Thursday, July 19, 2012

Swiss Customer Service Strikes Again


The Frau gets up early these days. Not out of choice, but because Baby M likes to get up at 5:30 a.m.

But since the Frau gets up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturdays, Sundays, and well, every day now, she gets a lot done. Especially on Saturdays.

She shops at Migros before the store becomes ripe for Migros Moments.

She stands helpless outside her building at 6:30 a.m. with her not-so-neatly-tied stack of paper to recycle lamenting that the paper truck has already made its round before the standard 7 a.m. and now she’ll be stuck with said paper for another six weeks.

And she gets reprimanded by cashiers at Interdiscount for returning a broken product that was purchased that way.

Yippee. 

The Frau needs a drink after last weekend
The Frau loves starting her weekend with a good-old fashioned scolding. Especially when she’s done nothing wrong except to buy a broken fan in a sealed box that didn’t allow her to see its sorry status the previous Saturday.

Naturally, the Frau discovered the broken fan when she opened the box. She didn’t even have to open the plastic it was wrapped in to see it was a lost cause. That’s how broken this broken fan was.

“The policy, you stupid no-for-good customer, is that you are supposed to return it the following day,” lectured the Interdiscount cashier. 

The Frau was not witty enough in Swiss German to make a comeback like, “Oh yeah? Well how was I supposed to do that since you’re closed on Sunday?” Or “Oh yeah, I wasn’t inconvenienced at all by having to drag this broken fan back to your store for another one along with an 8-month-old baby and a backache. Sorry I'm a week behind. But it’s clearly all for pleasure that I’m back here again.”

Anyway, finally, after several minutes of blaming the Frau for being stupid enough to purchase something at Interdiscount, the Interdiscount employee gave the Frau a replacement fan.

But it didn’t help the Frau that this one functions. Because she’s still boiling over the experience.

Have you had a bad (or good) customer service experience in Switzerland? Please share.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

We recently returned a too-small men's dress shirt to H&M after W tried it on once, washed it, and stashed it in a suitcase for a week. The employee scolded us a bit because the inner elbows were creased but ultimately refunded us after warning that next time the item must be in better condition. I was skeptical of them taking it back at all, so this was a success!

Hattie said...

Too bad you're not rich. That's how to get good service in Switzerland.

Carmela said...

Haha, love the customer service in Switzerland. They are so behind the times with that and internet shopping. It's one thing I certainly won't miss!

Bea said...

I've yet to encounter a bad customer service experience here in ZH. Having said that, I've only been in town for a month, so we'll see what comes up down the road.
When compared to customer service in London, where I recently moved from, I have to say that this place, so far, does all right by me.

Chantal said...

The Frau had great (note the sarcasm) customer service run-in yesterday at Manor. They were having a sale, buy one, get one free. So the Frau bought one, but didn't get one free. When she told the cashier (yay for the Frau's German, which for once didn't let her down!) the cashier said she was wrong, that the 2 for 1 was only when this particular product was in duo-packs! But this was not mentioned anywhere except in the mailed advertisement, which the cashier proceeded to show the Frau, like the Frau made a practice of memorizing ads she never received!

However, The Frau would not give up and told this cashier that there were no duo-packs on the shelf. Finally, after this cashier talked with another cashier, the Frau was eventually refunded her money. But probably only to get rid of her, since at this point, Baby M had gotten into the discussion too with a few great screams!

Oh Switzerland, you really know how to make the Frau's day. But at least in the end, Manor had the decency to say, "We're sorry, here's your money back!" That was a real win win for this country!

Pat said...

Oh yes, there are so many times when I miss the Windy City in the "flyover zone" where the customer is always treated like a priceless commodity!

Unknown said...

I'm still waiting for the day that an acd automatic call distribution will be available as application for mobile phones. Imagine how convenient that would be for cellphone users. As a matter of fact, they can even use it if they're planning to operate their own private business.

Linda Sanders said...

Good customer service should be on top of their main priorities especially if they want customers to patronize their products.

Anonymous said...

Customer service is one of the main facts that help a business to grow. Striking in customer service will effect on the growth of the economy. To reduce these type of strikes companies should thoroughly check the career objective on customer service resumes when hiring.

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