The 2009 Smiling Report, conducted by two obscure Swedish organisations called Better Business and the International Mystery Shopping Alliance (IMSA), analyses how likely shop, hotel, and office staff are to smile at and greet customers or people they are required to deal with as part of their job. 66 countries were surveyed and 2.5 million probing questions were asked during 2008 and in the Smiling category Indonesia was found to lead the way with a whopping 98% Smiling Rate. The most miserable customer service staff were in Pakistan, with a hopeless 44% Smiling Rate.
On the Greeting front Indonesia again had a near perfect 98% score, but this time grudgingly having to share top spot with Hong Kong. The gruff customer service staff of Morocco were weakest with pleasantries, with only a 48% Greeting Rate.
However in a third category, “Add-on sales“, an
alyzing the rate at which sales assistants suggest additional products or services to customers, Indonesia couldn’t claim first place honours. Instead Pakistani shop staff made up for their woeful 1 in 2 lack of smileyness and took the
number one rank with an 82% rate of sugges
ting extras. The Finns, on 3%, were the least
imaginative in this area.
The Smile of Made Mangku Pastika, Governor of BAli
In general the Report found that worldwide smiling and greeting rates in shops and offices had been on the decline since 2004.
The industry where smiling was most common was Health & Beauty with 86% worldwide, greetings were most likely in government service departments (94%) while the Business to Business area was lowest for both categories, 52% and 70% respectively.
In Stockholm an Indonesian embassy representative, Dody Kusumonegoro, proudly informed Indonesian media of the Report recently, and noted that his hosts the Swedes ranked a lowly 24th for Smileyness.
our President, Susilo Bambang Yudoyono also does it
