Is it me ? part 3

[Beryl]

Nothing to do with gites - just the French use of telephones [:@]

We have made appointment with several agencies since we have been in France. Some have failed to turn up when arranged but rather than phone or email  us to say so, they phone much much later when it is plainly evident that they are not coming and we have had a wasted day.

I have already seen that French customer service is way behind UK times, but this just seems plain bad manners and poor business practise to me.

Have we been unlucky so far or is this usual?

 

[Cerise]

No it 's not you Beryl.  In this part of France anyway, not keeping appointments, not informing anyone, or being days/weeks/hours late seems to be the norm.  I belong to 2 local committees and nothing ever starts on time.  People ring up to tell you something is cancelled after you've already set out to go to it and (most irritating to my mind) no-one seems to think it rude to cancel things at the very last minute without a decent excuse.  My husband works for French enterprise in building trade and finds himself in a real state when he knows that they should be at a customer's 2 hours ago.  His boss did not like it when he mentioned that this made him feel uncomfortable and said everyone did it.  Oh well, cultural difference I suppose.

Maggi