To: Mueller Reformhaus Vital Shop Kontakt Industriestrasse 30 8604 Volketswil Tel. 044 947 50 50 Fax 044 947 50 55 Mr. Stefan Rot (044-947-5040) rot@reformhaus.ch
Please teach Chantal, your worker in Baden a little bit about customer service. I
saw a bread there today and it did not have a list of ingredients. I
asked her if it's soft. She said yes. My German is not good but I know
enough to communicate such basic things. She put it in the bag. I
touched the bag, not the bread, and the bread was very hard. I have
sensitive teeth. I told her I didn't want the bread and she gave me a
hard time and refused to take the bread back. I had not even left the
counter let alone the store. The bread was on the counter the whole
time. I had not touched the bread nor opened the bag so she absolutely
had no reason to give me a hard time or refuse to take the bread back
except possibilities like cultural cluelessness about what customer
service means and that returning an item is not a criminal matter
specially when it hasn't even left the sales counter.
Regards Reza Ganjavi <email>
PS—I
know I am wrong because I am a customer and customer is wrong by
default in this part of the world. Nevertheless, I am a very good,
regular customer and buy a lot of stuff there regularly and enjoy the
good service of other workers there.
========================================================
Love is an amazing thing -- it transcends all limits as we know them,
e.g. telephone line, physical distance. She could not say where she was
other than it was in the mid-west. Erika - black. Love turns the world
upside down - like an instant head-stand. It had nothing to do with
sexuality. It was the power of understanding and affection in the
little words exchanged -- it is true that it is friday and on monday
that joy is much less in many -- regardless, that joy of goodness was
the ruler of one's universe which got ignited with minimal words of kindness as in a small joke.
2 TIMES THE guy cut me off and didn’t let me ask my question
and tried to answer it w/o understanding it.
09/2006
Outsourcing Call Centers to India
: A tragedy for American businesses
Unquestionably, American customer service is top notch in
the world. More and more companies are outsourcing their call centers to India
because of cheap labor. I love India,
don’t get me wrong. And I love good Indians, I have many good Indian friends.
But I have had a terrible experience time and again with Indian call centers.
If a credit card is due on the 10th the Indians say, please pay it
on the 9th otherwise will be a late fee. But it’s due on the 10th,
why would I get a late fee if I pay it on the 9th? “everyone
else at my level would tell you the same thing”. It took a manager in Texas
to say, yes, no fee is assessed if paid by 4 pm
Eastern on the 10th.
This is just one of many examples of inaccurate information
given by Indian call centers. Let alone dealing with any issues and exceptions –
they approach issues with a total cultural flavor of, maybe, let’s try, I’ll
see if I can do it for you, etc., while the matter is not one of doing favors
or “playing party” like they say in Persian – it’s a black & white
technical procedural issue that either can or can not be done.
I am tired of being frustrated time and again (not always
though) when I talk w/ Indian customer support lines to the point of from now
on, as much as I hate doing that, I’d have to request to be transferred to the
US.
Often you ask, where are you, they say, we’re in Dallas
or etc., while they mean, their headquarters is there but they’re physically in
Mumbai or Delhi! !
By the way, trying to deal with the manager in Texas was not easy
either. Nothing against Texans, and I have many good Texan friends, but
one of the companies I regularly deal with has offices in several
states and the most difficult reps are the ones in Texas (based on my
experience). She tries to outsmart you but god is in the detail -- we
have not settled this yet - you said you will file a report but now you
say you will note the account - noting the account is passive isn't it?
It was like pulling teeth - but she finally said "I will make a report"
after dodging the issue (to pass the buck because noting the account is
much easier). I already wasted too much time - and my aim is to help
them imrpove their service.
2005
I believe one of the reasons USA is the world's strongest economy, and
will continue to be so, is directly related to the attitude towards
customer service. Europe in general, and some European countries in
particular are far far behind the US. Customer service is a factor
which has become an integral part of the American culture (more
discussion/evidence to come later) -- and conversly, in some European
culture, some which are even incredibly advance in arts for example,
customer service is a foreign word -- they like to say that they care
about customer service, but it is so foreign to the way
provider-consumer relationship is managed that it is a very
"un-natural" element and until management gives importance and invest
heavily in training and education of staff against their cultural
conditioning that "customer is wrong", these economies will continue to
lag behind those such as US which are light-years away.
I am not boasting about the US culture and examining the roots of the
customer-service related aspects of the culture is an interesting
discussion which has to be deferred for later.
================
funny thing is in US most customer service phone numbers are free but
not here: not only they're not free, they're more expensive than normal
phone calls.
================================================================================================================ If you think customer service
mentality is backwards in europe, try
the middle east. Most of it is due to lack of proper training and
inefficient, poorly defined, and poorly communicated processes. Dealing
with X ticket sales was more numbing than pulling teeth. Getting
on the flight today was a sour reminder of yesterday. The guys gives a
hard time for one piece of cabin luggage of appropriate size just to
argue. NO THANKS!
This is excellent customer service for
you: “That’s ok sir –
you can send it back. Whatever you don’t like we’ll redo it – we’ll
redo it 10
times if you want.” Cristal (restaurant waitress in the US).
It’s like this: a customer service culture either
exists or
doesn’t – well I guess gray matter can also apply on the basis of
pretence or
imitation. Its existence is centered around the notion that customer
matters,
and the intelligence that it is less costly to keep an existing
customer than
to acquire a new one.
Pesto tasted like fish. Obviously it
was cooked in a dish after cooking fish or it had fish oil or
something. They took it away - no problem. Brough another dish, and
charged for both and then threatened to call the police if the customer
contested the bill.
================================================================================================================ Customer Service 101:
if you want to transfer a customer to a voice mail, tell the
customer so, instead of saying "just a moment", and boom, human
contact is ended!
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