Living in Israel: Customer Service

A friend of a friend recently told me this story:

A woman - we'll call her "N" (just like the press refers to security personages and state witnesses) - was in an Ace outlet when she happened to notice a super duper portable DVD player on sale (the kind with all sorts of connectivity options that are understood only by true teechno geeks). She decided to splurge and buy it, but then found out that there weren't any in stock. No problem, she was assured, she could order it now and pick it up in a couple of sdays when they got their next shipment. So she ordered one.

A week later she stopped in to pick up her order, but was told that they were still out of stock. But no problem and no worries: they'd call her when it call in.

Time flies when you're having fun, but I suspect that it goes slower when there's no DVD player to play music. Even so, close to 3 more weeks managed to crawl by before "N" next happened to walk into the store. Lo and behold, there were a stack of players on the display floor. She went up to the Head Cashier, produced her receipt for the player she had ordered - and paid for - close to a month earlier, and was rewarded with a new DVD player.

When she asked why no one called her she was told that they "must have tried, but no one answered." Did I mention that "N" and her husband work at home and even when they aren't there, there's an answering machine? Never mind, all's well that ends well. "N" took her purchase home.

The first thing that "N" did was check that her new player worked. She stuck in a music DVD and everything was fine. She then picked up her new toy, moved to another room, turned it back on, and ... nothing. Like one of those short-lived insects that are born, fly around a few hours, lay eggs and die, the player had lived its brief life and now was done.

Back to the store. When "N" asked for her money back, the store clerk didn't understand. They did, after all, have several more units in stock, wouldn't "N" prefer to replace her purchase instead of a refund? But "N" was adamant. Once burned, twice shy, she had no desire to tempt fate any longer.

It was at this point that they explained to her that she couldn't return the defective item. It wasn't that they didn't have a return policy, because they did (and do). It was because in order to take advantage of the policy you had to return the merchandise within two weeks of purchase - and "N" had bought the player almost 4 weeks earlier!

Never fear, "N" did eventually get her refund, but it was touch and go there for a while.

When I first heard this story, I grinned, and like a typical oleh vatik I shook my head and mumbled something like "Ah, only in Israel ..." Ignoring, by the way, the fact that the store in question was actually an American franchise because that would ruin my perception of the typical Israeli customer experience.

And then just yesterday I was reminded that perhaps Israel doesn't have a monopoly on odd and incongruous customer service.

20+ years ago I opened an IRA account with a well known American investment house. A few years ago I become vaguely aware of the fact that they had stopped sending me regular financial statements. I know that I should have looked into it at the time, but when you can't touch the cash until you're almost 60 anyway, it's not like you circle dates on the calendar to make sure that you get your statement on time.

Anyway, recently I tried looking at the account on the Internet, but I found out that my Internet access had been frozen because mail had been returned from my address of record. This, by the way, wasn't because I had moved without notifying the investment company - I've lived in the same home for over a decade and a half. But when we moved in, we used the address that the kablan gave us, and since then the Iriyah has informed us that the address (including even the apartment number) is something else. The investment company had the original "kablan address" - I hadn't updated them in respect to the Iriyah's revelations.

So I sent an email inquiry asking how to set things straight. They replied that I should call during office hours and ask to speak to rep who would help me out. So I called and the rep said no problem, he'd send me an address change form and all I had to do was fill it out and send it in. No problem at all. Why they couldn't send it in response to my email inquiry was an excellent question; he said he'd "look into it."

So last night I got an email with instructions how to get the address change form. All I had to do was log into my account on their website and download it. The only problem, of course, was that until I filed the form I couldn't access my account to get the form to file ...

So I wonder, has Israeli customer service progressed to the point that it's indistinguishable from American service, or perhaps in my extended absence American service has regressed to the Israeli level? Or maybe, just maybe, k'mo ba'America was never as good as I remembered it.