When Time Is of the Essence!

What a difference in service standards when you leave mainland Greece and come to the islands. We are in Santorini and this island is geared for tourists and the service standards have risen 1000%. They know they have 5 months to make their money ch has to last the year. They actually smile! They attempt to help you and do whatever is necessary to get the sale. Sometimes to the point where they get pushy!

The best service I had received was in a jewellery store called PONIROS (meaning sly), he was able to get me into the store try on the piece I had admired, gave me the credibility of the designer through magazine articles and how their business was the place to purchase. He made sure that I had all the features and benifits covered before he even mentioned the price, he wanted me to fully understand the value.
He knew I would not make a decision immediately so he even suggested he would give me information on the island and where to eat when I came back to purchase. (Very sleek). Every time I went past he would greet me remembering my name. Santorini is small so it was hard to avoid his store. Even though I will not be purchasing that piece of jewellery. I admired his salesmanship and I'm sure it will be a good summer for this business.
When time is of the essence these people need to work hard for their money!!!!

Service Is a Dirty Word

We have now been in Athens for the past week. We have found that there is no such word as service in this country. The service mantra is "Like it or leave it". We have been in stores, travelled on their bus line 'KTEL', and visited tourist destinations. If it is a simple transaction they are nice enough, however, do not ask questions or deviate in any way.
The worst interaction we have had was at Delphi wanting to catch bus back to Athens and needed to be on the 1.30pm as the next one was at 4pm. We had a plan, buy bus ticket, eat food quickly starving by this time and it would take 3 hours to get back to Athens. The KTEL man was not there OMG!
He finally arrives, proceeds to answer his phone call and ignore us as if we didn't exist. He has lovely chat with friend still ignoring us, 5 minutes later whilst still chatting to his friend he processes the tickets. We give him 200 euros, the tickets cost 54 euros, he screams at us, it is getting later and he does not accept cards, we are in a small town. What do we do? Panic. We go across road to the Periptero (Little shop on street), my husband is sent to bank, it is now 1.25, no husband ,no food and bus coming soon. The KTEL man comes out screaming at me "where are you to pay for tickets!!!?". By this time hungry, children bored, still no husband and peeved, my reply from across the street was "you are a backwards country and will always be a backwards country!!!!". Finally husband comes back with money, buys tickets and leaves. We got on and the bus was full! after our long wait husband had to stand for 2 hrs and me for 1 hr.

Great Service comes from within

On my flight from Melbourne to Dubai via Singapore,I was dissapointed with the average service we had received. I started to think.What makes the experience great?
There were smiles. They were helpful, when asked. What makes the differnce? It's when the person cares and wants to make a differnce to the person they are servicing.
It's like they were shells but there was nothing inside!
They mostly knew what they had to do, they needed to smile and be nice. But did it come from within?
Food for thought!
When either serving or being served look out for the rapport building. Did the service come with warmth, care? If these signs are there,m then you will notice a difference!