The way companies do business and treat customers vary widely across industries—and cultures.
Guillermo, an Argentinean immigrant and a new Canadian put it this way in a recent article:
Many of us come from countries where being a customer is a blessing. A blessing for you that have the opportunity to do business with that establishment. And if you don’t like it, just get the fuck out of here. We don’t need you.
In his article, Guillermo explained Mr. Lube, an auto maintenance company, made a mistake during a simple oil and filter change. An error in the guide used by the employee led to said issue. Fortunately, Mr. Lube’s manager took the problem seriously and refunded Guillermo. He noted he felt appreciated as a customer, yet another small blessing of life in Canada.
I completely understand where Guillermo comes from. As I explained before, in France, the customer is anything but “king”—at worse customers are idiot, and at best a minor annoyance.
It took me a while to start behaving like a Canadian customer. At first, I marvelled at how accommodating businesses were because in Canada, it’s okay to return something you bought, ask for a refund, demand to speak to a manager, complain about a service etc. I wouldn’t have dared to do so in France, first because there’s little chance the business would actually care, and second because it’s cultural, French customers just suck it up.
But North Americans take their “customer job” seriously. Just go online and you will find consumer-oriented websites like The Consumerist or Red Flag Deal. People are completely okay with complaining and most businesses make it easy to do so with toll-free numbers or customer service desks.
Yet for a long time, I behave as a French customer—I suck it up.
When I first came to Canada, Feng used to work late at night and I often walked to Loblaws on Merivale for quick and easy dinner options. My favourite one was a small quiche I’d pick up in the frozen section—I loved savoury pies and I didn’t exactly have the time, skills and ingredients to bake my own. But two or three times, I ended up with a quiche with mold spots and each time, I only discovered it right before putting the quiche in the oven. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t want to walk back to the supermarket (which was probably closed anyway) yet I had to throw my dinner away. I was mad but I didn’t dare to complain. “The supermarket will probably blame me,” I figured.
I would act very differently now and you can be sure I’d complain at the supermarket! This Loblaws is awful, anyway.
Eventually, a few years ago, I made my first customer complaint. I bought a pair of Skechers shoes for work and the sole started falling apart after just a few weeks. I was really annoyed because those were office shoes that I only used indoors. I snapped a picture of the damaged soles and attached it to a complaint letter, along with the receipt that showed the date of purchase.
I was shocked when a few weeks later, the company shipped me a new pair of shoes. It was empowering. I loved it.
Of course, complaining doesn’t always work if the company isn’t receptive or honest. For instance, I just had a terrible experience with TeamBuy, a deal website. Last winter, I bought a voucher for two massages at Glebe Fitness. The first appointment I made in November was cancelled, and so was the second one in April. Glebe Fitness never told me the appointments were cancelled, I’d show just up for nothing. Scheduling a third appointment is now impossible, as all the dates are booked until December 2012. Frankly, I doubt Glebe Fitness wants to honour the voucher.
I emailed TeamBuy and explained the situation. Three emails and several weeks later, I finally received a very curt email fromTeamBuy offering credit towards a future deal. Considering how slow they were to reply and how bad the attitude was, I declined and asked for a refund—I don’t want to use their service ever again. TeamBuy never emailed back.
I could fight the charge with my credit card company but I can’t be bothered. But as a consumer, I will tell all my friends to avoid TeamBuy and future deals featuring Glebe Fitness.
Because that’s also what Canadian consumers do. We have a lot of choices here, and people vote with their wallets. There are plenty of restaurants in Ottawa I would never go to again, and plenty of companies I refuse to do business with after a bad experience. And there are plenty I praise and recommend—because that’s also my job as a customer.
How about you? What kind of customer are you? Have you ever complained to a business? Any businesses you avoid?
For me, I only am a pro-active consumer when it comes to restaurants. I actively write restaurant reviews (in Yelp), and don’t hesitate to point out the bad side of things whenever I encounter one.
There is nothing worse than going to a bad restaurant… it’s always a very frustrating experience and an evening ruined 🙁
And you just might get some customer satisfaction from blogging about TeamBuy and Glebe Fitness. Lots of companies surf the Net in search of feedback and if these two companies do, they might discover your complaints. And make amends??
It worked for me when I complained about General Motors on my blog!
Doubt it, they seem to be stuck on “no”. Too bad for them! I’m moving on but this post will stay 😉
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA policies are mostly the same as in Canada from the way you describe them. Almost all stores will exchange or refund a purchase that is clearly defective. Whether or not I will return something depends on what it cost and what it is. Anything over $10 I will probably return. Food items are an exception both because of the price and my reluctance to drag in a rotten food item. I am not a big complainer. I just go to another store the next time.
I do about the same. In fact, I think I have yet to bring food back to a supermarket… but I have no problem most of the time, fortunately.
As long as you understand that the “consumer is always right” attitude you describe does not apply in Canada to:
1) Telecom (mobile or landline) companies, e.g. Bell/Rogers
2) The Big Five Banks
3) CRA
4) Last but not least, the Cable company (hello again, Rogers!)
For all the above, everything is exactly reversed, and the customer is always wrong, and/or must be charged more.
One small example out of many: My calling name display stopped working on my mobile. Numbers still displayed, but no names. Called Rogers, got over a week of runaround, eventual conclusion was that they could not make it work (it had been working) on my phone model. I could, however buy a new phone at full price, because the old one was not yet eligible for an upgrade. OK – I guess I can do without name display, let’s cancel that and save some money. Surprise – the price for number-only display has just gone up, and is the same as name display, so no refund.
Amen to that! When I signed up for a new phone contract (being a freelancer, I had to), I made a point of avoiding Bell, Roger and Telus. Mind you, Virgin isn’t the best either but they are a bit cheaper and don’t sneak mysterious fees in. Just the attitude of Roger and Bell rep when I asked around was appealing.
Never had too much problem with my bank or with the CRA (lucky me!). But I hear you!
I’m complaining everytime I need to (I had the same story with de-frozen ice cream and bad quality shoes, that’s funny) and every time the storekeeper was fine and nice and replaced it!
You are more Canadian than I am then! One summer I worked at the help desk at Carrefour (or was it Leclerc?) and people kept on bringing back the weird things, like empty packs of cookies because “they didn’t taste good”. Well, why did you have the entire pack then??? 😆
Ahah!
I remember, though, that my boyfriend had an unpleasant experience at a french Starbuck. The motto is “if you’re not satisfiend with your drink, we’re making you a new one”. He ordered a frappucino, which was fine, until the middle of the glass : there was only ice cubes, it wasn’t even mixed properly! He got to the desk to complain and the gal answered “why did you drink half in you didn’t like it?” Ah damn, I wanted to punch her in the nose.
Honestly I have trouble standing the “we don’t need customers” attitude in France. I shop online: I save time and money! Plus returns are easier than in-person, what’s not to love?
Is La Poste reliable enough to shop online? That’s the question… it’s another issue!
It is suprising but they are ! There has been a couple of lost packages but I think it’s less than 1% of my purchases.
That’s good to know!
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