Germany 1-0 England

[SquareDaff]

Recently bought a Sigma BC1909 HR cycle computer from an English company. After a couple of weeks a bit of the trim had broken off and I hadn't dropped it or anything! Not normally bothered about that sort of thing but thought it might affect the water tightness.

Wrote to the place I got it from in England and the manufacturers in Germany at the same time. The Germans replied saying to send the unit off and they'd send a replacement. The shop in England said send it off and they'd look at it, although to be fair they did offer to pay postage. Would have sent it to the shop - but when I emailed them again to ask if they wanted the full system or just the main unit I never got a reply. The Germans answered the same day.

£1.50 worth of airmail and 2 weeks later and I have a shiny new computer, which judging by the 0.2 miles on it has been tested too.

Go Germany.....well the customer services departments anyway!!!

 

[snorri]

Go Germany.....well the customer services departments anyway!!!

Would the German company have treated a German customer similarly, or were they out to impress a foreign customer?
We will never know.

 

[ColinJ]

Would the German company have treated a German customer similarly, or were they out to impress a foreign customer?
We will never know.

Email a complaint to them in German and let us know how you get on!

 

[SquareDaff]

Email a complaint to them in German and let us know how you get on!

Probably OK as I work for a German company, speak the lingo and more importantly know the ettiquete. If I do ever need to I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[ColinJ]

Probably OK as I work for a German company, speak the lingo and more importantly know the ettiquete. If I do ever need to I'll let you know how it goes!

I'm sure that they treat all customers the same way. The Germans tend to be very, er, 'correct', don't they!

Someone I know was visiting a German city and wanted to cross a road. There were no cars to be seen, but the pedestrian crossing signal hadn't changed to say it was okay to walk. She looked both ways, saw the road was clear and started to cross. A large group of German pedestrians were standing obediently at the kerbside and tut-tutting loudly about how she wasn't obeying the rules!

 

[SquareDaff]

They tend to be quite "structured" in the way they do things. Everything and everyone has it's place etc... There are times when the chaos of the English way (and how we can adapt to it - snow excepted ) wins out - but some of our customer services could learn a thing or two from the German counterparts!! For example I'd love to have a time for a delivery time rather than the usual am or pm from the English companies!