conquered – he had found exactly what I was looking for, and, indeed, had provided a wide choice. Wonderful.
In each example here I go back again and again to the same family-run businesses in Macau. Why? Simple: because they provide outstanding, human-centred service. The welcome I receive is heartwarming and genuine; they remember their customers. Conversations are friendly, taking time is not an issue, and no effort is spared to meet customer’s wishes and needs.
The moral of the story? Real service takes interaction, conversation, concern, personal care and follow-up, regardless of the price or the time. Now, for me, you can keep your big, loud, brash brands which offer one-size-fits-all products designed to make a quick buck. If you want true service in Macau, go to the family businesses. They are the glue that binds Macau business to its local society. It’s something that the big corporates and international brands and chains, with smiling faces wider than a Cheshire cat, with door staff giving out the same meaningless, rehearsed ‘welcome’, simply cannot touch.
