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An example of why this country is Screwed
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Call it phoney, but the USA does have much better customer service. I love how you're not left waiting to get the bill or have the card processed in restaurants. The staff actually talk to you and get your order quickly instead of ignoring or grunting at you.0
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Just wait till you find sawdust in your subby......while holidaying in Paris!Such negativity
McDonalds source their beef here
Dawn Foods in Kildare won a 700 million euro contract to supply every Subway in Europe
You sound like a British administrator when Ireland was part of the Empire
How much money do you think Billy or Jack working on the floor get?
Originally Posted by Tony Soprano.
The Irish can indeed be good workers when guided and trained probably. We just don't have the drive and know-how in this country.
Show me the money!!0 -
There are loads, and loads and loads of Irish businesses that perform extremely well and produce excellent products and services in areas ranging from IT, animation, engineering, food, etc etc.
We've a big, high-quality and very well-respected food industry both at the luxury / artisan end and at the bulk ingredients and meat ends of things.
I'm in Belgium at the moment and Irish beef and lamb are sold in supermarkets here as a premium branded product that costs about 4X the price of local equivalents. They're also listed as a premium product on restaurant menus.
I'm really sick of this slagging ourselves off attitude! It just starts to become depressing, defeatist and miserable. It was one of the things that held Ireland back in the past. We need to get back to the celtic-tiger 'can do' attitude again.
You got bad service because you got bad service, not because the company was Irish!
I've had rubbish service from Air France, but I don't blame everyone in France on it!
I've had sh1te service from various US, German, UK, and quite a few other companies too over the years, but I don't blame that on their nationalities either.
I think Ireland does actually have quite a strong customer-service culture and it also has a lot of companies that reach extremely high quality standards all the time.
Our REAL economy i.e. companies that actually do things is actually very strong and very competitive by international standards. It's stuck with a huge monkey on its back created by the banks, developers, and Government over-spending that's the legacy of a huge property bubble.
The situation we find ourselves in is not caused by Ireland's entrepreneurs or real work force. We do exceptionally well at all that stuff!0 -
I have given up on breakers yards around Dublin, instead I just use donedeal and search for a private breaker. Cheaper and less hassle.0
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The issue with breakers is probably down to economies of scale and also because the UK industry is just more buoyant too. More scrap to work with.
Online's the way to go with all these obscure parts orders these days anyway.0 -
Have you spoken to any Irish Emigrants lately? One of the most common experiences is amazement in the lack of work ethic/efficiency etc in the companies they are working for abroad.
Only quoting what I've heard.
Also OP is not comparing like for like. If he had a mate living in Birmingham or whereever who had rang a breakers yard on the phone for this part he could possibly compare the responses. A company that is bothered to do internet sales is by definition quite efficient.0 -
Spot on my friend ...absolutely spotttt on...what you left out is those same ***** drive around in brand new Mercs and expect us to feel sorry for them...I'd definitely agree re: mechanics, especially independent ones. You walk in the door and you're already down €100, they charge premium rates for the parts and then a huge amount for labour, then add it all together and round it up. Before you know it you're handing over €500 for a small problem to be fixed.
The service industry seems to be a bit like this too. Very large amounts of money is expected to change hands for dinner and a few drinks or a room in a bog-standard hotel.
The pricing of a lot of things here is way out of line with the rest of the continent and there always seems to be a whiff of chancer around.
A lot of the time it's the very same small business people that will jump at the chance to go on RTE and whinge about how hard they've been hit by the recession.0 -
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Wanted to spend about 30K on a new Shed to house some animals, tractors, peat etc. We contacted about five companies some off the Internet based in Ireland, some had to be chased up, some said they would turn up on site to give us a quote and never bothered to turn up or cancell, one person bothered to turn up and wanted 60K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for a small shed 30x40 ft AND wanted a deposit in cash there and then!!!!!!! then another tried to give us a quote over the phone without even looking at the site that needed digging out.
Irish I worked with in the UK and across the World were always good workers and good to get on with.
Not here its as though they cannot be bothered.
Even a BL**DY Vet could not be bothered to turn up to treat an animal.
The only conclusion we have come to is that there is no recession and its all lies and the Government is just making it up.
Another thing that gets me is why does no one ever put prices on goods they are selling? My mind reading skills are not that good anymore.
OR when you do ask the price they look down their noses at you as if to say 'if you have to ask, you cannot afford it' (this once happened in a Charity shop selling video tapes, she wanted 3 euro per tape I kid you not!!!!!!!!!!!!
With this attitude towards customers no wonder the Country is on its knee's OR is it?0 -
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sweeney1971 wrote: »Wanted to spend about 30K on a new Shed to house some animals, tractors, peat etc. We contacted about five companies some off the Internet based in Ireland, some had to be chased up, some said they would turn up on site to give us a quote and never bothered to turn up or cancell, one person bothered to turn up and wanted 60K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for a small shed 30x40 ft AND wanted a deposit in cash there and then!!!!!!! then another tried to give us a quote over the phone without even looking at the site that needed digging out.
Irish I worked with in the UK and across the World were always good workers and good to get on with.
Not here its as though they cannot be bothered.
Even a BL**DY Vet could not be bothered to turn up to treat an animal.
The only conclusion we have come to is that there is no recession and its all lies and the Government is just making it up.
Another thing that gets me is why does no one ever put prices on goods they are selling? My mind reading skills are not that good anymore.
OR when you do ask the price they look down their noses at you as if to say 'if you have to ask, you cannot afford it' (this once happened in a Charity shop selling video tapes, she wanted 3 euro per tape I kid you not!!!!!!!!!!!!
With this attitude towards customers no wonder the Country is on its knee's OR is it?
We got a Company in the North to build a shed for us in kit form and deliver. We put the shed up ourselves, total build cost 13k.0 -
Or when you stand at the "customer service" counter of almost every Irish company, get ignored for 10 minutes, then asked "You ok?". Being a cnunt, I always answer "yeah, I'm fine, you ok?" then say nothing. The usual responce is a curt "how can I help you?" to which I usually reply "well that's a bit better". It gets me loved everywhere, but in fairness, customer care and standards here are absolutely beyond brutal. I laugh when I hear "such and such has gone into recievership" - yeah, because they treat their customers like shit. Big surprise. Brooks Thomas springs to mind, or Paperlink, or Chadwicks, or pretty much anyone else you'd like to mention. Customer is king??? Yeah right.
Well with your wonderful personality shining through, it's no wonder you get great service.
If you can admit yourself that you know you are a Cnut, then your attitude needs serious readjustment.We should defend our way of life to an extent that any attempt on it is crushed, so that any adversary will never make such an attempt in the future.
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God knows I give out about this country enough but I have to say we are better than average when it comes to customer service. I needed a part for my camper, sourced it in the UK for €200. Rang Donagheys in Donegal and they had it for €130. Not only that but the sales assistant on the phone told me how I could replace a piece of the part for €10 or €15. I wasn't aware this was possible. Saved me a fortune.
I've had horrendous experiences in France in Builders Providers but very positive ones in children's clothes shops etc. like everything else, some people are just crap and that holds true in every village, parish and province in the world.0 -
You're one of those dicks that works in a builders merchant, aren't you. If I'm in to spend thousands of euro, am totally polite and utterly reasonable, and still get ignored or lied to, I've got to "adjust my attitude"? Away and shite pal. I'm a cnunt in that I expect some level of honesty and service, and pretty much only in that regard, ie, I'm not a doormat. Otherwise, I'm totally professional and reasonable, that's what I do for a living, I buy stuff.Fiery mutant wrote: »Well with your wonderful personality shining through, it's no wonder you get great service.
If you can admit yourself that you know you are a Cnut, then your attitude needs serious readjustment.0 -
You're one of those dicks that works in a builders merchant, aren't you. If I'm in to spend thousands of euro, am totally polite and utterly reasonable, and still get ignored or lied to, I've got to "adjust my attitude"? Away and shite pal. I'm a cnunt in that I expect some level of honesty and service, and pretty much only in that regard, ie, I'm not a doormat. Otherwise, I'm totally professional and reasonable, that's what I do for a living, I buy stuff.
Well said poster! Needs sayin that does !0 -
You're one of those dicks that works in a builders merchant, aren't you. If I'm in to spend thousands of euro, am totally polite and utterly reasonable, and still get ignored or lied to, I've got to "adjust my attitude"? Away and shite pal. I'm a cnunt in that I expect some level of honesty and service, and pretty much only in that regard, ie, I'm not a doormat. Otherwise, I'm totally professional and reasonable, that's what I do for a living, I buy stuff.
Professional and reasonable???. Doesn't sound like it pal, to be honest you sound pretty much to be what you say you are.
A ****
Mod:
Banned.We should defend our way of life to an extent that any attempt on it is crushed, so that any adversary will never make such an attempt in the future.
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Not even going there, night now Mr Trolly trollington. Have a nice life.Fiery mutant wrote: »Professional and reasonable???. Doesn't sound like it pal, to be honest you sound pretty much to be what you say you are.
A ****0 -
Can you name some that everybody would know?
Well, you asked and these are just a few off the top of my head :
Food: Kerry Group - Revenues of > €5bn and 24,000 employees worldwide.
Glanbia - Revenues of 2.6 billion
Irish Distillers (now French owned but still) ... One of the world's largest Whiskey production outfits and worth a hell of a lot of money.
I could name countless small, highly professional and commercially successful artisan producers too that have significant export markets.
IT - (random examples)
Havok - Huge in gaming technology was acquired by Intel in 2007.
Horizon Technologies - Vehicle tracking.
Norkom Technologies - Financial crime detection / compliance software. - Recognised global leader in this area. Purchased by BAE systems recently.
Telecommunications equipment:
MDS Gateways - http://www.mds.ie/
Lake Communications - which was acquired but was and is a huge player in office systems across Europe : http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/4044-us-telco-acquires-lake-comm
Engineering :
Project Management Group -
Started as a small Irish engineering company in the 1970s - Now has 1700 mostly engineering staff and 25 locations globally and a list of clients that are all major pharma, biotech, electronics etc etc. List of awards as long as your arm http://www.pmgroup-global.com/ For example : http://www.pmgroup-global.com/news/Latest-News/PM-Group-ENR-Ranking-Food-Pharmaceutical-Engineeri.aspx
ESB International - Recognised serious global player in power generation, grid management, transmission system design etc. (Semi state body!)
http://www.esbi.ie/
Biotechnology / Pharmaceuticals :
Elan - http://www.elan.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan
Developed breakthrough anti-MS drugs amongst other things.
Eh..
Paper & Packaging / Manufacturing:
Smurfit Kappa Group. - One of the world's largest packing companies.
Transportation:
Ryanair - Like them or loath them, they're one of the world's most commercially-successful airlines.
Revenue 4.3 billion Euro carries 76 million passengers and is now second only to Lufthansa in terms of passenger numbers and their accident rate is one of the lowest around too : http://planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm
Entertainment Industry / Gambling :
PaddyPower.com
Retail:
Musgrave Group - €4 billion sales - Ireland, UK & Spain.
Dunnes Stores - Ireland, UK and Spain.
ARI (Aer Rianta International) operates duty free stores all over the place : http://www.ari.ie/worldwide-locations (Semi-state company)
They're just a few non-bubble companies that come to mind that have been working away making actual products/services, doing world-class jobs on what they do and being genuinely entrepreneurial.
I don't understand what all the depressing nonsense that goes on on some of these forums is about to be perfectly honest. Ireland has a lot of commercial, technological, innovative huge success stories. Despite what some people would have you believe, there was an actual Celtic Tigre buried under all the property hype. It's still there too!
It's these kinds of enterprises that will dig us out of the recession, not the idiotic bankers & politicians in Dublin and Brussels and elsewhere waffling on endlessly about the terror that lies within 'the markets.'
I'd also add that IDA Ireland and Enteprise Ireland are global models of how to promote a country for inward investment and indigenous company development. As state bodies go, they are both pretty hugely successful.
Apologies for derailing the thread a bit - but seriously, Ireland's actually rather hot on all these entrepreneurial things !
Ireland and Europe (and the US too) just needs to put the bankers & speculators back in their box and get on with focusing on actually doing stuff again!!!0 -
say_who_now? wrote: »couldn't give a fiddlers about their customers and only care about extracting as much as they can from their wallets. Take a stroll around PC World and you'll see what I mean. They have to pay for those big glass windows somehow so they can see you coming!
PC World is not a good example as it's painfully expensive. I got what I was looking for on Elara for €50 cheaper, and they weren't expensive items. I've worked for multinationals and Irish companies, and most of them don't give a crap about customer service - because it costs money. I've been in customer service for overs ten year and only recently transferred over to the call center analysis side of things, and it's a shock to see how inefficient we actually are.0 -
I work for every single one of them except the software ones, Paddy power and Aer Rianta. You've named the best of the best, it's all the others that are a problem. These companies are the real economy, but they are supported by an awful lot of dross - you missed out a few, Primark, great company, great to deal with, Hofeld Plastics, world leader and Irish, great company, Wavin - totally professional, as well as a lot of incomers with big, professional operations here, Lidl are totally professional, as are Aldi, as are dozens of others(Heitons are a pleasure tbh). But, there are an awful lot of others that are not on those lists, who, with a few simple customer relations changes, could easily become world beaters. It's not rocket science, treat customers with respect, business will flow.Well, you asked and these are just a few off the top of my head :
Food: Kerry Group - Revenues of > €5bn and 24,000 employees worldwide.
Glanbia - Revenues of 2.6 billion
Irish Distillers (now French owned but still) ... One of the world's largest Whiskey production outfits and worth a hell of a lot of money.
I could name countless small, highly professional and commercially successful artisan producers too that have significant export markets.
IT - (random examples)
Havok - Huge in gaming technology was acquired by Intel in 2007.
Horizon Technologies - Vehicle tracking.
Norkom Technologies - Financial crime detection / compliance software. - Recognised global leader in this area. Purchased by BAE systems recently.
Telecommunications equipment:
MDS Gateways - http://www.mds.ie/
Lake Communications - which was acquired but was and is a huge player in office systems across Europe : http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/4044-us-telco-acquires-lake-comm
Engineering :
Project Management Group -
Started as a small Irish engineering company in the 1970s - Now has 1700 mostly engineering staff and 25 locations globally and a list of clients that are all major pharma, biotech, electronics etc etc. List of awards as long as your arm : http://www.pmgroup-global.com/aboutus/Awards.aspx
ESB International - Recognised serious global player in power generation, grid management, transmission system design etc. (Semi state body!)
http://www.esbi.ie/
Biotechnology / Pharmaceuticals :
Elan - http://www.elan.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan
Developed breakthrough anti-MS drugs amongst other things.
Eh..
Paper & Packaging / Manufacturing:
Smurfit Kappa Group. - One of the world's largest packing companies.
Transportation:
Ryanair - Like them or loath them, they're one of the world's most commercially-successful airlines.
Revenue 4.3 billion Euro carries 76 million passengers and is now second only to Lufthansa in terms of passenger numbers and their accident rate is one of the lowest around too : http://planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm
Entertainment Industry / Gambling :
PaddyPower.com
Retail:
Musgrave Group - €4 billion sales - Ireland, UK & Spain.
Dunnes Stores - Ireland, UK and Spain.
ARI (Aer Rianta International) operates duty free stores all over the place : http://www.ari.ie/worldwide-locations (Semi-state company)
They're just a few non-bubble companies that come to mind that have been working away making actual products/services, doing world-class jobs on what they do and being genuinely entrepreneurial.
I don't understand what all the depressing nonsense that goes on on some of these forums is about to be perfectly honest. Ireland has a lot of commercial, technological, innovative huge success stories. Despite what some people would have you believe, there was an actual Celtic Tigre buried under all the property hype. It's still there too!
It's these kinds of enterprises that will dig us out of the recession, not the idiotic bankers & politicians in Dublin and Brussels and elsewhere waffling on endlessly about the terror that lies within 'the markets.'
I'd also add that IDA Ireland and Enteprise Ireland are global models of how to promote a country for inward investment and indigenous company development. As state bodies go, they are both pretty hugely successful.0 -
The problem with the Irish is the whole sure it'll be grand attitude.
Lets use lower grade concrete in our buildings, lets allow a person sign off on the quality of the building based on the plans and the brochure, lets allow people without maths qualifications teach maths.
Op its everywhere. The oul lad can import electrical supplies from the Uk twice as fast as he can get the product from the Irish wholesaler. With the shipping costs he pays a little bit more but if he has a query or a problem with what they've sent him, they'll try there hardest to sort you out.
Some Irish companies will have 2 words for you: Foxtrot Oscar
PS there are many great Irish Companies0 -
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have to agree with op, many smallish irish companies set up a website but never update it, never answer an e-mail, and never ring back, any uk company i have ever e-mailed have always answered and in general are very keen for business
This is what i dont get ... these days you would think they would be throwing themselves at anyone with money to spend.0 -
This is what i dont get ... these days you would think they would be throwing themselves at anyone with money to spend.
No they prefer to moan and blame the government.
They moan about foreign contractors getting Irish government contracts, but you only see a few Irish ones going after foreign contacts.
It'd be too much effort for a lot of them I suppose0 -
I think though that you have to distinguish between companies that were only able to exist during hyper-bubble, construction boom conditions and companies that are actually entrepreneurial, consumer-oriented and have innovative products and services to offer.
It's a hell of a lot easier to make money during a hyper-boom like that when your customers didn't really look for value for money, or quality of service.
There are plenty of UK companies (particularly in areas like furniture / supplies for new-build houses) that fit into that category.
There were quite a lot of companies and service providers that operated on the fringes of the construction bubble.
Some of them were decent to deal with and just lost their entire market as they had all their eggs in one basket, resulting in pretty hard times for them at the moment.
Others however were just really able to survive because of the booming / bubble conditions. These are the ones that are now incomprehensibly providing bad customer service and poor quality products and wondering why they have no customers.
You always get this kind of thing in bubbles and booms. I don't think it's unique to Ireland by any means.
The Irish companies that are strong and global players are the ones who really had little / nothing to do with the construction / banking sector and just went out there with really good products and services and they really operate totally independently of the domestic economy.
I think you also have another layer of companies that operated by having little exclusive monopolies on various products and never provided particularly good service. In all markets, not just Ireland, those are being wiped out by online retailers who can actually provide a decent service.
It's more than annoying when someone has the exclusive rights to (insert brand) and when you go to get some product, they never have it in stock or take weeks to get it. That kind of thing invariably drives people online.
Financial crisis situations like this tend to cause pure Darwinism to kick in. Companies and individuals with real businesses that provide good products/services survive and ultimately come back like a phoenix form the ashes, the dross dies off.
The concern that I have at the moment is that the Government is prolonging the survival of a hell of a lot of dross and former-construction bubble entities that really should have been let go to the wall several years ago.
NAMA & nationalisation of the banks was a pretty bad idea in hindsight.
What should have happened was protection of savers / account holders and a state-owned investment bank to be setup as a temporary measure until the banking industry rationalised itself.
There's also scope to allow European banks that weren't badly managed (and there are quite a few of those) to become Europe-wide players. The incompetent banks should fail and the competent ones should prosper. That's how a real open market would work.
I don't see why some bank from Finland or whatever couldn't offer business loans in Ireland on a sensible basis to businesses / individuals who need capital for real business projects and let the hyped-up idiotic banks that we had here disappear.
There are businesses that need capital in Ireland and elsewhere that are being starved of funds due to local banking incompetences. Surely, this is the kind of thing that a single European market was supposed to be there to help deal with i.e. not leaving consumers stuck with national monopolists??0 -
I wouldn't go quite so far. On an individual level, I don't see any difference between Irish workers and anyone else I've worked with. Sure, there are somewhat different cultural expectations and all that jazz; but by and large, I think it's a lot more about the opportunities available in a particular place.
But yes, absolutely, the level of customer service, value for the money, and quality control are pretty horrible here.0
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