A doctor who runs an aesthetic clinic in Singapore has lamented that it is becoming increasingly challenging to sustain a business in Singapore, citing factors including demanding customers and rising operating costs.
Dr Siew Tuck Wah, who owns Radium Medical Aesthetics in Suntec City, reached out to MS News on the difficulties he grapples with.
Source: Radium Medical Aesthetics
For the doctor, who has 18 years of experience in medicine, demanding customers are his biggest challenge as a business owner.
Dr Siew described Singapore customers as “difficult”, “fond of complaining” and “unreasonable”.
As a result, it’s “increasingly difficult to cater” to their demands, he said.
This is especially true when compared with those in Malaysia, he added.
For example, his staff have been shouted at, threatened, and called stupid, often “for no good reason”, Dr Siew said.
Worse still, a pregnant staff member of his suffered a miscarriage from “immense stress” after being screamed at by a customer.
Source: Creativa Images on Canva. Photo for illustration purposes only.
More customers are also using social platforms like Google Reviews to “threaten” businesses with one-sided stories containing untruths, he added.
They do this with the sole purpose of trying to bring businesses down, he felt.
Dr Siew cited a recent experience with such a customer in a Facebook post last Friday (6 Dec).
He said the woman had arrived early for her 2pm appointment at his clinic — a move that was “greatly appreciated”.
However, she “expected to be seen shortly after arriving”, the doctor added.
Later, she bumped into him in the corridor, as he was rushing between procedures, and expressed unhappiness.
He surmised that she may have expected him to see her immediately, but he was attending to another patient, he said, adding:
Just because someone sees me does not mean I have to drop everything to tend to them.
Dr Siew explained that on that day, he “badly required a break”, having not eaten lunch or even sat down.
To make matters worse, he was also experiencing severe pain in his neck and arms, as well as blurred vision and nausea.
In fact, he has been suffering from severe musculoskeletal pain brought on by a bout of Covid-19 in January. The condition requires him to take breaks in between seeing patients, just so he can continue working.
Source: Siew Tuck Wah on Facebook
The pain was especially bad that day — he couldn’t even lift his arms, he said.
However, when the customer was told that he needed a 15-minute break, she decided not to wait and left — something they “fully understand and respect”.
Subsequently, the customer gave the clinic a one-star review on Google, claiming she was told to wait due to the doctor’s “stomach issue”.
She also said that 30 minutes after her scheduled appointment timing, she was told to wait another 30 to 45 minutes for Dr Siew to return from lunch.
The clinic refuted this account, saying that while she did arrive early, she was informed of a delay as Dr Siew was still attending to another patient.
It also said she had spent about 15 minutes doing preparations like signing a consent form and taking photos.
She eventually left at about 2.20pm shortly after bumping into the doctor before he was going for a break, the clinic added.
Source: Siew Tuck Wah on Facebook
In his post, Dr Siew elaborated that all patients must undergo some preparation before treatment, e.g. signing of forms, counselling, photo-taking, and skin preparation, which would take 30 to 45 minutes.
The woman included this preparation time in her “wait” and misunderstood that the 30 to 45 minutes was for his lunch instead of the preparation time.
Thus, she allocated too little time for her appointment, he said.
Dr Siew compared the waiting time at a clinic to a plane delay, saying a “little hiccup” like a maintenance issue could cause “significant delays”.
Similarly, it’s difficult to predict how long an aesthetic procedure will take as “every patient is unique”. Unexpected circumstances may also occur, such as more bleeding than expected, which will lengthen the treatment time, he said.
He thus questioned why people are so much more forgiving towards plane delays than clinic delays, explaining:
If they were the patient in the operating chair requiring extra care, they would not want their doctor to rush as well.
Source: yacobchuk on Canva. Photo for illustration purposes only.
In the case of the customer who wrote the one-star review, the delay was for her own safety — if he had seen her immediately instead of taking a break, he would have been unable to perform any procedure on her safely or effectively.
Dr Siew concluded that his staff shouldn’t have told the customer that he was unwell or needed to eat:
I’ve come to learn that increasingly, empathy and compassion is lacking towards service staff in Singapore. It is sacrilegious that the Doctor needs a break, or have some food before attending to them.
He shared the story to MS News in the hope that Singaporeans can “show more kindness” to businesses, service staff, and one another.
Believing the intolerance is a “vicious cycle” that stems from the stressful environment, he said it makes for a “very unpleasant environment to live in”.
Another reason why running a business is challenging is rising operating costs, according to Dr Siew.
Source: Google Maps
He said that while staff salaries, staff, and cost of consumables are climbing, the pricing of his services has remained “very much the same”.
In fact, he faces pressure to lower his prices, considering laser treatments for as low as S$48 being advertised on social media.
But these are just trial prices, he added, and customers would usually be encouraged to spend much more at these establishments via “hard-sales tactics”.
Unfortunately, these practices have “significantly damaged” the industry and caused potential customers to question why his clinic charges so much more.
Also read: Seafood restaurant in Gillman Barracks appeals for help, says business has been ‘turbulent’
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Featured image adapted from Radium Medical Aesthetics and Google Maps.
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