Swiss customer service nostalgia

The Frau never thought she would miss Swiss customer service, but it has come to this, yodelers. 

Now. As some of you may know, The Frau used to complain about Swiss customer service. In particular, she complained about those charge-you-by-the-minute-for-the-pleasure-of resolving-the-issue-we-probably-caused customer service calls in Switzerland. And after being in the US for approximately 16 days, she wants –at least the toll phone portion– of Swiss customer service back.

She would pay any amount of franc-per-minute to have it. Because, interestingly enough, a Swiss toll call ends up being cheaper than an American toll-free call. Here is proof.

Swiss customer service toll call

The Frau calls SBB to resolve a train ticket issue. She must pay CHF .50 per minute between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to call the number. When she calls during those hours, someone answers right away. This is a real live person and they are located somewhere across the canton rather than across the world. For simplicity, The Frau imagines that they are in Canton Aargau. This person in Canton Aargau speaks five languages, including English. He may not sound thrilled to talk to The Frau, but the call takes five minutes and the issue is resolved.

Total time: 5 minutes

Total cost: CHF 2.50

American customer service toll-free call(s)

The Frau calls Comcast because her Internet service is not activating automatically. Thanks to Comcast’s 24/7 service line, she can call at night. She can call during the day. And she can call during lunch. But no matter what time she calls, a technical reason shuts down her call. Soon, she learns the truth about 24/7, toll-free calling. It means that no matter what time she calls, an automated voice answers. It means that it’s her lucky hour when someone on the other side of the world who speaks something kind of representing English finally talks to her. But this chance, as The Frau is calculating based on experience, is only 1 out of 5 calls. And then the chance that she will understand their English is only 1 out of 5 of those really lucky calls. And this is even with 8+ years of training in understanding strange English accents, yodelers. Imagine normal Americans who have never left America trying to translate such so-called English. This is why, twenty-four hours after trying to activate her Comcast Internet service, The Frau is still trying to activate her Comcast Internet service.

Total time: 41 minutes and counting

Total cost: $4.10 in prepay minutes and counting

Which service would you rather have, yodelers? The Frau knows her answer.

Oh, and by the way, The Frau’s book, Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known was published in May. If you still haven’t read it but are enjoying this blog, you really have no excuse–unless of course you are living in the US and are still on hold with Comcast. In that case, veil Glück.

Reader Appreciation Day

To counter a certain kind of “who cares about the customer” customer service in Switzerland, The Frau would like to have a reader appreciation day.

Here's to the yodelers

It’s high time she thanked some of her readers. Because without them, she would just be blogging for one person: her mom. And if she wanted to do that, she could just write emails. So thanks, readers.

Anyhow, the Frau loves all comments—even anonymous ones—but obviously Anonymous is hard to thank. So if you’ve left a traceable comment since June, and you’ve got an up-to-date blog, you’re included in the list below. And fellow yodelers, if you like this blog, you’ll probably like some of the following readers’ blogs too:

Queso Suizo: In Search of the Cheese Life

Kelly & Wojtek’s Blog

Newly Swissed

Made in Suisse

Dibulous

From Bratwurst to Bulgogi: A NJ girl’s journey from Germany to South Korea.

Swiss Side Jewellery etc

Miguev.net

Moms, Tots, & Zürich :hiking with kids in Switzerland

Wandering & Blathering

Tra mucche e cioccolata: la svizzera tedesca vista da una italiana

Alli McBally: A nail polish fanatic with too much time on my hands as some people say

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.

The Frau's New Fashion Find

It can be challenging to live in the world’s most expensive city when you are used to shopping at the biggest sale ever at Kohl’s 365 days a year. Not only are things in Zurich triple the price, but there just aren’t that many choices.

Coupons and discounts are few and far between in Switzerland, so the Frau grabs what she can. For instance, last week, she clipped out a coupon from Blick am Abend for 5X the Cumulus points at Migros. So needless to say when she was offered a voucher for Zalando, a virtual mall that delivers anything fashion-related right to your door for free, she couldn’t pass that by.

Over 23,000 shoes. The Frau isn't used to such choices!

First of all, fellow yodelers, there are over 23,000 pairs of shoes to choose from on the fr.zalando.ch website. Imagine the Frau’s dilemma. She hadn’t seen this much selection in Switzerland ever. It was almost like shopping at Target. She could search by size, color, heel size, type of shoe, and more. The only catch was, she had to do this in German or French as the site delivers practically everything except the English language.

Kein Problem. If she ever needed an excuse to improve her French or German, being able to shop on a site that offers no worries of customs tax is it.  And also no worries if the shoes or the almost 32,000 clothing items you can choose from don’t end up fitting. Because you can return them within 30 days for free. Free. The Frau likes free.

Speaking of free, Zalando even offers a toll-free customer service number. The Frau asks you: what other Swiss entity offers this? Call the SBB and you'll get charged CHF 1.19 a minute. You know the drill. In Switzerland, if you’re a customer and want help, it’s usually 1-800-PAY-US-MORE.

The Frau also likes sales. But why wait until July or January? If you’re an American cheapskate like her, you can go to Zalando just to search for sale items exclusively. Or for sale items and your favorite brand. 

Hint for all other shopaholics: if you sign up for the Zalando newsletter, you can get CHF 10 off your next purchase. The Frau already did, of course. Clip, clip. This coupon queen is in her glory.

Do you shop online in Switzerland? Any sites you like? Or other good deals to be had?

Customer Service in Switzerland

So my last post for the Write On blog went up last week and it already seems to have caused some, how shall I put it, emotional reactions. Apparently, the level of customer service in Switzerland is a touchy subject and one that always seems to spark debate. Of course, it all depends on your background and what you got used to growing up.

I have to admit, when I return now to the U.S., some aspects of customer service really seem overboard--like the waitresses that never leave you alone and are way too perky for someone carrying around constant 32 oz refills of soda. Still, I do appreciate other things--like being able to easily return items with no questions asked and sometimes even being given an additional incentive for my "trouble".

What's your take on the whole customer service thing? Would love to hear from you. Visit my last Write On post and leave a comment.