"I've sent a hamper to our partners" - no David, not good David, bad taste, poor judgement, naughty, what were you thinking? So, a major breakthrough in Anglo-american safety - the hamper (American) is a Laundry basket (English) where as a hamper (English) is a Gift basket (American).

God bless our language

Wiredgoose is re-blogged, following a frustrating lockout due to BetaBlogger raising my heartbeat contrary to expectations.

Speaking of things coronary, and continuing Kevin's French vein below (pun avoidable but irresistible), last night's typical example of French customer (dis)service raised my blood pressure a notch or two.

SFR, the part-Vodafone-owned French mobile operator I chose to use some 8 years ago, is not renowned for customer service (see Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz ).

So, how bad is SFR's customer disservice? Well, three evenings ago (Dec 12th), having decided to upgrade my ageing Nokia 6210 phone to a Nokia 6234, benefiting from a substantial subsidy on the new phone by agreeing to stay with SFR a further 2 years, I drove 10km to the nearest SFR outlet in a local centre commercial, or mall as Americans prefer to call it. Entering the SFR shop at 7.30 pm, I found myself in a queue of three customers for two SFR staff members dealing with diverse queries from new account setups to phone problems, so as you'd expect things progressed slowly. Sadly, with high French labour costs, we have become used to such understaffed stores, and I waited patiently.

Twenty-five minutes later, I was finally at the front of the queue and my turn came. It was three minutes before 8pm. In my best francais I said I'd like to renew my account and purchase a new phone. "Sorry sir, but it's 8 o'clock and we cannot do renewals after 8. Can you come back tomorrow?" Gnashing of teeth and french mutterings later, I emerged cursing my ill fortune (not for the first time) at being a customer of an operator that best suits my needs but really does not deserve my custom.

So yesterday evening, two days later, I was finally calm enough to try again, this time entering the same store at 7pm. This time I was second in the queue, and there were four staff working, but any optimism rapidly faded as the first available staff apologetically but determinedly finished his shift, declaring loudly that he had already worked 15 minutes late. Mon dieu, quinze minutes plus, quelle horreur!

Half an hour after I walked in, I was served. A charming but inexperienced young lady took my request, checked my account details and delivered the good news that such a good customer was I that I qualified for more of a discount than advertised. So I was going to get my Nokia 6234 for around €40. Great. She showed me the Nokia 6280 for comparison, but no thank you, not for me. The 6234 is great; I already have one for another mobile account and I love it. So, off she went to get the phone and start processing the mountain of paperwork that any French transaction involves.

Desolé Monsieur, rupture de stock. Vous pouvez essayer notre site internet.

"Out of stock. Please try online." (Delivered without the 'Sorry Sir', as French businesses never apologise to disappointed customers).

!

She did have two suggestions: "Try our online store." Do you think I'd have twice queued half an hour here if it was available on your online store? "Ah, ok, well some models are not available on our online store."

Suggestion two: "Try our Grenoble city-centre stores. I can't tell you where they are, but there are two of them and you can look them up." I have already queued for 20 minutes in one of them a week ago (same customer to staff ratio, same French labour costs, same customer disservice) and gave up after no progress in that queue.

So what do I do next? Suffer the queue in yet another shop? Phone ahead and ensure no rupture de stock? Or live with my 6210 a little longer and study the roaming charges of SFR's main competitor Orange?

I do love living in France, but God help (or improve) French customer service.