To be honest I am really frustrated with sp setia today. I got the sms in the morning like everyone else. Rushed to semenyih, queued, gave the cheque and got my number. Later after waiting for a few hours I was given a barcode to evidence my registration. Later they told me I have to stay around under the tent until tonight, even though the unit selection is only tomorrow morning. So between now and tomorrow morning I will be doing exactly nothing, and waiting like an idiot in sp setia sales gallery. Better still, to ensure that the buyers don't leave the place (whom by the way have already paid 20k and left a copy of their IC), sp setia will be doing a "spot check" (like taking the attendance in school) and those who are caught (yes caught..) not around will be punished and have their numbers taken away and given to other people.

When I asked the rationale behind this strange requirement, I was given the following explanations by the sp setia staff, all looking confused themselves and not able to explain properly. The explanations given were

1. To show late comers who missed out on the unit that there are "lots of people here already in the tent". So if those trouble makers complain, sp setia can conveniently prove to everyone that there are real people queuing since morning

2. To stop trouble makers from taking other people`s unit. If you don't stay the whole night, then other people can come and "take" your unit (which doesn't make any sense. You already have my IC, you already have my registration number. How can other people "take"my unit? )

3. To see who can "persevere" the most. Which means if you really want the unit you must stay until tonight (and do whatever sp setia tells you, even though it doesn't make any sense)

Here are the problems I have with sp setia about this process

1. I don't know which of the above explanations are correct, but they all are given by the staff wearing sp setia uniform. The inconsistency of information combined with the fact that none of the explanation makes sense is completely frustrating. Having said that I have to say that they are all very patient and polite.

2. Why on earth, must you force genuine buyers who have already paid their deposit and received their bar codes, to stay until the night and do regular "spot checks" like we are children. Is this completely necessary? Or a complete waste of time? Is it not enough for you ask them to come again tomorrow morning to choose the unit?

3. If explanation 3 given to me above was correct (which I really hope it's not), why must you request that your loyal buyers demonstrate "perseverance". Strictly from a business perspective, is this completely necessary? Or must you test your loyal customers like how a kung fu master would do to his students?

In conclusion I find this whole process completely unprofessional, unnecessary, inadequately explained and poorly executed. I had expected more from sp setia. The whole thing has been a complete laughing stock, and excruciatingly embarrassing for the management.

"Attendance check" starting now at 630. I really don't know what's going to happen to those buyers who queued in the morning but not here. If sps gives their numbers to other people, a lot will be upset. I would

Ok they are announcing

1. One person can only "tick attendance" for two people.

2. If you are not here to tick your attendance, you are given one hour to come here. Failing after that you will lose your unit

3. Tomorrow at 730am queue again. If you are not here tomorrow to tick your attendance, you lose your unit

The announcer keeps saying they are doing this based on their "rules and regulations". No explanation is given why the rules are so punitive for the genuine buyers

So in conclusion not only the buyers are required to queue to secure a unit, they are expected to standby like school children

There she said it again. "Don't break the rules"

This is horrible. Good luck everyone. I am definitely raising a formal complaint after the whole thing is finished

Yes they are. Come back now

Just now somebody asked the SPS big boss in charge of today's event why need to "check" attendance until late at night. His answer:

"Because we want to see who desperate enough to buy our properties. This is because we want the buyers to be real home stayers, not speculators. If the person is buying to stay he must be desperate, so he will stay for attendance. If he's speculator then he will not be too desperate, so he will not come when we take attendance"

So there you go, it's official. I am not sure I agree with what he said but this was what he told everyone. To be honest I don't think they have thought about carefully about this

Ok now that the dusts have settled, I am going to make some assessments on how I thought the eco hills launch process had been conducted. The reason I am writing this is because I hope spsetia will read this and improve themselves next round

To be honest there was a mixture of good and bad things that I noticed about the overall strategy and execution of the property launch process

The good things

1. Instant sms broadcast - Even though many people were unhappy because the launch sms only came out early in the morning, as far as the queuing system is concerned I thought this was a good idea. If sps had announced the date one week earlier many people would have been queuing and camping for a week, which I think is unhealthy. So rather than who "queue the longest", this system favored who "queue the fastest". Rightly or wrongly this system is quite useful to stop people from wasting their time camping for days in front of the sale office.

2. The queuing numbering system - this was a fantastic idea because buyers got to choose their house based on their queue numbers. This added order and structure to the whole process. Not only that they also used the barcode system to scan which house people bought and this information got reflected on the screen. I thought that was quite impressive because the buyers were able to tell which house was available and which was taken

3. Availability of show houses - I think sps did a fantastic job completing the show houses before the launch date. This provided the buyers with opportunities to check what they would be choosing. Not many other property launches were able to do this for their customers

4. Customer treatment - overall the staff were very polite and patient despite the tremendous pressure placed on them. They gave me the impression of a group of people who are very well trained and oriented in customer service culture. Also decent food and drinks were provided which made the whole process a bit more pleasant.

The bad things

1. The "attendance checking" system conducted at night was completely pointless and in my humble opinion, did not serve any useful purpose. Please see my previous comments for some background about this system, where buyers who have already paid their deposit and secured the barcode registration forms were forced to stay until night for no real good reason. Basically the purpose of this process (as was explained by one of the sps staff) was to ensure that only "genuine home buyers" get the house, rather than speculators. This is based on the very strange assumption that only real home buyers were "desperate enough" to stay until night, and automatically assumes that speculators were not "that desperate". In a way, it was meant as a filtering system to deter speculators.

I am going to take some time to explain carefully why I think the above assumption was completely flawed. Because I think it is very important for sps to avoid doing the same mistake in the future. In the end it's a very bad strategy to waste your customers time for no good reason, even though you want to see how "desperate" they are. There were genuine buyers with kids and babies to pick up from nursery, and unlike many rich speculators these people usually don't have any drivers to run their chores.

If you take a group of home purchasers and allocate them into two groups, let's say "real home buyers" and "speculators", in my opinion there are "desperate" people in both groups. There are people who are desperate to buy a house to live. There are also people who are desperate to speculate in a property to profit. So if you look at the end result of yesterday's exercise, I think sps had only been successful at getting more desperate buyers than usual, both speculators and home stayers alike. But sps original aim of weeding out speculators through the attendance checking system in my opinion.did not really work. Because I am still convinced that many people who bought the houses yesterday, despite them telling you that they were buying to stay, were actually investors. Call it experience but I know investors when I see one, and there were many investors yesterday.

2. Communication - Despite sps frequent announcements during the day, the entire reason behind the attendance checking process was not explained properly. Also I felt that many staff were not sure themselves, they kept saying that it's "rules and regulations". Sps has to realise that talking very often and communicating properly are not the same thing. The MC kept making reference to "this is our rules and regulations" without making any attempt to explain why the rules were designed as such. Also when asked why we had to wait until night to tick our attendance, we were told that "it is to make your queue shorter" or some other strange reasons that were completely irrelevant to the questions being asked. What the MC should have said was "we want you to wait until night because we want to see how desperate you are. And also because we believe that desperate people are real home buyers. We don't think speculators are that desperate". It's not that difficult to explain. Many people may not like it if you had announced it like that, but at least it's consistent with what your staff had told us that night.

3. Timing - Even though I had no problem taking a time off on a Friday, I felt that many genuine buyers who really wanted to buy a house were not able to take a time off with such a short notice. In my opinion conducting the sale on a week day favors those people who have flexible working hours (ie businessmen, self employed etc) and disadvantaged some office workers, teachers, nurses and professionals who are typically not able to take a leave on a short notice. Also I heard some Muslims buyers complained that doing the launch on a Friday means that taking part in the launch is challenging because they had to choose between waiting for the barcode or conducting their Friday prayers. In the end it is sps right to choose the launch date as they please. But I just can't help thinking that Saturday is probably better for everyone since more real workers can participate, not just businessmen or people with flexible working hours.

So these are my thoughts. I hope somebody from sps reads this. If you ask me, am I not happy enough that at least I got a unit? The answer is, of course I am happy. The development is good, the price is right and the potential is tremendous. But this doesn't mean that sps cannot conduct the process better in the future. Also if they choose to improve some of the things I said above, at least future buyers don't have to suffer in "desperation" for the next launch. So there you go. Look forward to hear other people's thoughts