The menu boasts something different every day. Nasi lemak, mee goreng and mee siam are just some of the choices, and they come with an assortment of Malay kueh and hot coffee, tea or Milo.
The free breakfast helps make the wait a tad more palatable. The firm introduced this at its Ubi centre in 2006 as it gets very crowded in the morning with about 80 customers between 7.30am and 10am.
Its efforts to make customers comfortable helped it emerge tops among motor vehicle retailers in a national customer satisfaction survey conducted by the Institute of Service Excellence at the Singapore Management University.
A total of 1,250 people who had been to motor vehicle retailers last year gave feedback on areas such as customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and perceived service quality.
Dr Marcus Lee, the institute's academic director, said that Tan Chong Motor experienced the largest increase in loyalty and largest decrease in complaints in its category last year compared with 2007.
'Our aim is not to let any customer walk off dissatisfied,' said customer relations manager Pamela Koh.
Other than offering customers breakfast, and a foot massage chair at each centre in Ubi, Jurong, Toa Payoh and Bukit Timah, the firm holds training sessions to improve service.
IT manager Darrell Hixon, 40, who was looking for a car at the Ubi centre, said: 'I didn't feel like I was under pressure. There's nothing worse than someone breathing down your neck when you're trying to make a decision. Instead, the staff came over once in a while to check that I was okay, and that was great.'
Three years ago, the company sent all its 400 employees, even drivers and cleaners, for training to foster teamwork and a customer-oriented mindset.
Sales consultants are also trained not to forsake their customers after clinching deals, because surveys have shown that customers value follow-up service highly, said Ms Chan Wai Leng, a senior manager from the marketing department.
The consultants are expected to keep in touch with customers for six months after they have bought vehicles.
Tan Chong Motor has also cut waiting time at its Ubi service centre from 15 minutes in January to 10 minutes now.
This was done by roping in quality control officers - whose duties include checking that maintenance and repair jobs are done well - to attend to customers whose cars need repair or maintenance.
The company also draws up action plans to identify the causes behind customers' complaints, and to resolve them.
Service department general manager Boo Boo Seng said: 'Many companies fail to follow existing procedures consistently. If they do that (follow them) and continuously improve, they can achieve excellence.'
