Foreign Perspectives

Customer service is one of those wooly concepts that few people really think about most of the time. OK, just about every place has a “customer service” department in some form but as far as most people are concerned, it’s where you go when you’ve some kind of problem. Change of address? Just see Customer Service? Want a refund? Customer Service deals with that.

At the other extreme you have the likes of First Direct where there doesn’t seem to be a “customer service” department as such because everyone you talk to considers that it’s their business to be serving you. In fact, in over 10 years of using them, I’ve only once or twice been referred to someone else and that’s been for a specialist thing like buying shares or whatever.

What we all forget though is that “customer service” isn’t something that the Customer Service department do. It’s done in part by everyone in the various companies that we deal with.

Except in France.

Here, the customer very definitely is considered an inconvenience to be tolerated. Not just in the dreadful companies either.

Consider Carrefour, one of the largest retailing company in the world. In France, it charges EUR 25 for a charge card that can only be used in its own stores. In Spain it offers a Visa card free of charge. Why? Simply because the French will tolerate such behaviour and the Spanish won’t.

Last year we ordered heating oil from them because they said on their adverts that we could pay by card. I even checked that when I called to order the oil. As it happened we were out the day that it was delivered so the delivery guy left a phone number for us to call to make the payment. We called them. Nope, we don’t do that, call this other number. Nope, we don’t do that, call this number instead. Turned out that was the number we had just called so they said a supervisor would call us back. A month later a reminder arrived to say we’d not paid so I faxed them with the card details. About two months later a further, slightly threatening letter arrived telling us to pay up or else. I posted a recorded delivery letter this time (businesses often ignore anything that isn’t recorded delivery in France). A week later, I got a call from a guy who wouldn’t take my card details for the payment but said that he’d get someone else to phone me back. No phone call but a month later we get a letter saying that our case had been passed on to the debt collectors and adding EUR 100 or so of charges. I faxed and posted yet another recorded delivery letter itemising the above saga and telling them to come and collect the money (legally businesses in France must accept cash). Finally, I got a call from the debt collection guy who admitted that in fact they don’t accept payment by card because the machines that they had issued to the delivery guys don’t work. So, in Carrefour the customer is definitely a nuisance to be passed on to someone else if at all possible.

Just two weeks ago I was in Santiago. We could have had breakfast in the place we were staying but instead thought that it would be nicer to have it in the town instead. As it happened we got a little lost on the way (and had a very pleasant tour of the town along the way) so were looking for something to eat around 11am. We had loads of choice and ended up in a nice little cafe just behind the cathedral. In France, we’d have had no choice at all: outside noon to 2pm restaurants simply won’t serve food. In fact this reaches the peak of absurdity in Perpignan airport where the restaurant is only open from noon to 2pm yet until quite recently there were no flights at that time ie no customers!

This nonsense extends to almost all areas of retailing. Whereas elsewhere most shops open during lunch to catch everyone else, here almost all shops lie closed.

Even three years down the line, it still confuses us. For instance, last year a couple came to us enquiring about us hosting their wedding reception. We gave them a few ideas for the meal but said that we could change that around to suit them, never thinking anything about that. Turns out that we were the only restaurant to offer them the chance to tailor the meal to suit them. In France, when you go to a restaurant asking about hosting your reception, the restaurant give you their wedding menu and that’s it: take it or leave it, you certainly can’t make any changes. How crazy is that?

At the end of last year we had someone from a French hotel staying with us. One comment that he made really struck us as symtomatic of the low level of customer service that is experienced throughout France: “This is France. You always greet guests in French”. Actually, no, you don’t: you should, of course, greet them in their own language where possible. At least it’s “of course” everywhere else in the world, just not in France.

Why is it like that here yet completely different in Spain? I think because the French just put up with it whereas the Spanish won’t.

So in France, customer service means telling the customers to clear off and come back sometime that it suits the employees.

Arnold