Is Ireland particularly bad for customer service?

Goose76

Goose76 wrote: »

But I definitely think despite a) our alleged friendly culture and b) our looming massive recession that businesses here do not help themselves when it comes to customer focus compared to other countries. really curious for opinions to see if others agree.

I think our "alleged" friendly culture is actually the difference. Friendliness is two people greeting and treating each other like equals. American-style customer service is not friendliness. It's getting up in the morning and putting a pin in your pride so that you can make paying customers feel important. It's a response to an increasingly demanding and rude customer base who will happily destroy your business' reputation over social media if they have one bad experience.

Why are there so many rants and memes online about working in customer service? Because you're essentially put in front of a queue (real or virtual) of unhappy people and have to treat each and every one like they're more important than you. That's not a friendly culture.

But good news OP, Irish customer service is definitely moving towards the American model, because more and more it's what people expect.

440Hertz

I found the Brits more or less exactly the same as here in customer service. It’s very mixed but usually ok.

I’ve found German customer care poor on several occasions, including from some very large German companies. I’m not saying overall German customer care is particularly bad, but I’ve found it high handed, slow, very bureaucratic and even dismissive sometimes. Just a few German experiences where it was very much a case of “the customer is always wrong”

In most cases in most countries I’ve found the organisation’s internal culture is often more signifiant than the national culture around customer care. Some companies are excellent, others really aren’t and obviously don’t care.

I don’t think Irish customer care is moving toward the American model. It feels much more like Europe in that regard. If you’re rude and dismissive, you’ll get bad responses and there’s no grovelling for tips.

I also don’t think Irish or British customers are as demanding or abrasive either. If you’ve ever dealt with a mixture of nationalities, you’ll quickly find some of the most time consuming and rude customers are American due to the notion that you’re there to serve them in a non equal way because you’re “just” working in a shop or you’re “just” a waiter.

Valresnick

Valresnick wrote: »

I recently had an unexpected surprise on customer service. I wanted to purchase runners and needed specific advice on cushioning. I went to a running shop which will remain unnamed and they pretty much ignored me once I entered the shop. I then ran the Nike shop and received an incredibly helpful response from their staff. I thought Nike would be worse and the small shop would be better !

Similarly I find customer service in Penneys to always be excellent, way better than more expensive clothes shops ,the staff in general there are always lovely imo, I absolutely hate shops where they are very nice when you are buying but completely the opposite when you're returning an item and I usually find this happens in the expensive shops. Also I think the service in cheaper hotels can be outstanding but in the dearer ones there can be a certain attitude if you've a query or request. I'm not saying it happens across the board but it does happen imo.

440Hertz

We had that from a kitchen supplier. They were fantastic before installation and as soon as the kitchen was in, we had a query about a minor repair to a door that was scratched because it clashed off the door handle of another other door and we were suddenly nothing to them. They take a call and then never get back to you. I can’t even get the colour codes from them to touch it up myself, as they never responded.

Result : I won’t be ordering from them ever again or recommending them.

Goose76

Mr.S wrote: »

A lot of those issues you listed are the fault of management and not the front line staff, menus on the website for example - the waiters couldn't give a hoot. Small businesses here are largely behind on adapting for the internet / connected age. Your local corner shop wouldn't have a clue how to update opening times on Google which are all community inputed, if it's wrong they probably have no idea, not that they put wrong in the first place! I think that's a very Irish thing - they'd ring up a shop before checking on Google etc, obviously that's changing though. Same with email, just ring them vs waiting for a response. A bit entitled to expect an instant response at the thought of "thousands of euro", especially in the current climate.
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Unfair comment I think re: me being entitled. Nowhere did I state that I expected an 'instant' response. Any form of response, even if to politely decline the inquiry would have been absolutely fine. It's just the lack of bothering to reply at all I find genuinely confusing - even setting aside the common courtesy aspect of things - I think it's really bad for business.

rock22

OP , i agree customer service here is lacking in comparison to US and Canada. It is not really different, in my opinion, to UK. But it is generally better than Germany, France, Spain.
Of course, there are exception of course to all such generalisations.

regarding emails, I agree with a previous poster, that the restaurant will assume you are sending multiple emails to many restaurants, they are not guaranteed any business and it wastes their time. This is especially so if you send the same email to multiple business because the receiver email can display all the other email addresses . You would probably have much better luck with phone call or face to face.

endofrainbow

Nothing worse than walking into a business premises - employee barely glances up at you from their phone and asks 'are you ok' ?

Whatever happened to 'Can I help you ?'

440Hertz

endofrainbow wrote: »

Nothing worse than walking into a business premises - employee barely glances up at you from their phone and asks 'are you ok' ?

Whatever happened to 'Can I help you ?'

I was in shops in Belgium where they answered the phone while talking to you & had full blown conversation...