Life in a Service Desert

Small failures can create big problems

I live and work in Germany, and I recently learned a useful German phrase: “Service Wüste.” Well, half-German; the service part is actually English. Translated into English it would mean “service wasteland” or “service desert.” That’s how many Germans describe Germany.

In general, I’ve found the level of service in Germany below that of the United States. For example, some store clerks will come over and ask me if I need any help, but others will stand in my way while they dust the shelf containing the product I want to buy. I need to let them finish their job before I can buy anything. Sometimes I wonder if the clerks understand what their jobs entail.

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Comments

Life in a service desert

Perhaps you should install a bigger mail slot! It won't improve the service, but it will reduce the impacts.

American deserts

Thanks for the article - enjoyed it. Just visited Germany, and found the service - in the tourist areas, leastways - very good. There is hope. The term you coin is marvelous. I don't think service deserts are a Deutsches issue alone, though. My recent forays into these dry, dusty areas right here in the US of A -

- An insurance company that returns premium payments made electronically without giving its customers nor its customer service representatitves a way to find out what the issue was.

- An in-house warehouse operation in a surgery center that doesn't quite have the hang of accepting, logging and placing into inventory critical time-sensitive surgery supplies, despite calls for reassessment of priorities by its internal customers.

- A repair parts retailer that gives the same description of a part for a broad range of different, vaguely similar parts, but gives no diagram, photo, dimension, reference to model number application or other clue to help me know whether this is the part I'm looking for. (Oh, wait, there were four retailers whose websites were like this.)

But these stories are relatively few here, as compared to a couple of dozen years ago. We (the customers) are winning.

service desert

the term is a common one in germany, where, even in tourist areas, there is a service desert. U were lucky. the customer never wins in germany.