Archive for customer service in Israel
Businesses In Israel charge more for convenience
Posted by: | CommentsBusinesses of all types should be concentrating on how to make their customers life easier and for less money. If they can fous on these two things while maintaining their profit margins then that will lead to success.
I believe I wrote about this in another post on buying Tuna in Israel and how they charged you more money for a package of four cans then if you bought four separate cans. And I remember hearing that if you buy in bulk in Israel you end up paying more money. One of the reasons behind this is that if you buy in bulk then you may come shopping less often which means less impulse buying. The stores want you to keep coming back.
Seems like most companies in Israel charge you for convenience. If you want something delivered it will cost you money. If you buy in bulk it will cost you money. If you want to private park it will cost you money.
Here is an example that I saw today. I was at ACE today helping out my cousin who just made Aliyah and I was a bit thirsty but did not have any cash on me. I saw the soda machine took credit cards and I was thinking about spending the 7.5 NIS for a bottle of ice tea (very expensive in it’s own right) and then I saw that they would charge me .60 more if I used my credit card briging up the price of a small bottle of ice tea to 8.10 NIS.
Now I understand that it costs more to the vendor when you get a credit card order instead of cash, but you are already paying a lot for the drink. And .60 is about 8% higher for the product and it’s only costing them 3% or less for the credit card charge. I know in the United States it is illegal to charge more for paying by credit card, but I guess that law does not yet exist in Israel.
As an update to my post on Mei Eden VS. Tami4 I announced that after 7 years of Mei Eden I finally pulled the plug. They even had a guy come over to take back the empty bottles of water, but he refused to take the machine back saying he answered to a higher authority.
That “Higher Authority” after trying to convince us to stay by reducing our bill by 50% told us that it would take two weeks before someone can come and take back the machine.
Now I know that 30 years ago someone from Mei Eden probably thought to himself that if a customer cancels, but you leave the machine behind for two weeks, they may come to miss it and uncancel their canceled order.
NOTE TO MEI EDEN: WE ARE NOT THAT STUPID
If anything it just frustrated us more wanting to end the chapter but not being able to. Today when they finally came to pick up the machine they again tried to convince us not to cancel and again he made my wife the “huge savings” offer.
My wife said to him, why after 7 years are you now coming to us with this offer? Where were you before we canceled? He said “Your right”.
And with those words he took the machine and left; and our time with Mei Eden has come to an end.
Good bye old and trusted friend. Its been wet, its been cold and at times its been boiling hot. But what broke us up was that it just became too expensive.
Please call me back in 5 minutes with your order, my cell phone is ringing
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Imagine you call up a restaurant and you are in the middle of giving your order and the guy taking your order tells you that you should call back in 5 minutes because his cell phone is ringing. Chutzpa you would say? Unbelievable perhaps? Perhaps, but also 100% True. This happened to a very close friend of mine and he was simply flabbergasted.
So he called back in 5 minutes, but the line was busy. It took him 20 minutes before he got a live person on the phone and by that time they told him it would take an hour and a half to get his order.
Only in Israel my friends, only in Israel.
The Royal Garden Hotel in Eilat ~ Great Customer Service even in the winter
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So I met a good friend of mine in Shul this morning who mas MIA for a couple of days last week. I asked him where he was and he told me he took his family for a couple of days to Eilat for a mini-vacation. I asked him how it was and the main thing he could not stop talking about was the customer service of the hotel he stayed at called the Royal Garden. He said that even though it was winter and the hotel was practically empty that still treated him and his family as if it was peak season. But what he really said that impressed him most and really blew my mind is that one of his daughters lost her glasses at the hotel and they couldn't find them. On the way out of the hotel they told the front desk that if they happen to find them that they should call them. The next day the hotel called them 3 times to tell them that they hadn't yet found them, but ther were still looking for them. The second day they again called them twice to tell them that they have not given up looking for the glasses. On the third day after they left they called to say they finally found them and would be sending them to their home. Unbelievable! This is a story you would hear about some famous company in the USA not an Israeli hotel in Eilat! It would have impressed me if it was the Waldorf Astoria that did this and the client was the President Elect! Truly impressive and a hotel I will definately be staying in next time I'm in Eilat!
Black Pizza, The Opposite of Purple Pizza, always tastes burnt
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Those of you who read my post on Purple Pizza, this post is about the exact opposite. Black Pizza. Black Pizza is when you do absolutely everything you can wrong to disatisfy the customer and cause him not to want to do business with you again since there are other competitors that don't screw up as badly. (Do I sound Bitter?). Truth is the mistakes just made an hour ago are not as bad as I am making them sound, but it will be a while before I purchase from them again. The truth is they only made 3 mistakes.
- I specifically asked for the special spicy sauce that my team likes so much and the specifically didn't send it.
- The bottom of one of our 2 1/2 pies was compltetely burnt to the point that one of my programmers called it Shmura Matzah and asked me to get our money back
- I ordered 2 1/2 pies! They were so cheap that they took the 1/2 pie and put the slices on top of another pie in the same box! I am not kidding. Ok, they did have the sense to put some cheap plastic spread inbetween them, but come on! They knew we were an office since I told them so. Spend the extra 4 NIS for a 3rd box since we did spend 192 NIS with you!
Ok, I'm done venting, but I just wanted to point out how they could have done something special or atleast what was expected. Instead they lost our companies business for who knows how long and they won't even know it (no care if I told them) because I'm not going to tell them because they wouldn't listen to me anyway! Ok, now I'm done venting.
Doesn’t every day feel like this when shopping in Israel?
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It's all in the attitude 
Hyundai gets customer service, very happy with them
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When we bought our H1 it was the first time we not only every owned a Hyundai, but the first time we ever drove one. But we needed a large car for our growing family plus a place for a wheel chair for our special needs son and so we went with the H1. I have been known to be pretty heavy on the breaks with any and every car I have every driven and the H1 was no exception. Therefore, after about 5 weeks of my wife complaining about the awful sound the car made every time you steped on the breaks we finally decided to bring it in to the dealer in Talpiot and get it fixed.
Now I must say that we were not expecting a lot since this was Israel and this was a car dealer that we were not very familiar with, but I mist say we were very impressed. They have a nice lounge that you can sit in with news papers, magazines, free coffee, cookies, candy and water. Plus, because it was Chanukah, they had baskets of donuts ready for our taking. But we had to go into Jerusalem for a meeting and they actually called and paid for a taxi to take us to anywhere in Jerusalem we needed to go! After about 20 minutes since we left they called me on the cell phone to tell me exactly what the problem was and what it would cost and should they proceed. (It was the breaks, the drums, etc..)
They told me it would take another hour to fix and I told them to proceed. When we got back to the dealership they gave us our bill and I was ready to ask for a special Chanukah discount, but they had already beaten me to it! They had taken off 10% from labor and 5% of the cost of parts. They had no problem with me paying with Tashlumim and the whole experience I must say was very pleasant. To top it all of they called us two days later to make sure we were happy with the service and if we had any complaints about the way we were dealt with! This is unheard of in Israel and I must say that all in all I am very impressed with Hyundai. I wonder if other car dealers work the same way. Kudos to them!
Customer Service In Israel… Is there a word in Hebrew for Customer Service?
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The general attitude when going shopping in Israel or with any of the government services is that they are doing you a favor for having you shop by them or to get help from them even though the taxes we pay are one of the highest if not the highest in any "democratic" nation. In our customer service section of this blog we will highlight great customer service stories (they do exist) here in Israel as well as those stories which may make you twinge in horror while nodding your head up and down. Don't worry, for any of the bad stories we won't mention any names. We will also post ideas on how companies/businesses can make their customer service better. We will share motivational stories of customer service around the world to help inspire you. If you want your business in Israel to succeed and if you really want to separate yourselves from your competition, you will make your customers scream out in joy for how well you take care of them. It is one of the real secrets to success in any business.
