I refer to last Sunday's article, 'Foreign service staff as good as locals: Poll', and would like to recount two recent encounters.

My refrigerator had broken down so I went to Parkway Parade to shop for a new one. My first stop - the Best Denki branch there.

I went to the refrigerator section. There were three or four Singaporean sales staff present, enjoying a good chat. None approached me to offer assistance.

After I had zoomed in on a few models, I approached a salesgirl, and asked for more product details - such as which brand or model would save the most electricity - and her recommendations.

Her reply: 'Oh, all models are the same lah, all the models nowadays are energy-saving, it all depends on the dimensions.'

This was not the kind of information I needed. I asked if the store had a certain refrigerator model, what its total capacity was, as well as the capacity of the chilled and frozen sections.

Her reply: 'All here. They don't have such information. You see for yourself.'

At this point, I opened the fridge and there it was - a laminated piece of paper with information on all the models and their various capacities.

As I turned around to ask more questions, I found that the salesgirl had disappeared! I approached another sales person but his equally indifferent service finally drove me to do my shopping elsewhere.

I headed for the Harvey Norman store - also at Parkway Parade - and got an entirely different experience.

As I just entered the fridge section, I was greeted by friendly and smiling sales staff. One came up to assist me. From her accent, I could tell she was from China. Ms Jenny Yu Qing Juan could answer most of my questions, and made the effort to verify some facts with her colleagues when she was not sure.

I decided to buy my fridge from the store. As I was about to pay up, I realised that it was past the store's closing time, and the computer system had been shut down.

To my surprise, Ms Yu was still all smiles. She asked her colleague for help to restart the system for my transaction, and her colleague was equally obliging.

I must say that I was really impressed by Ms Yu and her colleague. Because of their better service, I gave my business to Harvey Norman.

Pauline Quek (Ms)

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 29 June 2008.