It's SMRT's fault, not the PRC drivers

Now for today's post, I have to thank my reader 'Devil' for the following comment on my last post:

Devil28 November 2012 03:49
It is not so much about fluency in languages but more a matter of service attitude. In general, Malaysians do provide a better service experience to passengers. It is normal to ask the bus driver if the bus stops somewhere and it doesn't hold the bus up that long. More often than not PRC drivers just ignore you by outright refusing to communicate or waiving you away. Surely you have observed this if you have taken enough buses. If you talk about adding value to the company they definitely score lower than Malaysians in this particular aspect. The wage structure is certainly unfair to PRC drivers that are an exception to this norm. I sympathize with those drivers since there seems no way they can demonstrate they are better.

Yes, I totally agree with the principle that good service is important and if a member of staff provides good customer service, then s/he should be rewarded. Recently, I was paying for my sushi at Japan Centre when I dropped some money from my wallet. I must've held my wallet upside down and somehow the notes fell out. A female member of staff noticed it, rushed over, picked up the money and returned it to me. I thanked her profusely! I wrote to her manager, praising her for her honesty as such acts must not be ignored and should always be rewarded. I was kinda disappointed that the sushi shop's manager never got back to me, least s/he could've done was reply to my email with, "Dear sir, thank you for your email, I am very pleased our staff was able to make your day blah blah blah etc".

So by all means, create a system to REWARD good bus drivers who give a better service experience to passengers. Yes, I am all for that. But to assume, Malaysians = good, PRC = bad ... that's wrong on two levels. Firstly, the Malaysians will think, hahaha I don't even need to make any effort at all, the Singaporeans will always assume that I will be this wonderful driver on the basis of my nationality. Secondly, the PRCs will think, shit they're going to assume I'm going to be rude and nasty, so why even bother to try to be nice and polite? Who loses out in the end? The passengers - because neither PRC nor Malaysian drivers have any incentive to try harder. This is why it is SMRT's fault - they have removed any incentive to try harder, so no one will bother trying harder. I have actually encountered some very good service on the public transport system whilst travelling around China - so it's not like PRCs are somehow all incapable of delivering good service. Rather, the onus is on the management to get the best out of their employees and find effective ways to make them perform well by rewarding good performance.

It's like how the last US elections were so divisive - blacks and gays will almost certainly always vote Obama and never Romney; so as a result the Democrats think, "we already have the black and gay vote, we don't need to focus on them and try to please them on their issues." The Republicans think, "we will never win the black and gay vote, so we don't need to bother trying to woo them." Who loses out in the end? The blacks and gays - because neither of the main parties are interested in their issues. Hence the outcome depended heavily on the Latino vote because they were the ones who were more undecided and they had their issues addressed.

Part of the reason why PRC drivers do not give good service is because of the way the system is structured - can you see the chicken & the egg catch-22 situation happening here? If you do not give the driver any incentive to be polite or learn English, why would they bother? It is almost as if they want to make sure PRC drivers keep on delivering a second-rate service, so they can justify paying them less, thus depressing overall wages at the expense of customer service. What are their priorities? Do they care about the commuters who depend on public transport? Do the management of SMRT use their own buses, or do they drive beautiful, expensive cars? Do they care if the customer service experience is poor, when they are in their BMWs, Audis and Volvos? Would they ever be on the bus in the clip below? (That is just such an incredible story - 2 hours?!?! WTF?! Freaking unreal!) 

On the issue of giving directions to passengers, if a passenger asks a driver, "do you stop at Suntec City?" or "do you go down Bras Basah Road?" - simple question with YES/NO answers, then fair enough . I am talking about the bodoh sotong people who try to get long winded directions from the bus driver whilst holding up an entire crowded bus - and I'm like, eh hello auntie, can you not see you're holding up the entire busful of people here alamak? There are so many people at the bus stop, couldn't you have asked one of them? Why did you have to ask the bus driver of all people? Thus in cases like that, I think it's 100% correct that the PRC bus driver refuses to engage them at any level to minimize disruption to the bus service. Besides, how totally salah do you have to be to approach a foreign bus driver for directions in Singapore? Aren't you much better off asking a local for directions?

Hence in conclusion, yes there are obvious problems with PRC drivers operating in Singapore pertaining to the quality of their service, but the issue that we need to deal with is the fact that the drivers are given no incentive to improve their performance. This wage differential is all stick and no carrot, it is not a good deal for the drivers nor does it do anything to improve the service experience for the passengers. By that token, it is wrong to place the blame on the striking drivers and SMRT should be forced to re-examine their wage policy and deliver a better system - not just for the SMRT employees but also for the passengers, for it is only by rewarding good drivers that you can improve overall customer satisfaction. Heck, SMRT has hardly had a good record so far, it is high time they took a long hard look at themselves (and their poor performance) and make some changes for the better. 

Remember this from December 2011?

So, my readers, over to you. What do you think? What have been your experiences on the SMRT network?   Have you had positive or negative experiences with PRC bus drivers? What should be done? How should the strike be resolved? Please, leave a comment below, thank you.

PS. Whilst there have been so many blog posts on the PRC strike saga, my favourite is here and I do encourage you to read it too.