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Comment by kimixa | Hacker News Reader

As someone who was born and raised in the UK but since moved to the US, to my eyes there's a different general idea about what "good" customer service is.

In the UK I generally saw good customer service is "I had a problem, that problem was solved quickly and efficiently". The time spent solving that problem is likely unpleasant, so get it over with as soon as possible.

In the US it feels more "The person trying to handle the problem is personable and friendly". The time it takes doesn't matter so much, as there's a focus on trying to make my time during it as enjoyable as possible.

I get super frustrated waiting at a bank or similar and the person in front is having a chat with the teller, I don't want to be in the bank, I don't want to have a chat, I have some specific goal (like getting change) that I want achieved and leave as soon as possible. That is what I consider "good" service.

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I don't like the tyranny of optimism either, but I wouldn't wish UK customer service on anyone that's dear to me. Nor German one for that matter, a place that they conveniently call "Servicewueste"(service desert).

I absolutely love US customer service, but then I also get annoyed when incompetent service agents keep trying to help when they should really hand it over to someone more competent. I guess that's because they are worried that they might lose their job if the customer is unhappy.

I always joke that every company needs exactly one German. One German is enough to call out all the bullshit americans praise over the top, but if there's too many nothing will ever get done because everything is impossible.

I really wonder if there is a middle ground. I certainly haven't encountered it in any country I've lived in.

German customer service I had was actually good. They were respectful, polite, dealt with what I wanted or explained why they cant/won't.

Yes, I'm an American but back in the mid to late 90s I had a job that took me to Germany a lot. I think I wound up doing about 20 trips over about an 8 year period, one to two weeks each time. I didn't have any problems with the service, one I adjusted a bit to some different conventions: Germans tend to be blunter sometimes but they'd still help handle what I needed to get handled efficiently. I could struggle through basic conversations in German by the end of it, but we'd usually switch to English for anything nontrivial (or a language mix if the person I was talking to had limited or no English).

In my experience, a Dutchman will work, too!

You might be interested in the concept of personalized call centre customer service based on personality markers developed by Taibi Kahler, who also advised NASA on astronaut dynamics. The "warm and friendly" approach is probably chosen because there are statistically more people who respond to that approach? https://www.networkworld.com/article/3183276/using-personali...

Sorta a chicken/egg situation no? Does the same hold in a different culture?

> "I had a problem, that problem was solved quickly and efficiently".

It's even more interesting here in Canada; kind of inbetween US and UK. There's in fact a bit of a debate of the 2 approaches.

What you're seeing is the collapse of skill and the shift to sales. It derives heavily from the banking industry, interesting you use the bank as your example. When the banks got automated(ABMs), you might expect the number of employees employed by the banks went down but it went way way up. They are no longer tellers, they are sales.

Sales people aren't there to solve your problem. They want to sell you something, and a good sales person is personable, friendly, and you don't realize they are doing it.

Good Customer service is very contextual. A bank teller line or a counter where you order fast food should be fast, efficient, while attempting to be rude and uncaring. But, you'd want your doctor to be at least personable and a waitress at a full sit down restaurant needs to be able to converse with diners.

Service also needs to be cognizant of overall "load" on the environment. It might be ok to chat when there's no one else around, but not when ten people are waiting. It's a bit of a balancing act and so few people providing service really understand it.

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