Customer Service - Bangalore Edition

This little incident didn't happen to me, but I thought it was worth recording as an example of everything customer service is NOT about.

My sister and family had stopped at a Sweets stall after lunch because my niece wanted to try something.  She selected a sweet and asked for 1 piece, to be consumed there and was quoted Rs.40. She got it and after finishing it, felt like eating one more and asked for the same.  The guy goes, that will be another Rs.40 (no big mystery there).  After handing it over, he adds:

"You know, if you were going to get two pieces, you should have just asked for 100 grams. That would have been 2 pieces and would only have cost Rs. 60 (Rs.600 for 1kg)."

Sounds great, let's just make it an order for 100g.

"Oh no," goes the guy, "You didn't order it that way. Since you asked for 1 piece at a time, you have to pay the same way."

No amount of argument was going to budge the dude and they had to pay the piece-rate. I suppose they should be glad that he told them about the "better deal" for the next time around!

Customer Service - France Edition

Expecting a certain lack of friendliness or even rudeness from the French in general and Parisians in particular seems to be the conventional wisdom. In our two visits there, our experience has been quite to the contrary - we have found most folks happy to help and gloss over the fact that we speak no French. As with any large city, a visitor to Paris is constantly reminded to be mindful of pickpockets and when we were there last week, I was in a constant state of vigilance, going through crowds, in and out of the metro, and so on.  On this occasion though, we were sitting at one of the tables outside a restaurant that are so common across Paris and having some pizza.  I had my phone on the table.  A couple of women walked by rapidly, conversing in French.  After they had passed us, one of them abruptly turned around and walked back and asked me in an unsmiling voice, "Anglais?" I was a bit puzzled by her demeanor, but understood that she was asking if I spoke English. I said yes, and in accented English, but in the same stern voice she said, "Don't leave your phone on the table" and without waiting for any answer turned back and resumed her walk.  Malini and the boys had not quite caught the exchange and I had to explain that despite the seeming rudeness, she was actually being helpful and warning me against thieves who would swipe the phone from the table.

But helpful is not the term I would use for the Avis agent at the Saint Pierre de Corps train station in the Loire valley.  First he spoke no English and had no interest in meeting me half way with some combo of broken English and French (I am quite certain he gets a lot of American and British tourists coming through - the Chateaus in the area were fairly crawling with them).  Thankfully this was a small issue since our hostess had graciously agreed to come in and help with translations. I had a printout showing our estimated total at just under $300.  That included almost $100 in taxes and another $100 for the one-way rental.  The guy does a lot of typing, asks if I would be ok with an automatic (most locals prefer manual transmissions), and so on and finally produces a stack of papers and asks me to sign at the bottom. I get a shock - the amount listed is 478 Euros, which is approximately $650 - more that twice my printed quote.  When I ask about it, he does a bunch more typing and then says it is because he added insurance, even though I had explicitly told him that I did not want it.  The hostess explains this again and after some unhappy murmuring, he tears up the sheets and does more typing and then produces another invoice, this time for 425 Euros. I protest that this is still too high. He now says something about our contract having been changed (we couldn't pick up the car the previous day as scheduled due to a train strike, but we had called ahead and informed them about it).  He did some more typing and then produced yet another one showing 378 Euros. Now his reasoning changed.  He said this is what happens when you book from the US. They quote the price there, but once you are in France you have to pay the local rate.  This didn't make any sense to me since my reservation clearly showed me picking up the car at that location. He then pointed to the phrase "estimated charges" on my printout and claimed that that was proof of what he was saying. I tried to explain that that was likely due to the exchange rate fluctuations and in any case, it hardly makes sense that we would be off by almost $200 (378 Euros is just over $500 in USD).  He was having none of it and I just had to throw in the towel and accept the car.  Then he said that I should only return the car on Monday morning rather than the Sunday night when we reached Paris.  This presented another problem since we would have to look for overnight parking in the heart of Paris, but really I had no choice but to agree.

Fast forward three days later and we actually end up returning the car Sunday night - turns out there is no issue with the early return and in fact, we end up getting some 50 Euros back for the early return.  Realizing that the agent in Paris is somewhat more helpful, I ask again about the difference between the quote I had gotten and the one I actually paid for.  After much checking he said, "Its because of the liability waiver." Turns out that my friendly agent in the Loire valley had tacked on some liability insurance anyway and now there was no way to take it off.  However, even that didn't explain the entire difference. The agent in Paris was trying, but eventually he gave up with, "I have never seen a contract like yours. I don't know what the other agent did, your best option is to call Avis customer service." Not sure if that will do me much good, but I imagine the experience is likely to be a bit better as long at the person answering the phone is not my friend in Saint Pierre de Corps. 

Driving in Paris

We were in a B&B in Normandy, along the North-West coast of France.  At breakfast we met a group of three friends from the Philippines (but living in England) who were also in a rental car like us, but were planning to return the car locally and take the train into Paris. We were planning to drive into Paris, return the car and then head to our B&B in Paris. One of the friends goes, "I have heard that even if you have full coverage, insurance companies don't cover any accidents that happen around the Arc de Triomphe circle." This won't be news for those familiar with Paris, but this circle or 'roundabout' where 12 avenues meet is infamous for its dangerous traffic, gaining the nickname "Place de la Traffic," although it is known more formally as, "Place Charles de Gaulle." I groaned inwardly since I had declined said full coverage, but felt it was moot since I had no intentions of driving anywhere in Paris, let alone around the Arc de Triomphe.

After spending a lot of unscheduled time visiting D-Day beaches and sights and being stuck in the traffic jams caused by Parisians returning from visiting the coast on a fine weekend, it was almost 9pm by the time we were entering Paris. From the reservation we knew that the rental place closed at 10pm, so we debated whether to head straight for Avis or gas up first. Just then I saw a sign that showed gas at the next exit (we were in Paris, but on a sort of ring road) and decided on the spur of the moment to take it. As soon as we came off the exit ramp and turned onto the street, I realized with the rapid onset of panic that of all the possible streets and boulevards in Paris I could have been on, I was driving on the cobblestones of the famous Champs Elysees, heading straight towards the Arc de Triomphe.  And not a single gas station in sight. Thankfully it was Sunday evening and the traffic was not too bad.  Even so, I really didn't want to drive around that circle, especially mindful of my lack of insurance. Not to mention the little detail that we had no clue what road we should be taking.

Then I  noticed another sign to the right with a "P" and recalling that this was next to the gas symbol that I had seen off the Freeway, I quickly took that turn and it turned out to be a narrow path that was a sharp incline going underground. Soon it was clear that I had entered an underground parking garage and if I went into the garage proper, we would have to figure out the exit. Luckily I saw another car going up a ramp to our left and I was able to cut across some lanes and take that same exit out onto some side street. We punched the Avis address back into the GPS and after a series of turns, we were back on, yes, you guessed it, the Champs Elysees, heading in exactly the same direction as before. This time there was no choice but to keep going and I plunged into the circle sticking to the outside lane even though we had to take the 6th exit. Very quickly it was obvious that drivers here were a different breed compared to those we had experienced in the Loire valley and Normandy. No politely waiting and yielding to cars already in the circle. People here actually speed up as they entered the circle and seemed intent on cutting you off.  Thankfully, we survived without incident (no doubt helped by the light Sunday night traffic) and actually managed to take the correct exit on our first attempt.

We made it to the Avis office (gave up on the gas), but there was no obvious place to return that car. Malini went in and after a long discussion was told that the return place was elsewhere and that we had better fill gas before we returned since they not only charged you more than double for the gas, but also put on a fine if you made them fill up.  The best part? He didn't have an actual address or street name for either the gas station or the rental place - just a little sketch on a piece of paper. At this point we decided that it was better to drop our bags off before returning the car, notwithstanding all the warnings from our host about the difficulty of navigating to his place by car, given all the one-ways and such.  The driving was stressful, but we eventually made it there and after some frenzied unloading (we were unsure how long we could remain parked on the street), we had deposited our luggage in apartment that was to be our home for the next four days. By now it was past 10pm and the light was starting to fade.  And we were quite famished, having decided to wait till we got to Paris to have dinner.  I told our host that we needed to return the car and he said, that is no problem, it is very close by.  Then I said that I needed to fill gas first and he went, "Oh, that is a problem." Then he gave some rather complex directions of how to get to a gas station and then double back to the rental return that was at the Gare du Nord (train station).

We went down to the car and mulled what to do.  The GPS ('Here" maps on the Nokia Lumia) had been excellent, but was useless without an address to punch in. And even when you had an address, we had already discovered how stressful driving in Paris was - there were turns all over the place and multiple roads that led from an intersection.  "Take the next right turn" was not that simple to follow when the first road on the right might not actually be the correct one - it could well be a one-way street that is entering the intersection.  Malini was tense since she had to navigate. I was equally tense (but tried not to show it) since I had to drive.

Eventually we had to move and I decided I would try to follow our host's verbal directions.  However, it was obvious within a few minutes that we were not where he said we should be. After driving around aimlessly for a bit, we decided to head back to the Avis place and retrace our steps from there. At least we knew the address to that and we had the 'sketch' from there.  Punched that address in and started following a rapid series of lefts and rights. Again the Sunday evening traffic came to the rescue - I was clearly violating a number of rules.  I was expecting to recognize the street the Avis office was on, but something seemed off and all of a sudden, the GPS announced, "You have reached your destination." There wasn't any Avis office in sight and it clearly was not the street we had been on.  I am still not sure what went wrong, but my best guess is that we were on a parallel street that brought us behind the building.  There was no place to stop there and I just made a few random turns and came up on a street that I felt I could stop on.

It was past 10:30pm now.  We didn't know where the gas place was and more importantly we didn't know where the return place was.  Searching for "Gare du Nord Avis" yielded no good results.  Then I decided to forget the gas and just try to find the rental place.  Our host had said it was close to his apartment, so we decided to head there.  As we were driving along,  I noticed a sign that looked like something the Avis guy had put on his sketch. I quickly pulled over and Malini went to check it out. Turned out to be the gas station!  We drove in there and after some struggles, managed to fill up.  An Indian delivery guy was on a motorbike next to us and we asked about the rental return place. He wasn't sure, but gave us some directions.  Feeling better about having gotten the gas and some sort of directions, we pulled back into traffic, but very quickly the panic returned when we realized that we had no clue where we were.  Now it was dark and the street signs were harder to read.  While the light traffic made things easier, it also prevented us from getting clues about legal streets to drive on.  We were stuck again.

Then Google to the rescue: I did a search for "How to return a rental car at Gare du Nord" and came upon a blog entry that showed in great detail how to do the return. The author even gave the street name and said that you should look for the "P" (Parking) sign on your left and then enter the underground garage there. I realized the street was also the same address as the default address for Gare du Nord, so I punched that into the GPS and started following those directions. Malini is calling out the directions and is extremely stressed since it was rather easy to mess up and take the wrong turn.  I keep calling for the next instruction since I want to position myself on the correct lane.  A right turn comes up and we are confused about which road specifically to take and take the wrong one.  The stress level goes up one more notch. Suddenly I notice that the street I am looking for is on my left and I make the turn without waiting to check if I could actually turn that way.  There was another car behind me, so I felt ok about it. That is, until I see the car coming in the opposite direction with its horn blaring and realize that I am going the wrong way on a one-way street. With the other car behind me, there is no turning back and I also notice the "P" sign, but on my right.  I keep going and reach the end of the street and there is no right or left turn allowed and the straight road is another "No Entry" road.

At this point, I had broken so many traffic laws that it didn't seem to matter and I pulled an illegal u-turn.  Now I was heading in the correct direction and entered the parking garage. After descending 6 floors, I came upon the Avis place, but the automatic gate would not open and there was no attendant in sight (it was past 11pm by now). I was afraid to go further since there was no easy way to get back.  Thankfully another car showed up behind me and I went out and asked the driver what to do.  In another lucky break, he spoke English and asked me to feed in the parking ticket I had taken upon entering the parking garage.  Sure enough, the gate opened and I was able to drive up to the Avis return place. Never have I been so relieved to part with a car.

Feeling slightly weak in the legs, the four of us staggered out of Gare du Nord, famished and exhausted, but yet feeling slightly elated. The whole episode felt like something out of a nightmare - so much could have gone wrong, but nothing had. Several times I had cursed myself for not having done what our B&B co-guests had done: returned the car in Normandy and taken the train into Paris. As we left Gare du Nord though, we realized that we had indeed made the right choice - the train strike that had delayed us on the day of arrival was still on-going and there had been no trains into Paris that day.  For all I knew, they were still stuck in Saint Malo and we were in Paris, safely checked into our B&B, and most importantly, sans rental car. As they say, all's well that ends well.