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LAST WEEK, WE brought you details of a search for Ireland’s friendliest business.
The Junior Chamber International (Ireland), a development organisation for young people, is running a competition to find Irish businesses that go that little bit further “to survive and thrive”.
Our friends at TheLineIreland have taken to the streets to ask what Irish people think of customer service in this country. This is what you told them:
What do YOU think? Is customer service good in Irish businesses in general…
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Well if I can comment here, being an outsider and coming over to live here I can honestly say that the customer service here in comparison to the UK is fantastic. Whomever I have dealt with have always been more than happy to help with whatever I’ve asked of them, bus drivers can sometimes be a bit miserable but maybe they’re just having a bad day!…..sometimes I think the Irish are too down on themselves, you really shouldn’t be you know, it’s a cracking country!
I love you Shirley
Customer service in this country is appalling. Invariably staff in shops don’t even say hello to you, let alone show any kind of courtesy, friendliness or regard for their customers. Its staff of all nationalities too. Rudeness seems to be a universal skill in the service sector.
Except in Aldi and Lidl where they make a point of saying “Hello!”
Ahem, I don’t shop there. Might start if they’re that friendly.
I was onto o2 customer care this morning, after a 5 minute wait, I was put onto a indian or pakistani lady, I had major difficulty understanding and getting my problem across so I asked was there anybody irish there, apparently its racist ???? customer care here is usually top notch but any of the phone lines are swamped with people with little or poor english, and thats including irsh people
Those call centres are terrible, I can never understand a word, and they don’t seem to ever understand me either!!!
Had the same problem with AIB recently. The lady has a Scottish accent. She got quite frustrated with me on the phone because I asked her to repeat a question.
Today I had a brutal customer service experience & a brilliant one!
2pm-it’s lashing and freezing. Head out of the carpark-let down my automatic window & it gets stuck-it won’t go back up!!!
I’m in swords…so think Airside, full of car showrooms with service centres…I’ll head there!
Pull into Renault…the first one I come to – get out of my soaking wet car…in my blouse…into service desk & ask can a mechanic look at my window?
No! No? Your car is not a Renault-I know that thanks!
I just need to see if the window can be made go back up-I’m getting drenched & it’s freezing!
So off the lady goes…reminding me that IF someone is free there will be a charge!!! Eh I wasn’t expecting charity…I just wanted a solution to my problem. 5 mins later-no can do- you have to bring it to a mercedes garage! Great thanks…cheerio…remind me NEVER to purchase a car from you!!! Rang a local garage in Lusk…it’s on my route home… come straight over I’m told! 10 mins later…cup of hot coffee in my hand & towel for my wet hair…mechanic Peter had my car in hand…took 30 mins but window back up..meanwhile he called mercedes…organises what needs to be done to fix it …books me in for Monday & won’t take a penny because it’s a temporary measure!!!
GREAT customer service Lusk Motors- Major lip service Mr.Cullen….I will never go back to Renault & that is why customer service is important.
God that reminds me of a mind boggling experience I had with a Renault dealership a few years ago…. Basically I ordered a part and was told the part would be ordered and available on such and such a day. The garage called me and told me to come the following week to have the part fitted. So I arrive at the garage (took a day off especially) and discover A) they has no record of my appointment and B) had sold the part I wanted to someone else! You couldn’t make it up…. Needless to say they were told to stick their part where the sun don’t shine… Clowns.
Precisely what Gary Vaynerchuk talks about in his book. Don’t be greedy. Sort the person out first, and they will become not only your customer but your online advocate. Just as you have done for Lusk motors. Renault, Swords, stinks of apprenticeships….. Maybe they need to learn valuable lessons from someone other than their owner.
Renault customer sevice stinks in this country, not to mention the some of the engines have a very bad design flaw in their engines regarding a sticky pressure release valve on the oil pump which blows out the oil filter.
A problem we found out to our cost when it happen to our 2012 1.5ltr Fluence diesel, (which I might add had just been serviced a few week prior to the O ring blowing out) when it dumped the entire volume of engine oil on the road as the car drove result in a completely damaged engine. Luckily it was still under warranty and Renault had to replace the engine. But they took their sweet time. Promised it would be completed on particular dates and it wasn’t. They ran into other issues in the rebuild with additional parts having to be fitted. There was a serious lack of communication from Renault to update us on the problems. It was just complete and utter customer service issues all the way.
I will never deal with Renault Ireland again and will definitely NEVER, EVER buy a Renault again.
I think its very bad, and I was only talking about this to my daughter who just returned from Chicago, first time in the states, said customer service was exceptional, though maybe a little cheesy! We need to meet in between.
In the States there’s usually an incentive to give better service – a tip. Since we don’t tip, there’s no benefit to the service agent to be polite, and since we rarely complain, there’s every incentive to be rude.
You don’t tip in a supermarket, at a news stand or the like.
U P C
Not to fan the flames of the Public vs. Private debate, but by far the worst treatment to customers or clients is meted out by the likes of your local Social Welfare or local authority Motor Tax office.
Rude slovenly dressed employees grunting at you from behind their counters. Many of them would be unemployable in the private sector.
I was in a coffee shop recently sitting at a four seater table writing on an A4 note pad when the waitress brought out my order and put it down on my notebook. I blame the parents
I don’t think the customer service is all that bad. Once you you stop moaning about the bad and start noticing the good :). It also helps to acknowledge and give feedback if you do in fact come across an excellent customer service.
Living in the uk now, customer service here is fucking retarded, scripted and passed around until you go insane. Its much better backin ireland
The banks are the worst.
It’s brutal!! And wat’s ironic is the phone/communication company’s are the hardest people to talk to!!
Completely true, esp..vodashite!
It’s about average. Not good if you are a female going into an old school builders providers(makes my blood boil!!), often get poor treatment in car garages as a female and certainly customer service is very lacking amongst a lot wedding suppliers, many of whom completely take your custom for granted, or simply dont give a damn as they know they will get that custom from somebody else if not from you. Some coffeeshops can be a bit lacking too, with workers more interested in talking to one another than dealing with their customers, but this is due to lack of attention from the proprietor(i.e. never being there) as opposed to anything else. I have come across better in other countries certainly, but I must say what we have here is better than the in your face faux sincerity you get in Canada or the States. That just freaks the bejaysus out of me, always.
One of the prime reasons I think ireland is so full of jackasses is the customer service that I’ve endured over the past decade. I’ve actually laughed in some owners faces when they’ve attempted to pull their Celtic tiger attitudes on me and told them to cop on.
Every business owner in ireland, good, bad, large and small could do with reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book called “The Thank You Economy”. Excellent book on appreciating your customers.
Depends a great deal on where you go here. I go back/tip, if there’s good service. If it’s bad say so and don’t tip or return. Some upmarket restaurants here can be awful; even at McDonalds you’d get a basic sense of courtesy. In my experience not as good as the U.S., but a hell of a lot better than some others e.g. years in Germany, Austria and France where I found service to be snotty, racist, and borderline abusive even if you speak the local language/custom.
packing up my house, wife, 2kids to emigrate – on phone every day trying to sort annoying details and in shops buying items for the move. standard of service is consistently atrocious, especially from young people lucky to have jobs at all…
Concerned for your Wife & children. I hope you put air-holes in those packing boxes!
whatever excuse there was to be not so conscious of good customer care during the Celtic tiger binge where you just held out your hand expecting to be paid, it should be unconscionable to have that attitude in the current climate. folks if you don’t feel like your hard earned cash matters to a business just do not back to them. problem is some business people don’t place enough value on customer care.
Aldi an lidl have the worst customer service…in my area anyway
I think the worst in threes customer care nothing worse when some one tells you the coverage seems to be fine in your area for your broad band and your phone ……………….and there in an office block in India
I’m in France at the moment. Mostly good but mon dieu when it’s bad it makes Ireland look fantastic!
When I go home to visit Ireland I’m always amazed by the general lack of good customer service. In fact a lot of people are just rude. They act like you are doing them a favour buying something in their store etc. Bloody ridiculous.
You want to read about customer service from a service provider.
Look up on google for Talktalk/digiweb
Its a little note for all service providers how not to handle a customer query.
Pass this around to everybody you know and ask them what do they think
No they cannot add and read how they respond to a genuine legal request.
Digiweb have to get an award for their customer service.
Look up Digiweb-wrong invoice total
Hard to generalise. I’m often surprised at how efficient, helpful and friendly civil servants can be and on those occasions I tell them. Worst offenders are chain stores in my experience. And then there’s Ryanair!
after doing big shoping in dunes returned to my car to find 50 parking ticket my time had run out didn’t see the ticket before i unloaded my shopping. I’d have returned it. I complained to customer service to no avail.
What bugs me most about customer service in Ireland is that a lot of the time if you complain you are simply ignored.
o2 take the award for worst customer service today…. a colleague of mine had a problem with her broadband stick.. went to the local store, waited forever and a day to be served (they obviously saw the offending item in hand, decided they wouldn’t be making a mobile sale & so couldn’t be bothered serving her), when they did serve her they told her service is down the past few days… when she complained they told her to call customer service.. “we’re only retail”- only retail eh?????? These stores need a major attitude overhaul…. why would you ever bother to go back…..
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