My Super-Fun Time at the X-Cite Showroom, Avenues

Employee traning is VITAL to retail sales.
It takes years to gain a customer and seconds to lose one.

Case in point today. I visited Safat Al-Ghanim and X-Cite at The Avenues. The sales people are always nice on the furniture side (but do tend to be a bit clingy and follow you around - like you are going to hoist a sofa onto your shoulder and run out the door).

I have had consistent bad times in Al-Ghanim Electronics - starting back in the mid 90's. I actually see some of the same employees that I did at their showroom in Salmiya in 1997 and on. They STILL don't speak and most of them don't make eye contact. They are just rude.

Today, it was the worst. Lebanese male model stood in front of me, brushing back the gelled hair from his face, staring through me. I asked him a question. He continued staring. No response. I stood and waited. No response. I waved my hand in front of his face, 'Hel-looooo. Do you work here?' He mumbled (mashallah - he's ALIVE!). I asked him about a humidifyer that I wanted to buy. No response. Blank stare. Do you think that the hair gel was affecting his mental capacity for speech? I don't get it. So, I bent down, picked up the rather large humidifyer in the box, and walked to the counter.

No, no, no... wait... it gets worse.

I ask dude behind the counter where the store manager is. No response. I ask again. He lifts his arm and points to the corner of the store. (Now ya know, that must have taken an extraordinary amount of effort to do something so physical like that - somebody get him a Panadol.) I was still on the fence about going to chat with the manager or making the determination that it would just be another PITA waste of my time. I was deciding the later and decided to remain quiet.

No, no, no... wait... it gets worse.

Then, as I am standing there in front of four men with equally blank faces and no responses behind the counter, a young Kuwaiti kid walks by and says something nasty about me in Arabic - (there are like 20 security guards in the store and they are all just standing doing nothing because Al-Ghanim doesn't employ people who might be slightly intimidating to hooligans) which I choose to ignore because he's obviously been raised by farm animals and he can't help being a piglet. The guy who is ringing me up looks over at the kid and says, in Arabic, "Your mother's vagina" (not going to spell it out in Arabic). Cashier dude is standing literally 2' away from me. I frick-in lost it.

"Ayeb minik! (Basically shame on you.) WHAT makes you think that I can't understand Arabic? Shame! Do you use that language in front of ALL your customers?"

No response. Nervous laughter from the other 3 men who are standing behind the counter.

No, no, no... wait... it gets worse.

I do the Angry White Woman March back to where the store manager is. A tiny woman behind the "customer service" counter stares at me. I ask THREE times to speak to the store manager. "Is there a problem?" Well yes, otherwise, I wouldn't be standing there, shaking mad, asking for a STORE MANAGER, now would I? She runs off to get dude (who should probably spend more time on the sales floor than in the back office).

Here's what I hate about most managers in these situations in Kuwait: They expect you to go out and confront whoever wronged you - publicly; putting you in a position where you are - once again - in an uncomfortable position in their store. "Come with me! Show me which ones!" Oh. My. God. It's like going to a line-up with no 2-way mirror.

So by now, I have an audience of people standing around with their arms folded in front of them staring blankly at me. Just what I needed. Thaaaaaaaaaanks!

None of the sales people made eye contact with the store manager either. I guess that should make me feel better. They obviously just don't give a snap about anyone.

Manager Dude insists, "You will see! I will do something. You will see." Um... no I won't see because I have been embarrassed enough in your store and I'm not planning to go back to "see". I'm going to run right back to my computer and blog about it in the hopes that someone from Al-Ghanim will actually help themselves by investing in a profit-generating tool: CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING.

--- Update ---

I got a call from a manager at X-Cite who said that he had read my blog and apparently had spoken to the store manager. He was very apologetic. I don't feel that going back into the store where I was so publicly humiliated - and facing a second humiliation - will really help motivate me to shop in their stores again. Although it was nice of him to apologize, it does nothing to change what happened. (Personally, I don't want to waste the gas in my car and the amount of time it would take for me to go there. My time is valuable and enough has been wasted on this one incident.)

How are you going to fix it? If I go in, then the next time I go in, I will receive preferential treatment and their sales people will still perform bad customer service to everyone else. How are you going to find a solution? Judging from the number of comments I have received saying that people have had similar experiences in X-Cite, I think that what Al-Ghanim really needs to do is to have people perform mystery shopping services, or customer satisfaction surveys. They make a HUGE deal of handing their customers an enormous invoice with every purchase (it is the singular task that their sales associates actually do well), so maybe they can include a website for an on-line survey.

For those who have written in saying that it is "no big deal": Publically speaking those forms of abusively vulgar obscenities is an actual criminal act in Kuwait.

As for the one anonymous comment who was intent on telling me how so much more well educated Lebanese people are - you have missed the point.

Thank you all for the comments. Maybe it will help Al-Ghanim (and others) in the long run. All feedback can be positive.