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There seem more consultants here by the day, all spouting rubbish. House rents won't fall, construction will pick up next week, and so on, mouthpieces of interested parties trying to create spin. Here's one in Arabianbusiness.com. At least he hits the two main points: banking services in this country are shameful (the industry as a whole), and most other bad service is from store staff whom I usually find very friendly and trying so hard to be helpful but are so often badly undertrained, and this is endemic (and who says only in Dubai?).

Complaining in a polite but insistent way IS necessary, to encourage improvements, Yes, we do have our whiners, it's true, but whenever you raise a protest you are branded a 'moaner'. In fact it has echoes of worrying about unrestricted immigration back in the UK (since the 1960's), you're shouted down as 'racist' if you dare to even ask the question.

What IS this creed of 'Shhh, keep quiet, don't cause a fuss'? Here's the article:


http://www.arabianbusiness.com/545652-d ... ail-expert
(quoted in full below)

QUOTE
Dubai breeds 'culture of complainers' - retail expert
by Soren Billing

Dubai has developed a culture of complainers, the managing director of the UAE’s largest customer service consultancy has said.

“I think the UAE, and Dubai in particular, has developed its own culture of complainers,” Robert Keay of Ethos Consultancy in Dubai said.

“I honestly believe that many people complain about something and nothing in many instances. (Speedhump says :'whaaa??')

“I have lived here for almost seven years now and I have gotten used to people complaining for the sake of complaining. It’s almost a malaise.”

Customer service in the region’s retail sector is often patchy but is by no means worse than in other developing economies, he said.

“If you take it in context, I actually think that for an emerging country, the customer service delivered by many organisations is pretty good compared to the West,” he said.

Gulf expats who say service is better in their home countries often have a short memory, Keay claimed.

When the customer experience falls short of the mark it is usually because Gulf retailers hire inexperienced staff and provide them with inadequate training, he added.

Ethos Consultancy provides companies with mystery shoppers to help them rate staff and has seen a 30 to 40 percent increase in its order book for this year. Demand has been particularly strong from the retail, banking and government sectors.

“Someone said to me the other day that we must be the only company in Dubai still recruiting,” Keay said.

Still, many clients fail to implement the findings of the company’s studies, choosing instead to leave them with their research departments.

Keay said it is hard to make generalizations about customer service in any given sector.

“We’ve been benchmarking the retail banking sector for four years now and generally speaking we have seen service dip in that four year period.
But we’ve seen half a dozen banks improve their services,” he said.
UNQUOTE