No concept of repeat business

I completely agree with your post. I have never been to a place that has so little concept of tomorrow's business or building good will. The only way they will ever learn is to explain to the offending business why they will never see another stang of your money, and why none of your friends will be doing business with them again. I have had this experience with HomeMart. HomeMart will stand behind nothing they sell even if it is obviously defective. The manager seemed shocked that I would not only not shop there anymore but that I would, also, tell others not to shop there. Consider yourselves warned!

I must agree also--so many examples come to mind over living here for many months of each year for many years, it is lof little suprise that this country still has so many problems with the govt, education, the new airport, etc, but on the basic level of many local businesses, they simply do not very often understand about customer service.

On a larger scale, the new airport that was supposed to make tourists rush to Pattaya since it was so much closer--actually the ride is longer now due to the motorway being torn up and the work to complete it being done at a snail's pace. And then there are the too numerous problems with the new airport itself to even know where to start. Is there a road in Pattaya that is not under construction--for new pipes, widening, underground telephone lines (so they can keep the kickbacks coming), but makes it horrible for traffic even in the lowest of low seasons. The number of rennovation projects done over the years on the beach road has been amazing--just get something done and they rip it up and start again--trees in, then trees out--so much "beauty" now "decorates" the beach road, it is like an obstacle course to walk it.

With all the anti-foreign investment laws, visa difficulties, anti-farang ownership of propety/homes, etc and the destruction of the party resort reputation that Pattaya once had as they convinced themselves that Pattaya was going to become a family tourist destination as they is so much culture to visit in pattaya and so many clean beaches and oceans in which to swim--ahh--it's a mess, get out while you can.

why are you coming back to Thailand, just stay away if you are so unhappy with the situation, , I think both my friends in Thailand and many members on this board would be greatful. Well if I felt like you I would never come back.

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

they don't want your repeat business and who could blame them ?

hans, typical response of the thai lovers and belief, I guess, that thais are angels and thailand is paradise and can do no wrong--the "love it or leave it" attitude certainly is an intelligent one!

Lets not forget that we are dealing with a third world country. Many times we compare them to what we have at home and its not really fair to do that. I find that most thai business people go out of their way to try to please us. it just that they have a different view of how to do that. Ma pen rai. Is how they were raised and taught. We really make things much worse then they need to be. Arguing over 100 baht when one overstays the checkout time and then cancelling his already booked return just makes no sense. He was happy enough with the room to rebook it and then to make a scene for 100 baht. We must look like complete idiots to them.

[Impulse]

I think it extends to the working boys also.When I was a newbie to the scene,I went to Boystown and offed a straight guy.A few nights later I took back the same guy and he couldnt even come this time. Same with other offs,great the first night but declining afterwards. My stud from Euroboys was even getting lathargic until on my last night he looked like he needed baht for yaba and volunteered all my favorite positions instead of the usual work like Im positioning a mannequin in a store window. Rocket(who realises the importance of repeat business)

[thanatorn-old]

In a way I understand their way of thinking. The farang can be so fickle and full of lies that the businesses/ boys etc have to harden themselves to it and get what they can while they can. There are so many broken promises and liesas well as competition levels being pretty strong. So in case the client does find somewhere better at least they have had a portion. There are also cases however of "well we don't want this one bsck so lets get as much as we can and goodbye!"

Yes, luvthai, I recognize we are dealing with a third world country, but does that somehow make them immune to appropriate customer service. Too often Thai businesses and Thai govt policies тАЬcut off their noses, to spite their facesтАЭ.

I have been in other third world countries, much more poor than ThailandтАФLaos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the usual service I have received there is far superior to the typical customer service received in Thailand. It does not have to follow that simply because a nation is a third world country that they should not be expected to have any common sense in how to run their businessesтАФsince it really is common sense and common intelligence that should tell the govt and a business owner how to succeedтАФwhat are you saying??тАФthat the Thais have neither the common sense or intelligence to run a business??

I also do not think that WXтАЩs situation was about as much the 100 baht as it was that the guesthouse owner showed no common sense or intelligence in dealing with what was a good customer and in the process, lost that good customer because she tried greedily to squeeze out another 100 baht from the customer. And it did not appear that he was talking about doing repeat business with a lad a bar.

Read any newspaper or online service and you can read about all the foolish policies of the govt that are anti-tourist, anti-foreign investment that end up hurting the working middle class and working poor in the country. The govtтАЩs policies on bringing money into the country (30% held aside for a yearтАФbut this is now suspended for a while I understand, after so many complaints from major foreign investersтАФthe foreign chambers of commerce from many, many countries doing business here lodged a major complaint. The govtтАЩs recent lack of action on the baht/dollar cost many Thai jobs and businesses to fail.

Anywhere you look, you see this foolishnessтАФjust in yesterdayтАЩs Bkk Post, Database section there was an interesting coloumn called Open Thought and the columnist wrote that:

тАЬAnother example of Thailand's inability to grow up is around stock market information. Go to finance.yahoo.com and near real-time stock market information and historical information of every major stock market in the world is there for all too see. Every major stock market, that is, except the Stock Exchange of Thailand, which bans the publishing of historical data.
The "logic" to that is that stock market information is SET's intellectual property and that anyone else distributing it is infringing on it. Never mind the fact that every other country in the world takes a different approach and that this lack of transparency is hurting Thais more than foreign investment banks, which can afford the information.
Buying information for one's personal use is possible, but it is only for personal use and cannot be used for public discussion or analysis. Web sites that disseminate such information are routinely closed down.
On a slightly personal note, my own father's fan club site, which hosted day to day information, was taken down by the MICT cyberinspector.
If Yahoo is banned from hosting historical data and can still post day to day data, why is my father's fan site prohibited from doing the same? The point, however, is that all information should be made freely available.
A nice interview in the Bangkok Post's business section on 9th July explains why he has a fan club.
While it may sound silly, remember that the church of Scientology has used copyright law to silence all analysis of its teachings.
Of course, the MICT was only doing its job. Every stock market discussion board with information on historical data is obviously breaking the law, so they had to start somewhere. The point that his site only had day-to-day data and not historical data was obviously an innocent oversight by the staff, who saw all Thai stock market information on the site as something that needed to be censored.
What of his rights to teach the world about the intelligence of crowds in the stock market? A tad hard if stock market data itself is proprietary.
Time to grow up and move on. The web is changing our world. Either we adjust and evolve with it, or we become like the Soviet Union became - a footnote in history.

[Dboy]

Lets not forget that we are dealing with a third world country.

This is a comment I hear ALL the time. Thailand is not third world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ment_Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index)

Thailand ranks 74th (medium development) on the Human Development Index(HDI) . The low HDI countries can be considered "third world". The low
HDI countries appear to be all in Africa, with NONE ranked as low in the Far East. In the Far East, Solomon Islands ranks the lowest, Australia ranks the highest (or Japan, if you exclude Australia from Far East). The fact that Thailand HAS a stock exchange should be a clue. I've never heard anyone complain about getting historical data on the Mozambique stock market, an exchange that apparently doesn't even have a phone number: http://www.mbendi.co.za/orgs/dlep.htm



Dboy