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Posters, please share and discuss about your experiences in different kinds of stores overseas.
Were they good, bad, were the associates kind/unkind, what was the return policy like, was the service fast/efficient, what were your experiences like?
Japan - customer service is pretty robotic, but good. People generally seem to leave their own personalities outside. It gets to feel artificial quickly though. As for returns, I've found it quite difficult, sometimes impossible, to return items to Japanese stores even with a receipt and within 30 days. I've had no problem with returns in international stores operating here though.
Just to add an example, there was a shop I liked that I occasionally bought clothes from. Staff there seemed friendly in the usual way. One day I impulsively bought something I quickly regretted. I tried to return it a few days later, with tags and everything, and their attitude towards me flipped completely, like they hated me. They weren't shop owners. I looked around to see any sign stating "No Returns" but there wasn't any. They refused to return my item and I decided to find the contact info for the store online and contacted the owner. The owner understood my situation and I had to go in there, tell them the owner of the store approved the return, and they still gave me the ice cold, never come back here again treatment. Needless to say, I haven't been back. That's not the only case, but one that really bothered me because it was a unique shop and I thought the people working there would be friendly/down-to-earth, not a$$holes because I wasn't a good little consumer.
Last edited by vaga bond; 07-13-2010 at 08:05 PM..
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Most of Southeast Asia - ranges from friendly to business-like, worse in the big cities like Singapore, Hong Kong. Bangkok is pretty good.
China - not a fair comparison because I couldn't speak Mandarin (involved alot of body language!), lol, but seemed very business-like. Some people in the country especially seemed friendly.
NZ was better than Oz, imo. Sydney the worst in Australia.
Stationed in Germany, I found service to be reasonably good; perhaps due more out of curiosity about the "Amerikaner" standing before them than any real zeal to serve. But I never really experienced poor service (unlike in my own country...)
Wife & I visited St. Petersburg, Russia in 2000. While service at restaurants was excellent, buying something at a department store was maddening. Speaking no Russian, we'd point out the item behind the counter we wanted to buy. The sales clerk wrote out a bill. We then took it to a cashier whom we paid. Then it was back to the first clerk with the receipt to pick up the item. Don't know that it's different nowadays. But, despite having many shops that sold western goods, we found this holdover from the pre-Peristroika era curious.
I got the most amazing service in western china. Still pretty comunitst when i was their. Remember going for a hair cut once. The place had one chair and 6 staff who were all literally falling over each other to try and help me, it was a fun wonderful experience.
Australia has the worst customer service hands down, maybe its the high base wages , and the lack of commission based salaries?
Wife & I visited St. Petersburg, Russia in 2000. While service at restaurants was excellent, buying something at a department store was maddening. Speaking no Russian, we'd point out the item behind the counter we wanted to buy. The sales clerk wrote out a bill. We then took it to a cashier whom we paid. Then it was back to the first clerk with the receipt to pick up the item. Don't know that it's different nowadays. But, despite having many shops that sold western goods, we found this holdover from the pre-Peristroika era curious.
Your experience reminds me of my dept. store shopping in Ecuador several years ago. I spoke a little Spanish. I bought some clothing. After trying the clothing on in the dressing/fit room, I decided I want to buy the items. The dressing/fit room attendant took the items I wanted to the cashier for me. (I was not permitted to take them on my own.) I wanted to pay with an American credit card, but they wouldn't accept it. Since I didn't have enough cash, they begrudgingly accepted a local check (as I was teaching at a local univ. & had a local checking account). But this too had to be checked out by them before allowing me to actually purchase the items.
I live in Portugal, and for Americans it takes getting used to. There are no overwhelming gushes of phony enthusiasm which can be a huge turnoff for me in the U.S......but it's often quite the opposite here. You usually begin with a very perfunctory greeting, or maybe none at all - the clerk may just approach you, make eye contact and wait for you to speak; but after that ery deflating beginning most clerks are very pleasant. I have not found that stores are willing to order merchandise for you. All goods and services have a mandated two-year guarantee. I have never had a problem with damaged merchandise in a retail store, so I do not know what their attitude is on following through on this. However, I am strong inclined to believe that returning something simply because you have decided that you now don't like it would be met with a total wall of rejection. I have had service men give me unsatisfactory service, but there was no problem about returning and making things right.
Service in restaurants runs the gamut, but older male waiters almost always come across as having a bad case of piles. Service and cordiality in normal street corner type eating places tends to be hit or miss. In fancier eating places the service is usually formally pleasant at the very least.
The people on the south coast have the reputation for being "difficult", even among the Portuguese. As a general rule, in my experience, clerks in retail stores in the South will not cut off a personal conversation with someone because there are customers waiting. They finish chatting, the customers wait. If you interrupt you will be treated as rude and aggressive. For this reason alone lines in a bank can be interminable.
You can usually tell if the person you are dealing with is a Ukranian or Brazilian immigrant, they are way more relaxed and outgoing than the Portuguese.
I got used to Portuguse ways and rarely have a problem, and it is far better than Cyprus which I thought was remarkable for rude behaviour.
1. Taiwan, ROC. Partly because I am Lao'wai, partly because they really want to be helpful, and mostly because of the cutthroat competition between all businesses, customer service in Taiwan is second to none. I am continuously amazed by the ridiculous amount of time and effort the Taiwanese will spend on satisfying the wants and needs of their customers.
For instance, a 250 NT haircut (8 USD, and considered mid-range) will see a you served a glass of iced tea while you watch your own personal flatscreen. As soon as one is free, a stylist will spend 45 minutes clipping and bouffing away until your 'do is just the way you want it, then you get a 15 minute shampoo, scalp massage, and rinse. Nice.
Walk into an administrative office (Think Department of Motor Vehicles) and a greeter will welcome you, usher you to a seat, and hand you a cup of tea and your number.
That's not to say you get good return policies--generally there are no returns from stores or--at best--store credit. However, I count customer service in terms of how the employees treat the customers. You might be able to return a calculator to WalMart after 3 months because you don't like it any more, but that generous return policy comes at the expense of any real focus on having "sales associates" give a flip about the customer.
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Notable Customer Service:
