The People: Charmaine aka Charm

Meet Charm!

Tell us about yourself, Charm

My name is Charmaine, but most people call me Charm. I've been working in the F&B industry for the past 5ish years - mainly in craft beer bars and independent restaurants. Shout out to BunkerBunker, Mono Izakaya, and In Bad Company!

What got you started in F&B and why?

My first introduction to the industry goes waaay back to when I was 16. I waitressed at a Japanese restaurant as well as a French restaurant...a polytechnic friend got me a job working at wedding banquets as well. Back then, I didn't consider the F&B industry to be particularly glamorous or exciting, but I enjoyed "taking care" of people and interacting with them - my friends have always considered me the Monica (from Friends) of the group. So it didn't matter whether I was taking care of my colleagues or the customers, it made me happy to be able to put a smile on someone's face (as cliche as it sounds).

Fast forward 10 years later, my friend, Keola (BunkerBunker), called me up asking "Eh Charm, I heard you're very free now..." (I had just graduated from University at that point in time). Turns out he was looking to open a craft beer bar and asked me if I wanted to be part of his team. Well, needless to say, I took him up on his offer and have been serving craft beers ever since. And that's pretty much what got me started in the F&B industry.

How did you deal with the pandemic?

I had just left BunkerBunker (BB) a few weeks before the first circuit breaker and joined Motley, the former resident kitchen at BB. During that time, operations had to cease, we couldn't organise events/parties, nor could we have pop-ups. Everything we had planned for went down the drain, so we had no other choice but to provide affordable lunch bowls and set meals for families. We ended up delivering the food ourselves to guarantee that the food would be served hot and it was the only form of interaction we could have with the customers. Shortly after the circuit breaker, Motley ceased its operations.

Struggling with no source of income and savings depleting, my partner Adam and I were given an opportunity to run a hawker stall...but here's the twist - we had 2 weeks to come up with a brand, menu, purchase kitchen equipment and setup for the opening day of the new coffeeshop. To be honest, this was the toughest period we ever had to go through not only as a new couple but also as amateur business owners who have never done this before. Despite the tight timeline, we did it! But not without blood, sweat and tears...sooo many tears lols. You would think with all that effort and hard work, it was gonna payoff, but it didn't. We shut down after 3 months due to reasons beyond our control. That whole experience was bittersweet for us because we really wanted to do something that we could call our own but obviously, not everything was meant to be.

Thank god for great friends like Caleb (Mono Izakaya), Tim and Elaine (In Bad Company) who took us in despite the circumstances, and we are forever grateful to them for that. Friendship is one of the reasons why we're still in the F&B industry today despite all the hardships that we've faced so far.

What's your take on the service standards in SG?

From my experiences in the industry, customer service can be a hit or a miss in Singapore. A lot of people believe that great customer service should be a norm in this industry, and that service staff should be providing a level of service that goes above and beyond what the customer expects. However, the expectations in Singapore can vary from customer to customer - some expect attentiveness, promotions and freebies, or food/drinks that are of value for money, while others just want a quick meal and will be satisfied with just that.

Sometimes, I'm met with customers who have unrealistic expectations and are not willing to compromise or negotiate at all when they feel that something is not up to their standards. (i.e. We do not provide physical menus as our drink menu changes every week, so we use an online menu system that customers are required to scan a QR code at the table to view the menu. We've encountered multiple customers demanding a physical menu, one even said "without it your business will fail".) Other times, I find that customers only care about the price and not about the quality of the food or service they receive. This can be very frustrating as a server because it seems like there's nothing I can do to make the customer happy, even if I go above and beyond what I normally do for them.

Personally, I don't think customer service in the F&B industry is particularly bad, it's just difficult to establish and maintain a standard of "good" customer service in an industry where customer expectations vary so greatly.

What's the biggest challenge in F&B for you?

The biggest challenge for me in this industry is pleasing everybody eye roll (refer to question to the previous question.) I have a problem...I need everybody to like me. The frustration of getting people to understand that we, service staff, are humans too. We are required to put on a smile and attend to every customer's wants and needs, as efficiently as we can, be it whether we're having a bad day/not feeling well, we still do the best we can...and when that's still not enough, it gets pretty disheartening.