Written Moderately by John Irvin                           No. 16                                                  July 1, 1998

Quality and Service in Thailand
Part 1

        In my last newsletter, I promised to talk about consumer issues in Thailand. What is it like being a consumer in Thailand? Can you get the same quality as in western countries? And what about the service? How do Thai sellers take care of their customers? What kind of standards are there for consumer protection? If you’re from the west and you come to Thailand you will find the rules are very different here.

How good are Thai products? The overall reputation for quality of Thai products is not as high as that of western produced goods, although many products, such as my VCR, are actually a good value if you are searching for something basic that works, and you are on a budget.

When I go shopping, Thai people sometimes advise me to buy foreign products, because they think they will perform better and last longer than their Thai counterparts. They know that the Thai brands of many things may be inferior in the choice of materials, the quality control, and whatever else goes into making a good TV or a good sponge mop. The current "Thai help Thai" campaign is trying to discourage this, and get people to buy Thai made products, but their appeal is based on patriotism, not quality.

But quality also affects public services, such as food inspection, health codes, public facilities, and the entire infrastructure of the country. Safety and reliability depend on establishing standards in these areas and following them.

Several factors can affect quality negatively. Manufacturers may want a lower retail price. They realize that many Thai consumers don’t have a lot of money to spend on products, so sacrificing quality is a trade off that will make their goods affordable to more people.

Also, key people may not take their responsibility to quality too seriously. In Thai culture, there is a casual attitude toward many things, from keeping appointments and being on time to driving safety. People believe in fate, at least to the point that cause and effect are not seen as important as they are in the west. If your company is doing a practice that is unsafe, like using inferior products on materials for a bridge, or if food is not stored in a safe manner, don’t worry about it. If it’s time for an accident to happen, then it will happen. Don’t be negative.

And then there are the people who are deliberately bending the rules in order to get what they want, or to beat the competition. Unfortunately, in Thailand, this is so widely practiced, and so seldom challenged, that people are really used to it. People who bend the rules act as if they can do anything they want as long as they don’t get caught, or as long as they can pay off the people in power. Driver’s licenses can be bought, and sometimes entrance to schools can be bought, too. On a higher level, inspectors, police, and government officials can all be bought. There is no sense of the public interest, nor any sense of morality about cheating. It’s simply a matter of pragmatism: if you want something done, find the person who is the head of that department, and make a deal with them.

Bending of the rules can have a direct affect on quality and safety. This year, at a construction site in Bangkok, a beam fell off a roadway under construction, killing a taxi driver below. In Chiang Mai, at Wat Doi Suthep, a famous hilltop temple, a public tram had a brake failure, sending the entire system crashing down the hill, and three people were killed. Engineers had warned them to upgrade their safety system after an accident the year before, but they didn’t. Last year, in a resort city called Pattaya, there was a hotel fire which killed about 80 people, because the fire exits were all locked – the hotel later claimed that they wanted to prevent customers from leaving without paying their bills. These are extreme examples of what can happen when rules are broken, but results can be seen in everyday life as well.

In defense of Thai people, I have talked to many Thais who recognize the bad effects of these practices, but the problem is so pervasive there is little they can do to stop it. For one thing, people may feel they need to bend rules in order to keep up with all the other rule-benders. They may even find that it is required, as in the case of my friend who had to pay money to the police to sell T-shirts at the night bazaar. A lot of people may just see rule bending as something you have to do as a normal part of business. They see rules as negotiable, and if everybody around them, the police and the government, support that belief, then why shouldn’t they? Still, a lot of Thai people would like to see an end to this kind of behavior.

Nevertheless, changing the attitudes towards responsibility and getting people to see the importance of adhering to standards is not an easy job in Thailand. Efforts at reform will often be seen as a criticism of Thai culture itself, and the person who criticizes will be labeled a trouble-maker.

This defense of the status quo is a matter of national pride, and is deeply rooted in Thai culture. Thailand is a Buddhist country, and, this has a conservative effect on making social change. Activism would have to be non-confrontational. And while Buddhism emphasizes an individual path to self-betterment, concerning yourself with what your neighbors – and the society around you – are doing is not encouraged. In other words, you should have better things to do than to find fault with other people, even if they are behaving very badly.

Thais are famous for this last point, even among other Asian cultures. One of the most common themes you hear when you come to Thailand, besides "Mai pen rai," is "Thai people don’t complain." Somebody is making noise outside your house? Mai pen rai, Thai people don’t complain. Somebody is taking money off the top at your job? Thai people don’t complain. They didn’t cook your food the way you asked? Thai people don’t complain. And Thai people traditionally have looked the other way, while people throw garbage in their fields and rivers, while politicians and business people do dishonest things. It’s tolerance taken to an extreme.

As a result of this belief system, the person who complains is looked down upon. Complaining is seen as showing emotion, a negative in the eyes of Thai people. The entire relationship between consumers and business, or between citizens and government, is ruled by a system of hierarchy, in which the consumers, or citizens, are expected to show respect for their elders, the businesses or government. This makes it difficult to correct problems, even when everybody sees that something is wrong.

Thai consumers, and the public at large, have been paying the price for this lack of honesty and quality. People are able to break laws, cut corners, sacrifice safety and quality to save money, and they aren’t held accountable for their actions. People are afraid to speak out, because they have been trained not to concern themselves with criticizing others. But no complaining means no improvement, and abuses mount up. Accidents happen, people get hurt, people suffer from bad merchandise, the entire economy sinks like the Titanic. This is the present state of quality and service in Thailand. Maybe, with the bad economic times, there will be some changes, but I think it will happen very slowly.
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Next Issue: More about Service and Competition in Thailand.

© Copyright 1998, John Irvin

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