There's a saying in Cantonese:
平耶没好耶It means cheap things have lower quality.
I am never the best consumer in the world, ask anybody. I agree that it is essential to do a little price survey or research on the services/product we wana purchase. But I'm constantly torn by having to make a decision between quality or price, if moderate quality moderate price option doesn't exist.
This happened when I need to decide which service I should go for, for my convo studio photo shoot.
There was a offer from a studio, hiking up the prices to a certain extent that I couldn't bear. Apa ni! Just take a few shots only ok you're not some big shot photographer! In other words, I'm paying for the convo back drop wtf just a back drop can cost a fortune. I better start making one and con the next batch of graduates.
It was a big no no to that studio. The quality was a meh too. So there's basically no reason for me to take the offer. I was thinking not taking studio photoshoot at all, just ask twin no.1 to flash his DSLR on me and that's it.
One day, le me and yj were doing nothing in the office and I complained to him about the studio photoshoot. And then he showed me the best-est offer that I've ever seen in my life.
It was such a good deal that I can't possibly say no to it. The cheapskate side of me was screaming with joy to have landed on this deal. They've already stated that if we need postage service (the studio is at Sabah, and they need a few days to get the photos ready), they'll charge RM30. A bit pricey given that Pos Laju only charge RM7 for document parcel, but RM30+RM15=RM45 is still cheapter than the first studio that I saw. So I went for it.
HAIZ.
It was one hell of an experience. And I don't mean it in a good way.
First, we need to schedule a time with them to do the photoshoot. So I wanted to do it via Facebook but apparently they don't receive online booking. I was like,
The reason they gave is that they wana have a standardized booking system (phone booking) due to the lack of staff.
So before I do the phone booking, I wanted to ask for the details of my photoshoot. I did it via Facebook messaging again. This time, they saw my message (thank you Facebook for your genius invention!), instead of replying, they posted a status on their page saying they wouldn't respond to online booking WTF (I can't seem to find the status on their fb..hmm). What's the point of having a social networking site if you don't want to connect to your customers? I was just asking things, not doing booking yo!
Then I just proceeded to phone booking and WTF I called thousand times (not literally but you get my point) also nobody pick up! Deb purchased the same deal so she went on calling them for booking and she got through FML. Finally the booking is settled.
Still I needed to ask them about the details but since they STILL didn't pick up my call (according to their fb status, it's due to the lack of staff), I emailed them. And I always get only few words response. T.T
Mind you, in all of my inquiries, I was as polite as I can, I wasn't rude or anything. So at least I deserve polite feedback right? After all I'm the customer. Maybe because Likas Square Apartment Hotel's customer service was way too awesome that I felt neglected by L'unico (this groupon deal studio).
On the day of my photoshoot, me and Deb got lost gao gao finding their studio but I'm not gonna go in to this because it might not be an issue for Sabah customers. Maybe it's just us, the peninsular trolls who are not familiar with KK road, that we got lost so bad we wanted to give up the photoshoot.
Anyway, during the photoshoot, me and my family were excited about getting a professional photoshoot. The reason why despite all the treatments I've gotten from them and yet I still wana do a photoshoot with them is that I can see their great final product. The photos were nice, creative and genuine even. I wanted to experience that. I wanted them to capture the happy moment of me wearing my graduation robe, standing with my family.
Well..how our photos turned out to be, is a subjective matter. Me and my family thought it was horrible, but my friends thought it looked fine (the photographer probably think it was fine too FML). Maybe because I look horrible my whole life. True story. I'm not posting the photos up here yo! #low-self-esteem. Everybody probably agrees that my photos are all quite horrible, because I can never be the pretty one around my beautiful friends so might as well be the ugliest one ON PURPOSE HAHAHA. But this one I looked horrible GENUINELY. FML max.
Except for the RM45 that I expected, there's another RM30 surprise charge on the convo back drop (I'm so gonna start making it right nao!) because apparently my groupon deal is not the convocation deal. So it came to RM75. I could have went for the first studio I saw, and get the photos immediately already.
The person in charge promised to send my photo on the same week, and I can get it the next week. But due to the lack of staff, I can only get it after TWO WEEKS.
I need to emphasize that it's my personal experience only and other customers might not experience the same thing. In fact, nobody else went through what I went through. It's only me. FML FML FML. It is not that they are bad, but in my personal opinion which doesn't matter at all (so please don't sue me tqvm), I think the main issue is the lack of staff.
This is what happen to SME(small-and-medium enterprise) subscribing to Groupon when they are not ready. Equipment wise I think they did fine. But in terms of staff, I believe they need to make a certain adjustment before putting up such a deal which would attract a huge number of customers especially during convo season.
Being the only hater to this whole experience, I'm not saying they are bad or anything. In fact the reason I chose them is because they are good (and cheap wtf). But they definitely have bad arrangement issue and unfortunately customers like me fell through the cracks.
Having too much to handle will make operational staff of the business thinks that it is expected for customers to be considerate of their situation when they have operation difficulties. The thing is, being considerate is our nature but in this case, we don't HAVE TO be. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be considerate and go on screwing them if we're treated badly. The business itself must be set up in a way that it can accommodate such crowd and should there be any issues, there ought to be a proper way of handling the issues, rather than throwing back the problems to the customers, asking them to be considerate that they couldn't attend to the issue.
So in this case, my personal experience is exactly like the quote: 平耶没好耶 (Quality doesn't come with cheap price). By quality I don't mean the quality of the final product (because it is subjective #sour), but rather the quality of the overall service. Somehow I believe if I spend RM480 on them, I wouldn't be treated like a RM15 customer. It's just my thought though.
Anyway, wish they can improve because they have the potential to make it. But I'm sure as hell won't go back anymore.
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