Reference is made to the opinion of Daphne Caruana Galizia, How not to speak to people (TMID, 11 January), on the behaviour of most of the people working in shops and restaurants in Malta.

It must be pointed out that there are more reasons why these people are so impolite towards customers. Another problem is that the mentality of the owners of these businesses may not be so customer-focused.

It is true that many of these may lack some basic manners, however, it is also true that apart from serving customers, these people are employed to do many other things such as cleaning, stocking, pricing and God knows what not.

Therefore, to only put the blame on the lack of manners of the people working directly with customers is wrong and does not in any way help to solve this problem. When we really want to address these shortcomings and any other, we should analyse the causes more objectively and when we write or speak about any subject, we should be as objective as possible.

What is needed is a change of our mentality, we cannot continue to be Jacks of all trades and masters of none, and we need to have people specialising in their chosen areas.

The Maltese market may be too small for our businessmen to afford having people specialising in one job, however, especially in the services industry, you need to have at least a minimum of your staff whose job is just to serve customers.

However, it seems that no one cares about this behaviour and lack of real customer care.

Finally, I recently had a problem with my internet connection and I sent an email requesting a solution to my connection errors. This email was only replied to three weeks later. It would have been better had it been replied to rudely but promptly.

Arnold Galea

Birkirkara