Customer service

France has a reputation for excellence in many things, but customer service is not one of them. Polly Pratt's classic book French or Foe (a veritable Bible for understanding French culture) devotes an entire chapter to French customer-non-service. One of the section titles reads "The Customer is Automatically Wrong, the Store Never Is." I actually only have one personal testimony to share regarding this. Our bakery has a special machine that collects coins as payment and also dispenses change. So, if you pay for your baguette with a 1 euro coin, you put it in the slot rather than give it to the cashier, and then the machine gives you 10 centimes change. One day, I put in a 2 euro coin, and the machine didn't accept it -- but it didn't return it to me, either. The coin just disappeared. So I told the cashier what the problem was. She glanced at the machine, rolled her eyes, and argued that I hadn't put any coins in. Needless to say, I didn't get my money back.

Just knowing that "the customer comes last" in France has produced more patience in me. I don't expect French shopkeepers to rush over to help me, so I'm pleasantly surprised when I do get good customer service. And it actually happens quite often. Perhaps the negative stereotype holds more true for Paris than Lyon.

Still, I was really caught off guard today when I was asked to participate in a customer service survey at a local grocery store. I started to beg off with my typical excuse, "Je parle juste un peu français," but then I thought, "Why not? It might be interesting." And it was! Between his limited English and my limited French, we "Franglished" our way through the survey, question by question. (Fortunately, he let me read the questions on his clipboard as he tried to translate them into English, and that helped a lot.) I was surprised to see that the questions were exactly the types of questions a store in America might use: How would you rate the cleanliness of the store? The variety of produce? The friendliness of the staff? etc. I rated my answers on a scale of 1-5 and justified my responses. He jotted down notes from my suggestions for improvement, and then he thanked me for my time. I was very pleased -- perhaps the French do understand that good customer service breeds loyalty. I know I'll be returning to this store.