You know, I was just thinking. I've read that the French do not have good customer support and if you buy something and it breaks or something is wrong with it that you are just out of luck. I don't know who wrote that or why. Here's my story and it's just the opposite.
A few years ago (pre digital camera), we were in France. I love to take pictures and my camera broke. We took it to a camera shop in Narbonne and the fellow looked at it and concurred with me that it was a dead camera. He cheerfully helped me choose a new camera that I bought.
We spent a happy week in the Pyrenees taking lots of photos and the last day there in the middle of a medieval dance at Villefranche-de-Conflent, my brand new camera broke. Quelle horreur! The next morning, as we left the area, we stopped at the little camera shop in Narbonne. Having read that we would not be treated well with a problem, I didn't think I had much chance to get any recompense, but figured that I might as well try.
We found the little shop and explained the problem to the man in the shop, a different man from the one who sold us the camera, he tried fixing the camera and came to the same conclusion. This camera too was dead. He took me over to the display and pointed out all the cameras within the price range of my camera and told me to chose one. I did and he cheerfully gave it to me with profound apologies that the first one broke. He also gave me a free roll of film to go with it.
Now if that isn't excellent customer service, I don't know what is. (The second camera is still working very well.)
The moral of the story is that you can't believe everything you read about cultural differences. At least in my eyes, customer service in France is every bit as good as it is here.
A few years ago (pre digital camera), we were in France. I love to take pictures and my camera broke. We took it to a camera shop in Narbonne and the fellow looked at it and concurred with me that it was a dead camera. He cheerfully helped me choose a new camera that I bought.
We spent a happy week in the Pyrenees taking lots of photos and the last day there in the middle of a medieval dance at Villefranche-de-Conflent, my brand new camera broke. Quelle horreur! The next morning, as we left the area, we stopped at the little camera shop in Narbonne. Having read that we would not be treated well with a problem, I didn't think I had much chance to get any recompense, but figured that I might as well try.
We found the little shop and explained the problem to the man in the shop, a different man from the one who sold us the camera, he tried fixing the camera and came to the same conclusion. This camera too was dead. He took me over to the display and pointed out all the cameras within the price range of my camera and told me to chose one. I did and he cheerfully gave it to me with profound apologies that the first one broke. He also gave me a free roll of film to go with it.
Now if that isn't excellent customer service, I don't know what is. (The second camera is still working very well.)
The moral of the story is that you can't believe everything you read about cultural differences. At least in my eyes, customer service in France is every bit as good as it is here.