Customer service - lack of

[Aloha Boy]

Perhaps not...if you would have to hire Argentines to perform those services...

They can be trained and incented. Look at China and Vietnam. 2 of the fastest growing economics in the last 20 years. Both were supposedly "brainwashed" communist countries. If I want to start a biz again, I'd certainly would consider BA as my market.

 

[tangobob]

While I don't disagree that customer service here is poor, isn't your situation different? You contacted businesses that don't provide a house call service and they said they don't offer one. Do these businesses usually do house calls but just couldn't be bothered with you? If not, why should they go to a house if they don't provide that service?

When I was living in the UK, I needed my Apple PC fixed. Apple didn't come to my house to fix it and don't offer that option, is that bad customer service on Apple's part?

You must remember that Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and want to be British, so you must accept British levels of customer service.

 

[tangobob]

Over my 11 years here, it has never ceased to bewilder me how poor customer service is. Not long ago, my husband and I were the lone customers in a sofa/furniture store with 3 idle employees. We were more than ready to buy (practically prepared to buy and take home a sofa that very day).
No idea how long we were there without any acknowledgement or assistance, but we finally left empty handed and incredulous.
It reminded me of that scene in “Pretty Woman“ where the snobby saleswomen refused to help Vivian at all, and then she returned with her armfuls of designer purchases to taunt them: “You work on commission, right? Big mistake! Huge!”View attachment 6490

Back to the UK again, my friend took his very old clock to an expensive Jewellers in Chester. The girl there turned her nose up. He was a smart guy, he said to her "Love, I don't work in a shop"

 

[Aloha Boy]

Exactly. There is an umbrella shop near me. That's it. Umbrellas. How in the world do they make a living?

Ha ha. Well, those types of stores are everywhere in the world. I've come across a few tiny miscellaneous stores in Recoleta and have the same thought. I have 2 theories. First one is that they were started by someone with a passion for the product/service (in your case umbrellas) but not concerned with income. Mostly likely a retiree. Then passed on to their heir who didn't have anything better to do. Second thought is that they just have limited education/experience and somehow stumbled onto that line business, was able to start their own, get by, and just continued. There are really many entrepreneurs in the world - restaurants, umbrella store, bookstores, tiny grocery stores, etc. Some will do well, most will not.

But keep in mind that Americans (US & Canadians) are trained to think capitalism from day 1 and make as much money as possible. More so than most countries.

 

[Aloha Boy]

You must remember that Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and want to be British, so you must accept British levels of customer service.

Ouch. Starting a war with the Brits. LOL.

 

[tangobob]

Ouch. Starting a war with the Brits. LOL.

My wife always said I could start a war with myself.

 

[Joglide]

A short footnote to our discussions re service cultures: just flew back to Eze after a couple of months in Europe. Due to land 09.15 am but we ran into a storm cloud so pilot aborted landing and re climbed steeply (first time I have seen this in Argentina) and we approached from another direction. No problem landing but the pilot then reported as lightning had been sighted then the staff would not come out to pull the plane in to the building. After half an hour the rain cleared and we were pulled in. Migration was relatively quick but then the doozy: no luggage unloaded to the carousels. This was now 10.30. After an hour or more of four carousels empty with masses of passengers they made an announcement that 'due to weather' the delivery of baggage would be delayed slightly - general laughter and tired applause. Conditions still unsafe it seems and two hours or more after we got to the hall one carousel began to turn. At 1.00 our bags began to show and having had a taxi waiting since 9.15 I finally got into a city cab at 1.20pm four hours after due to touch down. No apologies, no information given beyond two simple announcements that we were delayed. One Japanese gentlemen sitting next to me said, "I was last here eighteen years ago and I recall problems with Argentina then....". All around the hall were notices asking what was our first impression of Argentina.

 

[wineguy999]

Exactly. There is an umbrella shop near me. That's it. Umbrellas. How in the world do they make a living?

Insanity!

 

[mc kenna]

Ha ha. Well, those types of stores are everywhere in the world. I've come across a few tiny miscellaneous stores in Recoleta and have the same thought. I have 2 theories. First one is that they were started by someone with a passion for the product/service (in your case umbrellas) but not concerned with income. Mostly likely a retiree. Then passed on to their heir who didn't have anything better to do. Second thought is that they just have limited education/experience and somehow stumbled onto that line business, was able to start their own, get by, and just continued. There are really many entrepreneurs in the world - restaurants, umbrella store, bookstores, tiny grocery stores, etc. Some will do well, most will not.

But keep in mind that Americans (US & Canadians) are trained to think capitalism from day 1 and make as much money as possible. More so than most countries.

Except in argentina, 9 out of 10 shops of that nature are money laundering operations for the administration in charge

 

[Iznogud]

BA sounds like a good place to start a service biz. Maybe more paperwork, but weak competition.

Oh, Boy!!

Back in the 90´s Menem sold the Jewels of the Crown (the national utilities companies and its matching monopolies) for a song to a bunch of european companies willing to provide enough incentives under the table. The american companies would not play ball, so none stayed long.
The small change was distributed and people fooled themselves into thinging we were actually making progress.
Then everybody turned to providing "services" instead of producing anything.

The european companies recovered the money they invested in no time and trained the natives to run the utilities companies and export the hard currency for a long time. Real investment never hapened. Things improved enough but they might have done so even without foreign direction. Too expensive to call it aid or assistance. It was, in a large scale, like calling the repaiman to fix the fridge and by the end of the visit, not only he got payed but left being the owner of the fridge.

Another clear example is the telecoms. They put boxes (cell phones) on the street a lot more than investing in developping the infrastructure.

Fibertel basic service is a compressed signal way below the image quality you get by watching the free TV signal. WTF?

Service sucks. Things change only to remain the same. It´s a cultural thing.

We strongly practice the chicken coop way of life. We get pooped from above and we take a dump on the ones below us. The monkey tree has nothing on us.

Iz