06 October 2006

A Taste of Swiss Customer Service?

The Company gave us the names of two relocation companies to contact regarding the shipment of our personal effects. The agreement includes both the sea/surface shipment (which we decided against) and a smaller air shipment for clothing, linens, a few kitchen items and so on.

We contacted both companies, who are based in Zurich, to request quotes. They sent their American business partners who surveyed the house and provided us with an estimate for both types of shipments.

On the sea/surface shipment they were within 100 CHF (Swiss francs) of each other. But one company was nearly three times as expensive as the other for the air shipment.

Yesterday I notified the more expensive company that we would be going with a different relocation company. The representative e-mailed me back to inquire as to why.

Thinking this was simply a sign that he sincerely wished to know the answer so as to either improve their service or adjust their rates to be competitive, I wrote him a message back explaining the reason.

I received a rather nasty e-mail in which he very indignantly questioned my honesty. He did not believe that another company could possibly offer a quote that low and I must be lying to him.

Is this a true example of Swiss Customer Service? Or is he an anomaly? I am hoping that the latter is the case.

Regardless, we are definitely going with the other company!

2 comments:

The Big Finn said...

He is somewhat of an anomaly, but...there is really no such thing as "customer service" in Switzerland as compared to America. You'll see! It's pretty amazing...restaurants, stores, etc. Customer service people in Switzerland, for the most part, do the least they can to get by.

Chris said...

Hey, I realized I forgot this part (mostly because we were too impoverished to use a professional moving service): you have to get the forms listing your belongings from your moving company (which should be listed in German), and add things you bring along on the flight (like PETS)!