dave
Unless familiar with local customs and fluent in the language the most effective approach is to be polite.
It's pretty standard in the UK for staff staff in big electrical chains to know little about the products beyond the shelf description and the price, however they'll usually find someone who does know more or refer to the manual. Can't say I've noticed Migros being any worse than Currys, if anything they tend to be better staffed.
If you don't like dealing with the staff you could always research and then even buy online - just remember to be pleasant to the postie .
You could always ask if you could quickly disturb the pair of them as you know your question is going to be a quick one?
It happened to me once, I was at Ikea waiting since 20 minutes because a m***n in front of me had to ask millions of questions about this and that. In a city like Rome, London, Milan, there would be much more understanding on customer's time and queues. Because that's ordinary in a big reality and people know how to cope with it.
Switzerland is not mature on that point of view, people in general don't know and don't care about others time and neither feel embarrassed letting the others wait 20/30min because he/she has to ask stupid question that he could well look up by himself on the internet or in the catalogs.
As I said, having lived in big cities, and having developed enough sensibility for such kind of things, I would embarrass myself assuming that kind of behavior. The swiss in general have no knowledge whatsoever on that and they take their time as much as they want, no matter of who's behind them.
In this case the customer service should "educate" the customer, and let him/her know gently that people are waiting on a queue, and if everybody would behave in that way would be just impossible to satisfy everyone's more important requests/questions, but this just doesn't happen, because culturally they are not prepared.
I obviously complain and show my disappointment, but a tear in the ocean doesn't sort such a big effect.
Fabio
dave
Whilst I admit that often they don't acknowledge and communicate that well, I have to say that I would be peeved if a shop assistant dropped me to serve someone else. Sometimes you just have to wait a little.
I'm the first who takes distances from the impatience of many, but sometimes they take time uselessly with total disregard of who is in the queue. For me, it would be embarrassing for myself just as for the person who's serving me.
As for the foreigner thing, yes, I might have added some of the foreigner frustration to this, but it's not to be left unconsidered that Swiss people get treated differently compared to foreigners. It's something rather common, which happens, and unfortunately puts you in the mood that everybody is against you just because you are not from the place... bad thing I admit.
This happens to me a lot.
I normally know what I need and go direct to buy it. So I don't really need that much advice from the salesguy.
It happens a lot that you go to a shop for example, you pick the product and queue in line to pay for it. But you have to wait 10-15 minutes while the guy in front is asking many inane questions, he could have read about in the prospects or manual or internet or whatsoever. I remember even when I went to a mobile zone shop to get an accesory... the salesman went on an on with the client in front about the different cellphone plans and models available... when he finally decides he even helped to unwrap the package, put the battery inside, chose a pin etc...
Incredible... I agree this is great service for the guy, but what about all the others waiting ? Why they don't have another guy to give the information and chose the right phone with the customer and not the cashier guy ?
And as about multi-tasking for the salesman/advice people on a sales surface, this is rather a common thing in other countries, they manage their time and serve as much customers they can, if someone is undecided or wants to know every detail about this and that, they referre him to the catalogs to do some reading or serve another customer while he is thinking or deciding or whatever...
And yes, maybe my question was a quick one, but what If I wanted also to go through all the gamut of alternatives for the product I searched as the other guys do ? he could wait a little to see if I am also satisfied..
This is complaints corner so I am doing, because this happens so often here. I am not saying that elsewhere is better or superior, it is just something I haven't seen in America, UK or SouthAmerica for that matter.
i just was with "mister minit" to have get done a key copy and some cack-handed guy gave me 4 times a wrong information and i waited for the key to come 10days when normally 4 are average. the behaviour of these guys in germany would have lead to get serious stress.
or the other day i explained clearly and slowly (my high german sometimes-i think- is not easy to follow for swiss sales stuff, so speak slowly and clearly and try to make sure the other end got me right) that i want a dsl digital fon with integrated answerfon. and he sold me an analogue fon! when i returned to the swisscom shop...he did not apologize and gave me a bad feeling that i have pointed at the wrong model and therefore i was wrong...hä?
Yes, Swiss customer service has its faults but, after my recent trip back to England, I have to say the Swiss come out smelling of roses.
In England it seems now that unless you just pick up the goods and hand over the money, you're just in the way and interrupting the sales assistants having a good gossip/coffee break.
The US was a bit better but they had a problem with anything that wasn't cash - my UBS credit card nearly caused an international incident; I suggested they just had to type the number in instead of swipe it but I might as well have asked them to stick it between their bum cheeks for all the herrumphing, umming and ahhring they did...
Very early on here in Switzerland I received a severe telling off for not making eye contact when saying "Cheers", "Prost", etc when someone bought me a drink. The surprise to me was that I was expected to repeat the "Cheers" and eye contact with each and every person involved in a round of drinks.
Having learnt that small lesson, I then noticed that eye contact is important for the Swiss in other settings too, such as when talking to someone and of course doing the hello / goodbye bit of a sales transaction.
I remember reading somewhere if someone looks down-and-to-the-left , it is likely they are lying. Or you could be really ugly.
dave
But as a Brit, you probably would have kept the observation to yourself.
Thinking back to the initial bollocking I was given, it was delivered by a Swiss guy. I may be wrong but I don't think a Brit would have done me the same favour.
I then started noticing that when my Swiss colleagues wanted to diss someone, or somewhere, they would often mention lack of eye contact.
"Hello", lied the salesman