Quietly Insane
Venting since 2002
Venting since 2002
You are reading "UK Customer Service sucks", posted by Stueybaby at 04 01 09 - 00:55.
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UK Customer Service sucks
-04 01 09 - 00:55
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It has come to my attention that the UK as a nation doesn't do customer service - at all. I base this on past experiences at eating establishments, UK railways and basically any customer facing industry which is primarilly operated by British people.
For example...
1) On a train journey from Newark to London Kings Cross, my reserved seat had been taken by someone else. Obviously it is not the British way to simply kick the person out of the seat, so when the ticket inspector checked my ticket I mentioned that I couldn't find my seat. He took me to it and discovered that it was taken - already this marks a difference. Had the ticket inspector had been of British origin (rather than Czech) he would not have cared and just suggest I find another seat. Instead, he located me in a spare seat, but to my surprise, found me after he completed his inspections and moved me to a spare seat with table. A British ticket inspector would never have done that and would have completely forgotten about me.
2) At Prezzo, I had to wait 40 minutes for the starter to arrive - a cold starter that probably took less than 5 minutes to prepare.
Fortunately the restaurant was being operated by waitresses that were clearly from Central Europe and to compensate we were given a round of free drinks. Had the restaurant been under the control of British waitresses, I would not have received any kind of compensation, probably not even any acknowledgement that they had been unspeakably rubbish at making the evening an enjoyable one. I would simply have received a "Sorry about the wait, but we are very busy". Which is rubbish.
We simply do not do customer service, mainly due to the British "mustn't grumble" nature, we'd rather queue up for 45 minutes than get a complaint on record and take our business elsewhere (something that the rest of the world is happy to do, Greeks for example do not queue for anything, if the service is crap they simply never go there again. The result is that most shopkeepers greet you and ask if they can help you as soon as you walk through the door. Coffee shop and restaurant owners make a big fuss over you and pay attention to what you want and do everything they can to encourage to stay and enjoy your experience at their establishment, because you might decide not to return in the future, or worse still, you might give them a bad review to your friends. A concept that is completely lost on British shopkeepers).
No. We'd much rather just "put up with it" and then whine about it to our friends (or on websites such as this
).
I can't help feeling that perhaps if we complained a little bit more and made businesses realise that they need to step up and make a bit more of an effort if they want to retain our custom, maybe life could be a little bit better for us all...
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For example...
1) On a train journey from Newark to London Kings Cross, my reserved seat had been taken by someone else. Obviously it is not the British way to simply kick the person out of the seat, so when the ticket inspector checked my ticket I mentioned that I couldn't find my seat. He took me to it and discovered that it was taken - already this marks a difference. Had the ticket inspector had been of British origin (rather than Czech) he would not have cared and just suggest I find another seat. Instead, he located me in a spare seat, but to my surprise, found me after he completed his inspections and moved me to a spare seat with table. A British ticket inspector would never have done that and would have completely forgotten about me.
2) At Prezzo, I had to wait 40 minutes for the starter to arrive - a cold starter that probably took less than 5 minutes to prepare.
Fortunately the restaurant was being operated by waitresses that were clearly from Central Europe and to compensate we were given a round of free drinks. Had the restaurant been under the control of British waitresses, I would not have received any kind of compensation, probably not even any acknowledgement that they had been unspeakably rubbish at making the evening an enjoyable one. I would simply have received a "Sorry about the wait, but we are very busy". Which is rubbish.
We simply do not do customer service, mainly due to the British "mustn't grumble" nature, we'd rather queue up for 45 minutes than get a complaint on record and take our business elsewhere (something that the rest of the world is happy to do, Greeks for example do not queue for anything, if the service is crap they simply never go there again. The result is that most shopkeepers greet you and ask if they can help you as soon as you walk through the door. Coffee shop and restaurant owners make a big fuss over you and pay attention to what you want and do everything they can to encourage to stay and enjoy your experience at their establishment, because you might decide not to return in the future, or worse still, you might give them a bad review to your friends. A concept that is completely lost on British shopkeepers).
No. We'd much rather just "put up with it" and then whine about it to our friends (or on websites such as this
).I can't help feeling that perhaps if we complained a little bit more and made businesses realise that they need to step up and make a bit more of an effort if they want to retain our custom, maybe life could be a little bit better for us all...
Comments:
Post a comment: