Customer reps can tell you not just the locations of stores, they can also give recommendations on restaurants, make reservations for your table and your movie or Onstage tickets, and tell you where to find good bargains.
"Think of services the hotel concierge provides guests," says Myrna Fernandez, senior division manager of Ayala Land’s Commercial Centers Group.
Ayala Land got a company that provides training for service-oriented personnel that "matched the standards of the mall." "It was a very meticulous training, down to the last detail like how they should talk and look," says Cathy Bengzon, division manager for marketing services. "We also have a customer service unit in our group that gives a lot of frontliner training and writes manuals. It’s not limited to the customer service booth, but also the guards and janitors – people that come in direct contact with our customers." Ayala Land has 10 customer-service reps at both Glorietta and Greenbelt, 225 security personnel, and 201 in janitorial service.
Myrna emphasizes that the reps are well educated, can handle difficult customers and process their requests. A tourist even once forgot which hotel he was staying at until a rep managed to deduce what hotel it was from the questions she asked of him. Some tourists even ask them to confirm their flights.
Apart from the concierge service, Ayala Land undertook a P30-million-plus renovation of its restrooms – 60 of them in Glorietta plus four pay lounges. They overhauled the restrooms and installed automatic fixtures, granite sinks, tiles and lighting. The public restrooms now look like the pay lounges. And the waiting time? Hardly any because each Glorietta – 1, 2, 3 and 4 – has restrooms on every floor.
To help the harried shoppers are the Glorietta and Greenbelt maps, which you can get at the concierge counters of the malls and at your hotel if you’re a tourist (or a local like me with no sense of direction). The malls also give packets to travel agencies with big groups coming in.
Cathy emphasizes, "We always go beyond the industry standard. We go beyond what your mall needs are."
Ayala Malls rewards their frontliners who do an excellent job. When I mention, for instance, that the guard at Greenbelt 3’s basement parking always welcomes you with such a cheerful smile, Myrna says, "That’s Guard Evarle. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about him. We recognize people like him to show others that he is the model that we want. We give them monthly awards, a little cash reward, sometimes the agency also gives its own incentive rewards."
Ayala Land calls it the Smile Award – frontliners who’ve been on their feet all day and still manage to be friendly and smile at customers.
For us shoppers, that’s all we need to love the mall. – Tanya T. Lara