Miscellaneous -
Have A Nice Day
Diners
were perplexed when the waitress in a West
Midlands branch of a US restaurant chain squatted
down almost to the point of kneeling to take
their orders. When asked what she was doing, why
she was crouching down like that, her reply was
that they had been trained to do it, so that they
could be on the same level as their customers.
Far from having the desired effect of seeming
friendly, the crouching only succeeded in
embarrassing these particular diners who felt it
was completely unnecessary.
The cultural chasm in styles of service made by
5,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean is immediately
obvious to anyone returning to the UK from a trip
to the US. Suddenly shop workers don't greet you
cheerfully, they don't ask you if you want to try
something on, they don't - mercifully - bid you
farewell saying "Have a nice day". And
woe betide any company which tries to import
American service styles into Europe, warns a
report by market analyst Datamonitor. Report
author Andrew Russell says that while many people
in the UK would appreciate US levels of service,
the American style of
service is a definite turn-off.
"Ask people how they feel about a generic
formula like 'Have a Nice Day', where customers
are treated all the same way, and they will tell
you they don't want it," he says. The
problem, he says, is that US companies dictate
strict policies for dealing with customers, for
instance that people in clothes shops should be
asked three times if they want to try something
on. "If they don't ask three times, their
manager will want to know why. Anyone left to
their own initiative would know that the customer
was only wanting to browse, but they don't have
the opportunity to say that. There's no room for
dealing with customers as individuals, and that's
what people in Europe really want," he says.
"Customers are after competent, prompt,
efficient service, someone listening to their
problems, but always acknowledging there's a
business relationship there - they are not
interested in being friends." That is not to
say that service in the UK and elsewhere in
Europe is all it should be. Expert complainer
Jasper Griegson, author of The Complete
Complainer, says service in the UK is still
appalling. "The Americans do take it to
extremes. Everything is 'Have a nice day', and
ice cold water whether you want it or not. But we
are at the other end of the universe. Service
here is so appalling, I think I would rather
tolerate the cheesiness and smiling face of
American service, even if it is artificial."
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