Word of mouth

Word of mouth can either make or break a business. I am posting this rant on behalf of my friend, Figo*, as part of my duty as a responsible Netizen.
"Is it me or has the service standard in S'pore gone south? Recently an ex-colleague put me in touch with someone he knows from Cafe Del Mar and who may be able to help with my wedding after-party. So the story goes that the Event Manager (EM) was cc-ed on the email who will be in touch with me. All's dandy and from the email, EM sounded excited with "Thanks again for your recommendations. Looking forward to hear from xx". I had sent out a separate email then to tell him of the requirements. A few days passed, no reply from EM albeit the misconstrued excitement signal from my end. I followed up with yet another email, still not even a beep - even after telling them we may be able to re-look at the budget. A few calls from me to his mobile left answered. After waiting for a couple of days, an email from another person came forwarding my enquiry to "Reservation"! Seriously, would it hurt for EM to just reply to me rather than just ignoring me & forwarding my query - and that to someone else and then to "Reservation". Does "Reservation" happen to have a name?! I know my budget probably seems pittance to them - but such arrogance! Are they so uninterested in future potential business? If our business seems so negligible to them, have the courtesy (or balls) to tell us nicely that they are not interested. Or even if you are not the contact person, SAY something. A one-liner that takes 3 sec of your time. And to think that they are in the service industry! What's wrong with these people?! What's with the superior mentality and at the wrong place/time taa. Boy - don't they know that word of mouth would go such a long way!"

* Not the footballer lah... pseudo name.