The Customer Is King
Stop Sign Crying
In France, the saying goes that “le client est roi”. But in fact, the customer is anything but a king: at worsse he is an idiot, at best he is a minor annoyance in your day. As this funny article on “How to play the French service game … and win” explains: “The customer is king. But we all know what they did to their royal family. The guillotined head of Louis XVI bounced across the Place de la Concorde as a few thousand Parisians laughed at it”.
I wish I could tell you foreigners have the wrong impression and that French customer service is actually top-notch – but I’d be lying. The only thing I can tell you to make you feel better as a foreigner in France is that not just tourists experience bad customer service. French don’t discriminate. Everyone is treated like shit.
To eat or just have a drink, you will have to play the passive-aggressive game. Never wait to be seated, even if a sign reads just that. And since you are at it, grab the menus yourself, you will save at least 30 minutes. Never ask for food or drink suggestions: look like you know what you are doing, even if you have no clue what these complicated dishes are. It’s not like the part-time underpaid waiter will know more than you anyway. Don’t expect waiters to be cheery, happy or just friendly. Their job is to bring you food and the bill – consider yourself lucky if you can get just that done. Oh and never go out to eat if you are in hurry (for instance, hoping to catch a movie afterwards). I can’t tell you how many movies I have missed just because I wanted to grab something to eat beforehand… And note that fast-food joints aren’t that fast — that would include “Quick”, don’t let yourself be fooled by the name.
Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by North-American style customer service. I admit it: when I first came to Canada, I hated it. I found people sounded “fake”. In my mind, there was no way Starbucks employee could be that perky serving coffee to an endless queue of grumpy customers from 5 am to 12 pm. And why would McDonalds’ employees apologize for the occasional 10 minutes wait? Didn’t they all hate their employer, like in France? To me, service in restaurants was way too personal: I didn’t like the way the waiter or the waitress would show up unexpectedly at the table after bringing the food to ask if everything was alright. I found the bill came way too fast too: it was almost as if they wanted us to free a table as soon as possible (which they probably did).
But of course, now I’m used to it. Only when I go back to Europe I get super-annoyed at the inefficient and unfriendly customer service.
Another annoying side of the French customer service is that you must pay to complain or have a problem solved, because of premium-rate phone numbers. Let’s say your Internet connection suddenly stops working: you must pay about 0.15 €/minute to hopefully have it fixed. Even the unemployment office uses a premium-rate phone number! Reaching someone isn’t easy either: customers are often put on hold for a long time before being connected (and of course, you are paying for this wait time). It’s often hard to get through because post-sales support, general customer service and public administration have very restricted business hours, typically from 8 am to 5 pm. And of course, they may be closed on WE.
In North America, almost all businesses offer a 1–800 number, which is a toll-free phone number. Business hours are much longer to accommodate everyone (and several time-zones). And most surprising to me, employees seem to really want to solve whatever problem you may have and keep your business.
For instance, a few weeks ago, I sent Skechers, the shoes company, an email. I had bought a pair of pumps for work, barely wore them and yet the sole was already damaged. I was pretty annoyed because shoes are relatively expensive. Plus, between us, I hate shopping for shoes.
The company replied pretty fast and was willing to solve the problem. A couple of emails later, I was offered to choose a new pair of shoes on their website. They took care of everything and the shoes were delivered right to me door. Ah, American-style customer service!
Sometimes it is worth complaining politely to get something done — another thing I learned to do in North America.
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I am French Canadian and moved to the United-Sates in 1997 when i was 22 years old. It took me a long time to get use to the American Customer service as well ( years), which goes to show that it is question of adapting to a new culture. I felt arrases by all the personal questions people would ask me when I barely knew them and most importantly might never see them again.… such as: what do you do for a living? are you married? or do you two live together? where do you live? and so on…
Also…I was VERY irritated by the “babysitting” type service I was getting in restaurants. Waiters coming to our table 2 minutes after dropping our food and asking if the food was good when I had a full mouth and my personal conversation with my friend was interrupted. They would come over at our table an average of 5 times per meal to ask if everything was still all right and if I needed anything else, I felt like I was having dinner with the staff.
AND I absolutely HATE the way American waiters will try to get the plates out of your way and ask you if you are done…if there is still food on the plate(food I just purchased!) don’t even ask… it is still mine and why do I have to answer so many questions and why are they not waiting for me to be checked out before cleaning my table????I feel presure to leave the place for some one else so they can run more table/money in a given evening!
As far as my experience goes, I prefer French customer service when it comes to restaurants and that even after 12 years, I found the service in the states extremelly rude and can see that the only purpouse is to make money, regardless of this fact of life, the client should not feel it at almost every bite! Actually, if you go to a fancy restaurant in the States still, you will notice that the waiters are available and reachable with a simple hand wave… but wont pester you or try to get you out of there fast by cleaning your table as you leen back… which to me, prove that it is a more proper way to wait and serve.
As far as call centers or counter services…I find the American customer service being much much more friendly and efficient and after 12 years in the states and 22 years in Canada, I can say that most of those type transactions were without a doubt MUCH more enjoyable in the United States and horrible in Canada.
It is not the first time I read that French CS is treating people like “shit” and I find that to be a radical statement, it is important as a growing human being mostly if traveling the world, to realize that it might be seen rude to YOU but that your way to see thing might be seen as rude to them when they come in your country.
I can’t start listing all the things that I hated about Mexico and the way they treat tourist sometimes, but I keep going back for more and realize that it is their country and if I do not respect their culture I should retrain myself from going back.
Yes, French can seem rude and sometime are, I believe I am rude in some occasions…this said American are renown for being rude and that arround the world..thinking they are king everywhere they go and expect that the world should speak English…
I travel to Quebec once with an American co-worker to visit business and sell our service. I was there to translate to French…the American sales rep. walked out of one of the business and said: what kind of morons does not speak English” than I said…here is the very reason Quebecors do not have much respect for Americans, nothing says WE HAVE to speak English, and I was one of those “morons” just a few years ago and was doing just fine, living with them and doing just fine in our little French province, everyone went to work/school, ate and raised kids.
French need to stop thinking they are the smartest people in the world and Americans need to stop thinking they are THE ONLY people in the world.
That’s only my opinion but although I am French, I have lived in both American and French culture, and saw the good and the bad and to my opinion they are equal in both parties…and frankly I can accept being called a snob from being French and believe that yes I use to be and still might be a little but I refuse to be called rude…When I go to Mexico, I scrape the little Spanish that I have to communicate to them in their language out of respect..because I know that this is one of the main reason French Canadian resent Americans, most American ( not all) wont even learn how to say hello or thank you in French…these are little tiny efforts that makes a world of difference.
This said, it is only my opinion…
Please excuse any grammar mistakes, I am trying to improve everyday by writing, which I just did!
Thank you so much for your interesting comment! Je peux écrire en français mais continuons donc en anglais
I felt the same when I first came to Canada. I still hate when waiters ask “so, is everything alright?” because my mouth is always full, and as soon as they ask they leave anyway, so you barely have time to reply anything anyway. Sure, service in French restaurants can be long yet you have time to enjoy a meal, I also didn’t like when waiters clear the plates as soon as you put your fork down. This would be so impolite in France!
I also agree, call centers are better in North America, more efficient for sure, plus the call is free.
I find it very rude when people, Americans, English whatever expect people to speak English everywhere. Not only it’s rude but it’s also stupid
This is also so true: “French need to stop thinking they are the smartest people in the world and Americans need to stop thinking they are THE ONLY people in the world.” Love the way you put it!
Thank you again for taking the time to share your opinion. You should write more about your life in the U.S.A, you can obviously write well