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The one thing that always makes me smile in Portugal is the customer service that we get compared to what it was like in England. And it brings me back to an incident many years ago in Curry’s when we were living in Manchester.
We had gone to buy a TV for our bedroom so we could sit in bed and watch movies on a night and we chose our television and went to get an assistant to help us take it over to the till.
We found someone – well that’s not technically true it felt more like he was stalking us and pounced as soon as he saw we needed assistance.
He was young maybe about 19 and acted like really knew it all like you would associate with many electrical places.
It was very close to the till but on the way to the till he asked us four times if we wanted to purchase an extra guarantee past the 12 months that was provided with the product which we declined.
Then at the till we got asked a further three times and wouldn’t take our debit card until they had run through their extra guarantee one more time.
At which point we walked out and never entered a Curry’s store again.
This was in 2007 and I am sure their policies haven’t changed much. I am certain that they work on commission and the more policies they sell the better. Well they can go for it but they won’t sell one to me. I have even given fake address details prior to this attempted purchase when buying electrical goods in Curry’s as it was necessary to stop them hounding you with letters offering extended warranties.
Now roll on another year and we are happily living in Portugal. It is getting close to Christmas 2008 (our first one abroad) and we went down to the local electrical store to make our first purchase which happened to be a Playstation 2 for our son who was 7 at the time. And I couldn’t believe it we were offered a two year guarantee for the same price as a one year and this was so different to what we were used to.
Yes we were offered the option to extend past the two years if we wanted to but it was never done in a pushy way and we were amazed by how polite and lovely the staff were.
This was actually our first of many electrical purchases in Portugal and the customer service never once was anything else but the best.
Recently I bought my husband a coffee machine for Christmas and the only one I wanted had sold out so we took the display one. Well in England they would have just given you as it is and then you would have paid the same.
But hey this is Portugal so we got extra coffee and a great big discount off the price. I was gobsmacked to say the least! Then I mentioned to the helpful guy that it was a Christmas present for my husband and when he turned up in the shop the guy hid it for me without me even having to ask.
It just shows you where I would rather be when shopping. The same goes for deliveries forget DFS and their terrible lack of deliveries but you have quality stores that will ring you up and apologise if a delivery is going to be late without you haven’t to chase them up.
Customer Service = Portugal
