Fruit Zone 果汁特區

Update Dec 20, 2011: This restaurant is now closed.

Are you having an exceptional good day? Is your mood at its highest? Or you just plain have nothing else to do? Well I have somewhere for you to bring it down!

This is my first actual post focusing on Customer Service. Now as bad as some places I’ve been to, the level of ‘bad’ customer service doesn’t compare to this particular WOMAN at this place here. Fruit Zone 果汁特區 is located at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, at the 1st level where the supermarket is. It’s right at the entrance to the market you can’t miss it.

Now the first time my mom and I visited this place, there was another older lady that was EXTREMELY friendly and kind. They have a promotion where when you buy something from the supermarket, with the receipt you can get a drink for $2. We got juice from her and she even gave us the last little bit left in the blender in a separate cup so as to not waste it.

The 2nd time, my mom went there herself. She was served by this person here. Here’s her experience with her:

“She was hovered over the table typing on her cellphone. When I approached she did not say ONE WORD to me. When she went to make my order she walked really really slowly, as if I was bothering her by ordering something. She was REALLY REALLY SLOW. When I paid she did not say ‘thank you’ or come again or anything like that. There was no eye contact, no smiles.”

I went with her a 3rd time. This time, they had a box out with those stamp cards where after you collect a certain number of stamps you get a free drink.

When we went to the counter, my mom took one and placed it on the table. Then presented our receipt to her when we ordered. This girl didn’t look at us. Took the stamp card from the counter, and dropped it from the air back into the original box it was from. Then she looked at us, held out 4 fingers, and said “4 dollars.” We looked at her. My mom asked “So we don’t get stamps?”. She shook her head, and repeated “4 dollars.”

That was infuriating enough for me. I said out loud to my mom “That was rude! She could’ve just told us that ‘Sorry but we don’t give out stamps when it’s with the promotion’ instead of just taking the card and putting it back so rudely and offensively and not telling us anything.”

My mom then said to me “Oh you better stop talking, or she might put something in our drink.” So I went over to the side to supervise her. The whole time she had a disgusted look on her face, again as if we’ve bothered or inconvenienced her.

When she’s finished, she just placed the drinks on the counter and went back to the side with to play with her phone. Again, no “Thanks”, no nothing.

Now these pictures are from the 4th time I went. We didn’t buy anything from her this time. You can probably tell why. She was scratching her head the whole 10 minutes that I spent taking the pictures.

That’s right. 10 minutes. Scratching her head. At a FOOD SERVICE STALL. Now I know many other Asian places have workers that are less that pristine. However at least they don’t do it in public. This girl? She’s young, I assume she’s educated, you would think she knows better than to do this when she’s at a place that offers fresh food products to people. She’s trying REALLY hard to ward off annoying people known as CUSTOMERS.

And it wasn’t enough that she was scratching her head. Afterwards she’s flicking the stuff from her nails and fluffing her hair to rid it of the stuff, then I guess she got some on her black shirt ‘cuz she’ll be brushing them off her shirt. Then it was on with her ears. 10 minutes. I kid you not. That was enough to gross us out from this place forever. So I guess she wins in the end~ We won’t be bothering her anymore!

However, I do urge you to go try it (haha!). After all, the product that this place offers is actually really good! We especially enjoy the Dragonfruit Juice. It’s only the person working there that ruins it. Maybe she only treats US that way, maybe she’s really not that gross at all! It is kind of amusing on hindsight actually.