I was out with my daughter last week shopping at the largest retail home-furnishings store in the Kingdom. A large two-storied massive outlet for home and kitchen furnishings and appliances, the place had an adequate work force of sales assistants, of which most are young Saudis.

While I sat in the coffee shop tending to my daughter’s young infant, she went about her business only to return a short time later looking extremely perturbed. It seems that the service afforded by some of these sales assistants was very lacking.

Describing her short ordeal, she told me how offended she got when, in the process of waiting for a sales assistant to attend to her needs, he chose that exact moment to answer his ringing mobile phone and carry on a conversation on some football player, apparently expecting her to wait while he concluded his very important call. She left abruptly.

Further down the furniture hall, after asking for directions for a specific item, another young Saudi nonchalantly waved his hand in a direction without looking up, busily engrossed in a tabloid. Apparently he wanted to catch up on the daily news. Fed up with this callous lack of customer service, she decided to cease her shopping activities and meet up with me.

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EAVING her with her son, I decided to do some checking on my own. There were plenty of sales assistants, but from what I observed, assistance was the last thing on their mind. In one corner, I noticed four of these kids chatting away as customers wandered haplessly looking for help. Further down, two of these young men were seated on a display couch busily engrossed in some idle chatter. It didn’t faze them one bit when I paused momentarily to stare at them. They ignored my presence as they had apparently done that of others.

The lack of supervision was very evident and I can honestly state that with a few exceptions, most of the service being provided was by expatriates with African and Asian backgrounds. Even as the place filled up with early shoppers following the evening prayers, I noticed no real attempt on the part of most of the young Saudi salesmen to be more accommodating to their customers. As a matter of fact, the opposite seemed to hold true. The increased number of queries that came their way from customers appeared to increase their annoyance at being disturbed.

Now I recollect the time this store opened its branch in Jeddah some 20 years ago. Primarily staffed by Eritrean, Somali, Indian and a sprinkling of Filipino and Sudanese sales personnel, it was the epitome of good customer service. Considering that most of their furniture came in flat-packed cartons that needed assembly once delivered to the home, those sales personnel were very patient and forthcoming with customer concerns. They were helpful in guiding their clients through the maze of this giant superstore of furnishings and often would leave their individual stations to guide their customers to their requirements.

So what has happened since then? In the name of Saudization, the store management has failed to make the grade and will lose customers fast if the present trend continues. Thanks to new and competitive entries in this market, the store will find its patrons moving somewhere else with their business.

Are the Saudi sales assistants to blame? While they should share some of the “honors,” I believe it is in the recruiting and training process that the management of this store has failed. Employing any Saudi for the sake of Saudization or padding up the numbers to appease the Ministry of Labor doesn’t make sense. Admittedly, while there is no skilled Saudi labor force in the service industry, focus on effective selection and the proper training of their fresh Saudi work force is lacking.

Most new recruits have never worked anywhere else and thus possess no previously acquired professional work habits. By leaving them out on the floor to face their clients without proper supervision and guidance is a sure recipe for failure in the process of Saudization.

Although there are other service sectors that have ably demonstrated successful Saudization such as the McDonalds or Starbucks outlets, the majority seem content to allow such untrained staff to get away with it.

Unlike the government sector, private enterprises have a variety of tools to enforce discipline.

But yet, from my personal observation, very little of such coercion is evident.