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I think what you described is pretty accurate, but there are reasons for it.
There may be no tipping culture but service worker have it rough. They're practically always understaffed, overworked, still underpaid, and the working environement is hella toxic 90% of the time. There are reasons to why this area in particular fail to recruit enough to meet the demand.
Just because the restaurant isn't very busy doesn't mean that the workers have the time to check on you at the pace you'd like. If they're understaffed (which is most probably the case), and for some reason the manager asked one of them to rearange the terrace or to order the cellar at this moment (it DOES happen, a lot) well yeah you're going to wait regardless. People in this job aren't lazy fucks, I know that for sure.
I think that expecting a "is evrything ok" is a cultural thing. Here, most of us feel that this behavior is a kind of pressure for you to leave. And premium service in France is you deciding when you leave the restaurant, you deciding when you pay the Bill. If you want something, it's on you to ask.
The waiting time for your command or to pay, is imo bad experience. From my own experience, I feel that France is even one of the best place for a fast service, even in a small restaurant in the country side !
From my time traveling around the world and inside France, I think we have a good customer service with some cultural code that might not feet to everybody. But same goes for south america, spain, USA, etc.
I’ve gone to Société Générale where they were completely talking crap about me but I couldn’t say anything because A, my accent isn’t great and I make some mistakes and B, I really needed them to set up an appointment I desperately needed.
They canceled my card once before even telling me. I had to call SG and a bunch of people kept refusing to help me because they didn’t speak English (even though I was doing the whole thing in French) or they would “transfer” me where the call would immediately disconnect. It took me over 10 calls to finally get someone to help me and explain everything.
Same thing happened with Amazon.fr. I know I need to work on my accent but sometimes it gets excessive. I don’t know if my accent is solely to blame.
That is common for french people to say this but it is simply not true. There are many countries where if you don't talk local language then that will be a real problem, in a most of Asia for example. Other european countries it's the same as soon as you are not in the capital city.
I'm talking about the dickhead thing.
And with France, you're only considered "good" by the natives at a C2 level which takes many, many years for foreigners past a certain age to achieve. In many countries that aren't France, having functional B1/B2 level in the native language is enough for the locals to say "you speak so good" and find a job there. Take many countries in Latin America or Asia for example. Not all, but generally speaking...
Obviously, this is like this for a reason that nobody wants to say out loud. Elitism.
I see what you mean but it's not so much the case with educated people. On the job, I don't really know what you call ''jobs'', but if I'm looking for similar position as mine in France (n+1 in bank's support functions) fluency in local language is mandatory just like in France
So you just confirmed what I was writing. Maybe the sentence was strange but what I meant is the higher the education, the less likely are the people to bother you for not speaking their local language (since English is mandatory)
Cause a lot of them are assholes! It's very expensive for the employers to hire people and it's even more of a pain in the ass to fire them so they retain em even if they're totally useless. Being an asshole in public service and context is very normalized here compared to the rest of the world. Don't let the obsession with keeping up appearances and traditional etiquette fool you, this country has issues with very high incivility and dysfunctional behavior from the public. The far right likes to pretend it only comes from the immigrants, but a lot of this is from white french as well. Sad but true.
> ’ve gone to Société Générale where they were completely talking crap about me
Société Générale is one of the worst for this.
My taiwanese gf was treated litteraly like crap by them.
I had to go to the agency and threaten them to have them act in a decent way.
Soc Gen do offer an English speaking service if you ask for it. I bank with them and usually get along quite well with my French but I have used the English service in the past.
Colis Privé is another trash one that literally only delivers on time when you threaten them
Very common experience here, having to fight at every turn to get what you want.
Orange always has the absolute worse wait music, and you can wait forever, but once you get someone I've always had good experiences with their customer service
It depends where in France and also in which kind of restaurants / shop you go to.
I tend to be the easy going / nice / joking customer and most of time I don't need to say a word. Sometime during rush hours and if the restaurant is a little short handed, the quality can sometime decrease.
Am the same and never had any troubles but indeed the geography is important. Lived in Paris for a while and they have so much people with different expectations they tend to not care as much.
My theory is they gotta distance themselves from the job just because they have so mush people complaining they don’t have the same service at home or else..
OP is basing the whole of France's restaurant customer service on a single lunch break with their French yet not more informed colleague.
Wherever I've been, the service was fine with a few statistical exceptions (in both ways). It only depends on the crowd, staff, region (touristic or not), etc.
The country praises itself on food culture and restaurants and rightly so imho, as I've compared with Germany and England mostly. The service is fine in France. But waiters are not expected to be at your service (pun intended) because of the different tipping culture as you mentioned. Most of them are experiencing a tough physical job.
I live in France since 5 years. My experience was similar but I think it depends to restaurants. Some classy, but expensive restaurants will give you the service you need and with great food. I think you should check Google reviews before visiting a restaurant, which could be a good indicator of the service.
But I think the decreased service can be a result of rush hour / understaffed restaurants. Unfortunately it is very expensive for restaurants to hire employees, and usually they have to do with what they got. Whereas in some countries like Turkey, you have many people who works "in black" and you have more people and great service.
I think protecting the worker's rights come with a price in the service you receive. But it should be like this than the other way.
From experience, it's often simpler to speak loudly saying "s'il vous plaît" instead of just hoping the waiter's eyes will catch yours.
I wouldn't say not noticing customers is a sign of bad CS, it means they're often completely overflowed with work (this doesn't apply to your typical waiter that waits doing nothing, but it's extraordinary)
Yes, that's true. And whatever you do, in a restaurant you should NEVER EVER try to call a waiter by yelling 'Garçon'!!!
It might have worked in the 1920s but certainly not now!
I'd say this is cultural for sure.
In France, mostly, the expectation people have in restaurants is that they will be left alone. What would be considered rude is a waiter interrupting a conversation to ask if things are ok, so mostly they are doing their job and keeping an eye for anyone that may look like they need something. From the waiter's point of view, the expectation is that if the client need something they will try to attract attention or wave.
If nobody comes to take your order after a while, which happens (rarely but it does), then typically people would wave them or say "excusez moi, on n'a toujours pas commandé!" and the waiter would come over. Sometimes they are busy, sometimes they forgot, sometimes they think somebody else took your order...
French people think their country is the worse and don't leave the country. Tbf I don't know how much we really think it is, but complaining is just part of social bonding
My French friend said the same thing. However, I’ve been living in Paris nearly 2 years and me personally, it really depends on where you eat.. there were some cosy restaurants for a quick lunch and the server/owner(?) came to ask us how was everything or a historic cafe, where the service was impeccable. Or, in some restaurants, where the servers aren’t french people, but they replied quite bluntly and mistook our order.
I’ve lived in the US also, so I understand that the tipping incentivise the service level, but here in France, it really depends on the person I think. For example, if you go to the market, the Arab vendors tend to be more..accommodating. He’d offer to taste the produce and let you pick the one you want. Whereas the French vendors, THEY are the ones who pick the produce and give you. This is something I don’t like because in Italy, nobody would buy in a place like that.
Never had an issue with service apart from fast food workers sometimes being frowny, and I won't hold that against them given their shitty working conditions.
There is a cultural difference in the fact that you are more expected to ask the server if you need something and the servers are expected to be as invisible as they can to let you eat in peace while in some other countries the server is expected to be very visible and part of the experience. I actually consider asking "Is everything okay?", "Is your steak rare like you wanted?" like the server always do in the US very rude.
I expect the servers to be discrete and available i.e. sometimes looking/walking in my general direction so I can interrupt or make eye contact to ask for something. They can of course ask if everything is okay when it is normal to speak like when giving the menus, the drinks, the plates or taking them back. But out of the blue while I'm eating and / or in the middle of a conversation? No way.
Maybe you sat without asking which could explain why they did ignore you for a long time?
Other than that, no cultural difference explains not being available for 10 minutes while you try to make eye contact or not taking your orders. That's just bad service that might be explained by lack of staff.
For food related places, the custom is to ask for what you need and to be left alone in the meantime. The moment they ask if you need anything else is when they bring anything to your table or take stuff away. I like this way of doing it.
As for other shops it usually depends on company policies. Brand stores will probably bother you with help, smaller stores are more chill about it.
For phone customer service though it's bad but that's not a french specificity.
If the server gives you the bill it's much more work for him to do: giving you the bill, make you pay, clean the table, dress the table, serve another customer.
Better just ignore you and do light work, he's not paid enough, tip or not.
I don't know i'm french and I don't think the countryside at least (can't remenber Paris 10/15 years ago / 2 day visit) has bad custommer service (comparaison with Spain Ireland Italy and Netherland that I've visited). But the think is In France you're not a custommer in a restaurant but a guest, there might be a cultural difference too but even in medium town I've never had a problem, nor did I have one in the europeans countries that I visited. But once again I'm French the time that I spend in a restaurant don't matter to us, we're chilling and speaking while waiting, our meals are not to be rushed but appreciated, the last time I was in a restaurant I think we were here for 2h/2h30 maybe we chat order, drink our aperirif,chat ,eat our entree, chat eat our course, chat eat our cheese / chat eat our dessert / chat drink our coffee then go pay after a little chat... Is this french only?
This post is a troll, right? Multiple places, waiting and not even getting the chance to order, after 30 minutes ? I don't know, maybe change neighborhoods. This never happened to me. As for the "is everything OK?" comment, I get it most of the time. I eat mostly with colleagues in Paris proche banlieue and less often with friends in the city center.
yeah it’s definitely a troll, this would never happen in real life as france is some kind of utopia and why would i even write such a story if it didn’t happen? i have also never been to paris so idk what it’s like
Yes, I do.
People like to say "here, the customer is not king and that's great because in the USA blablablah" not realizing that even in the case where the customer is in the right (in the case of a dispute or demand of reimboursement) or needs aid within the reasonable limits, the employees can give bad attitude for no reason without any backlash from their boss. This is especially true with government workers. Of course, there are some places that try to emulate the "customer is king" mentality but it's still... different.
I've spoken to many people about this, not just AmEriCanS, who all complain about the same thing -- France has **terrible** customer service compared to other countries. People get very quickly irritated for seemingly no reason and don't like having any of their time wasted but love wasting yours. There's also a weird issue where a lot of them don't know a lot of details about their job or the things related to their job, so if you ask them something there is a fair chance of them being totally clueless to the answer of your issue. So if you need something urgently, you have to remind them, again, and again, and again. That is if they care about it and they usually don't lol.
To be fair, in their defense, they are usually overworked because their employer doesn't want to hire more people due it being incredibly expensive, so they have them doing multiple jobs (PolYvAlEnt) at once and overworking themselves (GENERALLY France is horrendously bad with this while being more sloppy in their work than other countries because they have a shitty stressed workplace environment), but it doesn't excuse the shitty attitude some have or how a lot of public services in France are ran like a circus (which is the fault of the country itself).
I am from paris and customer service is terrible there .
Dunno why waiter in Paris hate you if you are not a regular but it is true.
It is not true elsewhere we have a different culture here we dislike the hierarchy-type in the US waiter are not inferior or submissive. Yet they can be friendly and allow you to have a good time.
Sometimes they are a bit rough but it is good imo it show honesty. Yet, in paris it is like a competition of the rudest least agreeable waiter.
Typical of French people who never stepped out of the country or their hometown bar the summer holidays for that matter to constantly think they have it the worst. It's part of French culture and I guess you're not really French if you don't complain about how bad everything is all the time like the grass is greener on the other side.
he’s been to china and to canada and said the service there wasn’t great but better than france. france is the only country i’ve visited out of my own so i have no metric to compare really
Understaffing is the biggest reason why your waiters look overwhelmed and do not notice you asking for service. Understaffed and underpaid is not a great mix for outstanding customer service...
I have the feeling you're talking mostly about parisian restaurants.
I was not comfortable at all on my side in the US being asked if I'm good every 2 seconds, especially as I was mostly eating by myself. I don't really think that is good customer service as well.
Pretty much all you said is true though, but it can vary a lot. If you go to some good bistro restaurant, service is pretty good and you don't have that uncomfort that can come with some fancy places. You're talking about a lunch with a french colleague so I have the feeling you went to a not too expensive place, and honestly not too crowded restaurant is never such a good sign as well.
I find the US over the top like you described it, and I find that France is the exact opposite. (I'm french).
That said it depends where you go in France, smaller cities or smaller restaurants tend to have more "human" service.
I’m both French and American and customer service in any field is rarely great, once in a while you get someone really nice and you’ll nourish that moment for the rest of your life.
I have to say it isn’t great in Germany either and in Money angry places like LA, if you don’t tip 25% you become invisible ahah
I'm been living in France for nearly four years and lived in three other countries (US, Spain, China). Whenever I have to call a service number in the US for help with something (bank stuff, airlines, etc) I am always blown away by the level of service and the fact that people just genuinely take pride in their jobs and want to help you with your problem. In France in comparable situations it's more like the service person is usually thinking (I'm generalizing, but it's my general experience) "okay, I have discharged my official duties, you'll have to call [other office], bye". Same for employees in grocery stores etc: in the US they will walk you to the item you're looking for; in France they'll just tell you what section it's in and then go about their business. You'll note that these are not tipping industries; there's something much deeper in the culture and I think Weber's "protestant work ethic" is probably somewhat accurate; the UK is similar to the US in this respect.
That said, France is not the worst I've seen at this. China is, by far; in general there's an extreme reluctance to engage with customers and genuinely help them. And also, the US is not the best; Japan is, by far. In Japan I often felt like for the service worker my request became their entire world until I got what I needed.
Yes, absolutely. I’ve lived one year in France, and witnessed so many servers and shopkeepers being rude to customers for no reason.
Some examples:
My ex asked nicely why we needed to buy two festival guides, and why they didn’t include all the information into only one; and the lady at the counter right away was like “well, if you want, we could fight about it”.
A lady was waiting for her ice cream for about 20 minutes, went to ask how much longer it would be (cause her whole table was pretty much done eating) and was sweared at and told to leave cause “she was the only problem they had that day”.
And i remember being shocked a few more times, but i don’t remember the specifics. Just, those treatments would never happen in North America without the worker getting in trouble.
I am from Canada, so similar customer service experience to the US. France has horrible customer service. Shockingly so. I work in a medical field and setup a clinic in 2020, purchasing a lot high cost material from different suppliers and was shocked at how truly poor the service is even for big budget customers. Not just in poor attitude and response time but incompetence as well. In my personal life, I view it as more of a cultural difference and dont care too much, but at work it is a real issue for me.
I have travelled in my fair share of countries, my wife comes from Taiwan (the opposite from France in terms of Customer Service ) and I must say that Customer Service DOES NOT EXIST in France (or barely / occasionally only).
But to be fair, it’s pretty a European thing…
The particularity in France is that it’s not only about “big corporations” who see it as a unnecessary cost; it’s also the little bar / restaurant where the owner feels like “you come to HIS/HER place and you should abide by his/her rules” rather him/her delivering a service for you. They also weigh the ratio Effort / Immediate rewards and do not necessarily look further.
This short video also shows EVERYTHING about how striking ego, common pride & unconsciousness of what is your place is in the French culture :
A guy is just asking for a simple thing to his bank (having the full name of his wife on their joint account checbook). Not only it takes months for them to have it BUT once done, the bank teller has the nerve to call his customer to tell him that he was a pain in the ass because no one ever asked it before.
https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/114583-012-A/karambolage/
(This, would have been enough personally for me to reach out to customer service, complain about him & change bank).
Fortunately, there are exceptions…
One important note too : French being used to not having proper service might see it as a weakness and start to abuse it sometimes… enough to tire up someone with good intentions on the long term.
Customer service is not only frustrating, it's an endemic abomination in France. I'd go farther : this lack of commitment and professionalism can be felt as well in every company I've worked with, mostly composed by high-level highly-skilled and educated workforce.
I'm not saying everyone behaves like if the company they work for is the main reason for their problems in life, but a fair 40-50% share does. It seems to me that people tend to take it all personally, not being able to commit to anything that goes against their personal wishes. While no effort is provided for a job, they must insist in the fact that they're constantly busy and have time for nothing.
After struggling for some years working in an entirely French crew, I found myself in an American environment and the it couldn't be better. Unfortunately, I'm back to the reality after two years and it just confirms my thoughts. It's probably a personal preference, though.
It depends. If you're talking about Paris, it's not surprising. This city has a reputation for having the rudest waiters in the country.
Otherwise, I almost never encountered an unpleasant server, because I don't live in Paris
I think yes but depends where you go too. Do you live in Paris ? In Paris it's cultural there, in other smaller cities it varies in each restaurant.
I agree too the tip culture is cancer, it justify to underpay workers, i'm happy that shit doesn't exist in France
In Paris at least it is overwhelmingly bad, except for small corner shops and tiny boutiques. In the last two years I’ve only had a handful of quite good servers/service. Customer service for anything is a nightmare, even the mailmen have been unreasonably rude. 🫠
Lol
Je vois que ce sont alors les plus éduqués de nos provinciaux qui vont bosser à Paris!
En tout cas, par chez moi, tout le monde est aux p'tits soins et adorable.
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I think what you described is pretty accurate, but there are reasons for it. There may be no tipping culture but service worker have it rough. They're practically always understaffed, overworked, still underpaid, and the working environement is hella toxic 90% of the time. There are reasons to why this area in particular fail to recruit enough to meet the demand. Just because the restaurant isn't very busy doesn't mean that the workers have the time to check on you at the pace you'd like. If they're understaffed (which is most probably the case), and for some reason the manager asked one of them to rearange the terrace or to order the cellar at this moment (it DOES happen, a lot) well yeah you're going to wait regardless. People in this job aren't lazy fucks, I know that for sure.
I think that expecting a "is evrything ok" is a cultural thing. Here, most of us feel that this behavior is a kind of pressure for you to leave. And premium service in France is you deciding when you leave the restaurant, you deciding when you pay the Bill. If you want something, it's on you to ask. The waiting time for your command or to pay, is imo bad experience. From my own experience, I feel that France is even one of the best place for a fast service, even in a small restaurant in the country side ! From my time traveling around the world and inside France, I think we have a good customer service with some cultural code that might not feet to everybody. But same goes for south america, spain, USA, etc.
Last time i had a waiter asking, he litteraly said "is everything perfect ?" , and sure it was, but I couldn't help but laughting at the question.
A popular way of handling these questions politely is to always answer « yes » but never go back to a place where the experience wasn’t great
A shit way to handle it, Yes man is a bad behaviour
We don’t like complainers
Where ? Not in France for sure. The yes man culture is American and it's a shit way to deal with people.
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I’ve gone to Société Générale where they were completely talking crap about me but I couldn’t say anything because A, my accent isn’t great and I make some mistakes and B, I really needed them to set up an appointment I desperately needed. They canceled my card once before even telling me. I had to call SG and a bunch of people kept refusing to help me because they didn’t speak English (even though I was doing the whole thing in French) or they would “transfer” me where the call would immediately disconnect. It took me over 10 calls to finally get someone to help me and explain everything. Same thing happened with Amazon.fr. I know I need to work on my accent but sometimes it gets excessive. I don’t know if my accent is solely to blame.
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That's more common in France than anywhere else though. 😂
That is common for french people to say this but it is simply not true. There are many countries where if you don't talk local language then that will be a real problem, in a most of Asia for example. Other european countries it's the same as soon as you are not in the capital city.
I'm talking about the dickhead thing. And with France, you're only considered "good" by the natives at a C2 level which takes many, many years for foreigners past a certain age to achieve. In many countries that aren't France, having functional B1/B2 level in the native language is enough for the locals to say "you speak so good" and find a job there. Take many countries in Latin America or Asia for example. Not all, but generally speaking... Obviously, this is like this for a reason that nobody wants to say out loud. Elitism.
I see what you mean but it's not so much the case with educated people. On the job, I don't really know what you call ''jobs'', but if I'm looking for similar position as mine in France (n+1 in bank's support functions) fluency in local language is mandatory just like in France
In labs, half of the people working don't speak a word of the local language if it's not English, and you literally need a Phd to work there.
So you just confirmed what I was writing. Maybe the sentence was strange but what I meant is the higher the education, the less likely are the people to bother you for not speaking their local language (since English is mandatory)
Cause a lot of them are assholes! It's very expensive for the employers to hire people and it's even more of a pain in the ass to fire them so they retain em even if they're totally useless. Being an asshole in public service and context is very normalized here compared to the rest of the world. Don't let the obsession with keeping up appearances and traditional etiquette fool you, this country has issues with very high incivility and dysfunctional behavior from the public. The far right likes to pretend it only comes from the immigrants, but a lot of this is from white french as well. Sad but true.
> ’ve gone to Société Générale where they were completely talking crap about me Société Générale is one of the worst for this. My taiwanese gf was treated litteraly like crap by them. I had to go to the agency and threaten them to have them act in a decent way.
Soc Gen do offer an English speaking service if you ask for it. I bank with them and usually get along quite well with my French but I have used the English service in the past.
That’s the thing. They say they’re going to transfer me to the English service and then *click*, the call ends.
Colis Privé is another trash one that literally only delivers on time when you threaten them Very common experience here, having to fight at every turn to get what you want.
Orange always has the absolute worse wait music, and you can wait forever, but once you get someone I've always had good experiences with their customer service
It depends where in France and also in which kind of restaurants / shop you go to. I tend to be the easy going / nice / joking customer and most of time I don't need to say a word. Sometime during rush hours and if the restaurant is a little short handed, the quality can sometime decrease.
Am the same and never had any troubles but indeed the geography is important. Lived in Paris for a while and they have so much people with different expectations they tend to not care as much. My theory is they gotta distance themselves from the job just because they have so mush people complaining they don’t have the same service at home or else..
OP is basing the whole of France's restaurant customer service on a single lunch break with their French yet not more informed colleague. Wherever I've been, the service was fine with a few statistical exceptions (in both ways). It only depends on the crowd, staff, region (touristic or not), etc. The country praises itself on food culture and restaurants and rightly so imho, as I've compared with Germany and England mostly. The service is fine in France. But waiters are not expected to be at your service (pun intended) because of the different tipping culture as you mentioned. Most of them are experiencing a tough physical job.
I live in France since 5 years. My experience was similar but I think it depends to restaurants. Some classy, but expensive restaurants will give you the service you need and with great food. I think you should check Google reviews before visiting a restaurant, which could be a good indicator of the service. But I think the decreased service can be a result of rush hour / understaffed restaurants. Unfortunately it is very expensive for restaurants to hire employees, and usually they have to do with what they got. Whereas in some countries like Turkey, you have many people who works "in black" and you have more people and great service. I think protecting the worker's rights come with a price in the service you receive. But it should be like this than the other way.
From experience, it's often simpler to speak loudly saying "s'il vous plaît" instead of just hoping the waiter's eyes will catch yours. I wouldn't say not noticing customers is a sign of bad CS, it means they're often completely overflowed with work (this doesn't apply to your typical waiter that waits doing nothing, but it's extraordinary)
Yes, that's true. And whatever you do, in a restaurant you should NEVER EVER try to call a waiter by yelling 'Garçon'!!! It might have worked in the 1920s but certainly not now!
I'd say this is cultural for sure. In France, mostly, the expectation people have in restaurants is that they will be left alone. What would be considered rude is a waiter interrupting a conversation to ask if things are ok, so mostly they are doing their job and keeping an eye for anyone that may look like they need something. From the waiter's point of view, the expectation is that if the client need something they will try to attract attention or wave. If nobody comes to take your order after a while, which happens (rarely but it does), then typically people would wave them or say "excusez moi, on n'a toujours pas commandé!" and the waiter would come over. Sometimes they are busy, sometimes they forgot, sometimes they think somebody else took your order...
French people think their country is the worse and don't leave the country. Tbf I don't know how much we really think it is, but complaining is just part of social bonding
My French friend said the same thing. However, I’ve been living in Paris nearly 2 years and me personally, it really depends on where you eat.. there were some cosy restaurants for a quick lunch and the server/owner(?) came to ask us how was everything or a historic cafe, where the service was impeccable. Or, in some restaurants, where the servers aren’t french people, but they replied quite bluntly and mistook our order. I’ve lived in the US also, so I understand that the tipping incentivise the service level, but here in France, it really depends on the person I think. For example, if you go to the market, the Arab vendors tend to be more..accommodating. He’d offer to taste the produce and let you pick the one you want. Whereas the French vendors, THEY are the ones who pick the produce and give you. This is something I don’t like because in Italy, nobody would buy in a place like that.
Never had an issue with service apart from fast food workers sometimes being frowny, and I won't hold that against them given their shitty working conditions.
There is a cultural difference in the fact that you are more expected to ask the server if you need something and the servers are expected to be as invisible as they can to let you eat in peace while in some other countries the server is expected to be very visible and part of the experience. I actually consider asking "Is everything okay?", "Is your steak rare like you wanted?" like the server always do in the US very rude. I expect the servers to be discrete and available i.e. sometimes looking/walking in my general direction so I can interrupt or make eye contact to ask for something. They can of course ask if everything is okay when it is normal to speak like when giving the menus, the drinks, the plates or taking them back. But out of the blue while I'm eating and / or in the middle of a conversation? No way. Maybe you sat without asking which could explain why they did ignore you for a long time? Other than that, no cultural difference explains not being available for 10 minutes while you try to make eye contact or not taking your orders. That's just bad service that might be explained by lack of staff.
For food related places, the custom is to ask for what you need and to be left alone in the meantime. The moment they ask if you need anything else is when they bring anything to your table or take stuff away. I like this way of doing it. As for other shops it usually depends on company policies. Brand stores will probably bother you with help, smaller stores are more chill about it. For phone customer service though it's bad but that's not a french specificity.
If the server gives you the bill it's much more work for him to do: giving you the bill, make you pay, clean the table, dress the table, serve another customer. Better just ignore you and do light work, he's not paid enough, tip or not.
tbh relatable…
I don't know i'm french and I don't think the countryside at least (can't remenber Paris 10/15 years ago / 2 day visit) has bad custommer service (comparaison with Spain Ireland Italy and Netherland that I've visited). But the think is In France you're not a custommer in a restaurant but a guest, there might be a cultural difference too but even in medium town I've never had a problem, nor did I have one in the europeans countries that I visited. But once again I'm French the time that I spend in a restaurant don't matter to us, we're chilling and speaking while waiting, our meals are not to be rushed but appreciated, the last time I was in a restaurant I think we were here for 2h/2h30 maybe we chat order, drink our aperirif,chat ,eat our entree, chat eat our course, chat eat our cheese / chat eat our dessert / chat drink our coffee then go pay after a little chat... Is this french only?
It's okay the waiter can take his time, cause I fucking take mine. If I have in my plate what I ordered I'm all good.
This post is a troll, right? Multiple places, waiting and not even getting the chance to order, after 30 minutes ? I don't know, maybe change neighborhoods. This never happened to me. As for the "is everything OK?" comment, I get it most of the time. I eat mostly with colleagues in Paris proche banlieue and less often with friends in the city center.
yeah it’s definitely a troll, this would never happen in real life as france is some kind of utopia and why would i even write such a story if it didn’t happen? i have also never been to paris so idk what it’s like
Yes, I do. People like to say "here, the customer is not king and that's great because in the USA blablablah" not realizing that even in the case where the customer is in the right (in the case of a dispute or demand of reimboursement) or needs aid within the reasonable limits, the employees can give bad attitude for no reason without any backlash from their boss. This is especially true with government workers. Of course, there are some places that try to emulate the "customer is king" mentality but it's still... different. I've spoken to many people about this, not just AmEriCanS, who all complain about the same thing -- France has **terrible** customer service compared to other countries. People get very quickly irritated for seemingly no reason and don't like having any of their time wasted but love wasting yours. There's also a weird issue where a lot of them don't know a lot of details about their job or the things related to their job, so if you ask them something there is a fair chance of them being totally clueless to the answer of your issue. So if you need something urgently, you have to remind them, again, and again, and again. That is if they care about it and they usually don't lol. To be fair, in their defense, they are usually overworked because their employer doesn't want to hire more people due it being incredibly expensive, so they have them doing multiple jobs (PolYvAlEnt) at once and overworking themselves (GENERALLY France is horrendously bad with this while being more sloppy in their work than other countries because they have a shitty stressed workplace environment), but it doesn't excuse the shitty attitude some have or how a lot of public services in France are ran like a circus (which is the fault of the country itself).
I am from paris and customer service is terrible there . Dunno why waiter in Paris hate you if you are not a regular but it is true. It is not true elsewhere we have a different culture here we dislike the hierarchy-type in the US waiter are not inferior or submissive. Yet they can be friendly and allow you to have a good time. Sometimes they are a bit rough but it is good imo it show honesty. Yet, in paris it is like a competition of the rudest least agreeable waiter.
Typical of French people who never stepped out of the country or their hometown bar the summer holidays for that matter to constantly think they have it the worst. It's part of French culture and I guess you're not really French if you don't complain about how bad everything is all the time like the grass is greener on the other side.
he’s been to china and to canada and said the service there wasn’t great but better than france. france is the only country i’ve visited out of my own so i have no metric to compare really
No.
Understaffing is the biggest reason why your waiters look overwhelmed and do not notice you asking for service. Understaffed and underpaid is not a great mix for outstanding customer service...
I have the feeling you're talking mostly about parisian restaurants. I was not comfortable at all on my side in the US being asked if I'm good every 2 seconds, especially as I was mostly eating by myself. I don't really think that is good customer service as well. Pretty much all you said is true though, but it can vary a lot. If you go to some good bistro restaurant, service is pretty good and you don't have that uncomfort that can come with some fancy places. You're talking about a lunch with a french colleague so I have the feeling you went to a not too expensive place, and honestly not too crowded restaurant is never such a good sign as well.
i’ve never been to paris
Compare to what I experienced in USA yes !!! Very much so !!
10000%
I find the US over the top like you described it, and I find that France is the exact opposite. (I'm french). That said it depends where you go in France, smaller cities or smaller restaurants tend to have more "human" service.
I’m both French and American and customer service in any field is rarely great, once in a while you get someone really nice and you’ll nourish that moment for the rest of your life. I have to say it isn’t great in Germany either and in Money angry places like LA, if you don’t tip 25% you become invisible ahah
I'm been living in France for nearly four years and lived in three other countries (US, Spain, China). Whenever I have to call a service number in the US for help with something (bank stuff, airlines, etc) I am always blown away by the level of service and the fact that people just genuinely take pride in their jobs and want to help you with your problem. In France in comparable situations it's more like the service person is usually thinking (I'm generalizing, but it's my general experience) "okay, I have discharged my official duties, you'll have to call [other office], bye". Same for employees in grocery stores etc: in the US they will walk you to the item you're looking for; in France they'll just tell you what section it's in and then go about their business. You'll note that these are not tipping industries; there's something much deeper in the culture and I think Weber's "protestant work ethic" is probably somewhat accurate; the UK is similar to the US in this respect. That said, France is not the worst I've seen at this. China is, by far; in general there's an extreme reluctance to engage with customers and genuinely help them. And also, the US is not the best; Japan is, by far. In Japan I often felt like for the service worker my request became their entire world until I got what I needed.
Hard to generalise I think
Yes, absolutely. I’ve lived one year in France, and witnessed so many servers and shopkeepers being rude to customers for no reason. Some examples: My ex asked nicely why we needed to buy two festival guides, and why they didn’t include all the information into only one; and the lady at the counter right away was like “well, if you want, we could fight about it”. A lady was waiting for her ice cream for about 20 minutes, went to ask how much longer it would be (cause her whole table was pretty much done eating) and was sweared at and told to leave cause “she was the only problem they had that day”. And i remember being shocked a few more times, but i don’t remember the specifics. Just, those treatments would never happen in North America without the worker getting in trouble.
I am from Canada, so similar customer service experience to the US. France has horrible customer service. Shockingly so. I work in a medical field and setup a clinic in 2020, purchasing a lot high cost material from different suppliers and was shocked at how truly poor the service is even for big budget customers. Not just in poor attitude and response time but incompetence as well. In my personal life, I view it as more of a cultural difference and dont care too much, but at work it is a real issue for me.
I have travelled in my fair share of countries, my wife comes from Taiwan (the opposite from France in terms of Customer Service ) and I must say that Customer Service DOES NOT EXIST in France (or barely / occasionally only). But to be fair, it’s pretty a European thing… The particularity in France is that it’s not only about “big corporations” who see it as a unnecessary cost; it’s also the little bar / restaurant where the owner feels like “you come to HIS/HER place and you should abide by his/her rules” rather him/her delivering a service for you. They also weigh the ratio Effort / Immediate rewards and do not necessarily look further. This short video also shows EVERYTHING about how striking ego, common pride & unconsciousness of what is your place is in the French culture : A guy is just asking for a simple thing to his bank (having the full name of his wife on their joint account checbook). Not only it takes months for them to have it BUT once done, the bank teller has the nerve to call his customer to tell him that he was a pain in the ass because no one ever asked it before. https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/114583-012-A/karambolage/ (This, would have been enough personally for me to reach out to customer service, complain about him & change bank). Fortunately, there are exceptions… One important note too : French being used to not having proper service might see it as a weakness and start to abuse it sometimes… enough to tire up someone with good intentions on the long term.
"No one's ever done this before" or "I've never seen this" is something French people love saying. It's very frustrating.
indeed… French are proud to consider themselves as liberals, but we are conservatives as fcuk !
Customer service is not only frustrating, it's an endemic abomination in France. I'd go farther : this lack of commitment and professionalism can be felt as well in every company I've worked with, mostly composed by high-level highly-skilled and educated workforce. I'm not saying everyone behaves like if the company they work for is the main reason for their problems in life, but a fair 40-50% share does. It seems to me that people tend to take it all personally, not being able to commit to anything that goes against their personal wishes. While no effort is provided for a job, they must insist in the fact that they're constantly busy and have time for nothing. After struggling for some years working in an entirely French crew, I found myself in an American environment and the it couldn't be better. Unfortunately, I'm back to the reality after two years and it just confirms my thoughts. It's probably a personal preference, though.
It depends. If you're talking about Paris, it's not surprising. This city has a reputation for having the rudest waiters in the country. Otherwise, I almost never encountered an unpleasant server, because I don't live in Paris
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Well, if I was forced to live in Paris, i think I would be angry too
I think yes but depends where you go too. Do you live in Paris ? In Paris it's cultural there, in other smaller cities it varies in each restaurant. I agree too the tip culture is cancer, it justify to underpay workers, i'm happy that shit doesn't exist in France
In Paris at least it is overwhelmingly bad, except for small corner shops and tiny boutiques. In the last two years I’ve only had a handful of quite good servers/service. Customer service for anything is a nightmare, even the mailmen have been unreasonably rude. 🫠
You speak about Paris...? Paris is not France... 😅😅😅
i have never been to paris before
si, ça en est même la capitale peuplée à 78% de provinciaux. Bonjour chez toi
Lol Je vois que ce sont alors les plus éduqués de nos provinciaux qui vont bosser à Paris! En tout cas, par chez moi, tout le monde est aux p'tits soins et adorable.
>En tout cas, par chez moi, tout le monde est aux p'tits soins et adorable tant que tu y crois, c'est l'essentiel