The absolute worst thing about living in Spain
People have their various complaints about the things they don’t like about living in Spain. I have a few things that bother me but they are mostly minor. But I have one thing I absolutely hate:
Customer service
I hate the crappy, useless, stupid, and blatantly in-your-face “I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-you” customer service.
A couple of very recent examples to show you what I’m talking about.
Movistar
For those who don’t know, Movistar is the largest cable provider in Spain.
Last week we moved from Antequera to Granada. It meant cancelling our cable service with Movistar.
The first step in cancelling was actually 2 weeks ago. We went to the Movistar store in Antequera (there’s only one, it’s in La Veronica shopping center) and asked them the procedure for cancelling. They told us that they couldn’t do anything there, that we would have to call customer service and cancel. Fine.
So we called customer service and went through the usual bureaucratic procedures of getting anything done in Spain. We were on the phone 45 minutes, which included having to be recorded answering our confirmation that we wanted to have our service cancelled. But we’re used to that. Having done that, the agent confirmed everything: they would cut our service on April 29th and we could bring the router to the Movistar store in Antequera that same day or the next day (the 30th). Perfect. We were moving May 1st.
Bringing the router back to the store should have been the easiest part of the entire procedure.
Here’s how it went:
We arrived at the store with our machine in hand. The lady at the counter looked at the machine and immediately told us “Our network is not working. I can’t take your router”.
{note: the whole conversation was in Spanish. I’m pointing it out just in case somebody says something about confusion stemming from a language issue}.
Me (confused): “We can wait. How long is it going to take?”
She: “It hasn’t worked for 3 days. Maybe it will work later today”.
Me: “Well, I have the machine here. I have the confirmation of cancellation here” (showing her the text confirmation on my phone). “Can you write down whatever information you need and put it in the system when the system is back up?”.
She: “No, I can’t do that. I can’t accept the machine. I can’t take the responsibility. You will have to return the router when the system is back up”.
Me (starting to fume): “So I’m in a Movistar store, I’m bringing back your router which says “Movistar” on it, I have a text from Movistar with all the details on cancelling the contract. This doesn’t make any sense. I’m moving to Granada tomorrow. I’m supposed to move with this machine??”
She: “We have stores all over Spain, you can look for the nearest store where you are moving to”.
Me (angry): “That’s crazy. I’m here with your machine, in your store. What are you even doing here clicking away on your computer if your system isn’t working?”
She: “I’m sorry, I can’t take the machine. I can’t assume responsibility”.
I stormed out. Lissette was a bit better about it, staying behind and apologizing for me while also asking the woman to call us when/if the system was up and working.
Outside the store, we called Movistar customer service. After identifying ourselves and explaining the situation, the agent basically told us the same as the lady in the store “She can’t accept the machine if the system is down. The machine belongs to a contractual 3rd party and we can’t assume responsibility”.
Me: “But my contract is with Movistar and you’re the one that provided the machine. What if I was flying to Africa tomorrow??”
There was no answer to that. She told me that we could look for a store in Granada when we moved there.
In the end that’s what happened. The next day we moved to Granada with the Movistar router in our bags. The following day we hunted down a Movistar store and returned it with no problem. But I was still fuming – why the hell is the onus on me to return their stupid machine to another of their stores??
I told my mom the story. She thought it was the craziest customer service story she had ever heard. And she lives in Mexico where people always complain about bad customer service…
By the way: when we lived in Nerja we had excellent customer service from a local company called Axartel/Avatel. If you can avoid Movistar do so (besides crappy service, they’re expensive).
Renfe
This Renfe story happened just a week before the Moviestar story.
We had a shopping trip planned for Malaga. We decided to take the train.
A while back I had signed up for the Renfe Mas program (where you get loyalty points for each trip) because I figure we’ll be doing a lot of train trips going forward.
The problem started when I went to buy my tickets online. I entered my new Renfe Mas number in the box designated for it. But when I got to the payment page I received an error message: “at this moment we cannot continue with this process. Sorry about the issue (G001-0001)”. My rough translation.
I kept trying and I kept getting the same message.
The next day I tried again and got the same message. But I’m starting to get the hang of Spain. I thought “What if I don’t use that Renfe Mas number?”.
I did the process again without the Renfe Mas number. It went through the first time. No problem. I had my tickets. But it bothered me that I joined their loyalty program and couldn’t get credit for the tickets I had bought (56 Euros for two 25-minute trips). So I decided that when I went to Malaga I would go to their customer service desk and get it straightened out.
The next day:
We took the Antequera – Malaga train at 8:27 am in the morning. It was perfect and all the reasons we love taking the train. It took 25 minutes to get to Malaga.
Arriving, I went to customer service counter. There I started to talk with the man with the beard behind the counter. The conversation went something like this (in Spanish):
Me: I tried to pay for my tickets this week with my Renfe Mas number but it wouldn’t work. Can you please have a look at it, maybe there’s something wrong?
The customer service rep: “you have to enter the Renfe Mas number when you buy you ticket”.
Me: “Yes, that is what I did. But the system didn’t accept it”.
He looked at my ticket. He looked at the printout of my Renfe Mas card.
Him: “It looks ok”.
Me: “Yes, but it’s not ok. It doesn’t want to process my payment when I enter the card number”.
Him: “There is nothing I can do”.
Me: “There is nothing you can do??”. I just looked at him incredulously. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to talking with his co-worker.
He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t entered any numbers in the system or looked up my purchase. He didn’t look at anything to see what was wrong. And he certainly didn’t credit my purchase. We were the only 2 customers in the office, there were two customer service representatives…and neither could be bothered lifting a finger to do their jobs??
Incredible.
Renfe customer service is absolute shit. This wasn’t the first time. Everything is fine with Renfe train service when things go well. But when something doesn’t go well, or you have a customer service-related issue, you can’t count on them to do anything. They’re less than useless. The last time I had to deal with them was a couple of years ago when I had realized that I had booked the wrong train in Madrid. I had realized my mistake before the trip and had gone to customer service at Atocha station asking to reverse or credit the charge against the train journey we wanted to book. I had been bounced around from customer service rep to customer service rep. Nobody could help me. I had given up and ended up paying for double tickets.
I have a bunch of other stories with Renfe that I could share but this story would get too long. But a commonality with Renfe is a whole lot of employees standing around doing nothing with no purpose other than to talk and laugh among themselves. Like the return trip from that same Malaga trip where 4 employees stood around doing exactly that while not giving anyone any information as to why the train was 45 minutes late…yet when you actually get on the train (or plane. Iberia is no better) good luck finding an employee when you need one. They seem to have a secret compartment on the train/plane where they hang out together hiding from customers.
These are just a few examples from the last few weeks. We’ve had other examples of horrible customer service.
One thing they all seem to have in common is that these are all big companies. We’ve had great customer service from people in small shops, bars or restaurants. The average Spaniard will often go out of their way if they have a vested interest in actually giving you service. But there’s something about large Spanish companies that seems to foster an attitude of the customer being a pain in the ass that is best ignored.
There’s a lot of great things about Spain. But customer service is not one of them.
Related: Living in Spain: Why I would never move back to…………..
Related: Comparing Retirement Destinations: Spain Vs Italy
https://www.spainexpat.com/information/hojas-de-reclamaciones-official-consumer-complaint-forms
very useful -especially in shops ,restaurants etc
as the article says its the fact the complaint is formal and followed up
We went for a meal once in seville and it was like a disaster movie with a terrible waiter who would not admit fault and even argued why we were asking for the Hojas de reclamaciones .Unusual as normally service is good in bars etc
LOL! I love it, I agree entirely.
Orange and Movistar plus Santander all shite.
Small local is the way to go.