Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Customer Service
I n Italy cordiality and helpfulness differ from customer service in much the same way that a
loving caress differs from a kidney punch. There's an apt Yiddish expression that I remem-
berhearingasakidwhensomeoneaskedaboutsomethingawful:“Youshouldn'tknowfrom
it in a hundred years!” The line was always delivered with a grim expression and shaking
of the head for emphasis. Occasionally it was preceded or followed by three short syllables
repeated in rapid succession: “tu, tu, tu.” The three “tu”s were the modern substitute for the
ancient custom of spitting three times to turn away evil, what's known in anthropology as an
apotropaic ritual.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with customer service. Let me assure you that
if you ever want to live in Italy, your ability to endure Italian customer service will be the
most difficult test, in fact, the decisive test of your ability to adapt to the culture.
I don't want to scare you, but I do want to tell it like it is. This is the shadow side of la
dolce vita . I know you're thinking, “How much worse can it be than customer service that's
outsourced to the third world where people with thick accents are reading their scripts off of
teleprompters?” Much worse. Italian customer service will make you long for the good old
days when you got to speak with Murshu in Mumbai.
***
Our first taste of customer service in Italy was at the Rome airport in 1997. It was our
fifth visit to Tuscany, and we were on our way back to California, this time with our four-
month-old infant in tow. (Not to mention car seat, folding crib, stroller, and other assorted
paraphernalia.) At the check-in counter an airline representative took our tickets, put tags
on our luggage and issued our boarding passes. She also told us that we would have to col-
lect our luggage in Boston and then check it in again to continue on to San Francisco. This
seemed odd and I pointed out that on all our previous trips our luggage had been checked
straight through to our final destination. Especially since we were traveling with an infant
and had so much stuff, I asked her if there wasn't a way to pick up our luggage in San Fran-
cisco?
She was unyielding so I asked to speak with a supervisor. She asked us to step aside and said
that someone would be right with us. After a few minutes a big, hulking, bruiser of a guy
walked up to the counter, exchanged a couple words with the airline rep and came over to
us.Istarted toexplain thesituation, buthecutmeoffandaskedtoseeourtickets. Heflipped
through the pages with a frown on his face, like someone who had seen this scam before.
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