Your service will be restored in 7 to 10 days, please call back if it isn't working after 10 days
In France, it is easier to get to a customer service rep, but you have to pay for the phone call and it is about 34 cents a minute. If you really have a problem that can't be solved, you can easily rack up Euro 50 to get the problem fixed. I heard that companies were going to stop charging for customer service calls, but we have been charged for them (France Telecom) recently.
In any case, the method of not addressing the problem is different from the US, but the result is the same, time lost by the customer while the problem persists.
One case is our television channels. We ordered and paid for a "bouquet" of programs from France Telecom but we couldn't get them on the TV. After several trips to the France Telecom/Orange store, several different cards for the TV and maybe 8 calls to customer service, they told us that we had to wait 7 to 10 days to get the channels.
Silly us, we waited patiently, checking every day for 10 days. During this time, we were paying for our "bouquet" of 400 channels and we were getting about 5 -- the french "free" channels plus CNN and Euronews.
At the end of the 10 days, Terry went into Terry-motion. He wrote a letter to the key execs at France Telecom explaining our problem. Within a few days, we had a phone call from someone at FT and our stations were restored.
What does it take to get companies to deliver reasonable customer service for their products?
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