Customer Service à la Zidane

I love it when a sweeping generalisation is backed up with evidence (Global Warming? Polar ice-caps melting? Hhhmm, might be something in that piece of evidence...)

Anyway, the following relates to my "infamous"article, "3 Things I Dislike About France". Although it didn't figure in the "list of 3", I wrote that the French like "nothing more than a good-old stand-up argument in public". As above, it was a sweeping generalisation, but sometimes there is a grain of truth that leads to the generalisation...

Last Friday lunchtime, I went to the restaurant with a colleague. We work close to the supermarket mentioned in a previous article. They have several restaurants surrounding them and one of them we go to on a regular basis. It's popular: I estimate that there are over 100 people there at any one time every lunchtime: it's not a dodgy backstreet boozer; the food is OK and, until Friday, I thought that the service was good too...

Today, something was different - there was a guy, in his 40's, not the brightest looking to be honest, but so what, a customer all the same. Anyway, I didn't see how it started, but evidently he wasn't happy with the plate of cheese that had been served to him and was rather vociferously "explaining" this to the serving staff. He entered into a bit of an argument with the manager. Eventually, the manager took off his apron before wandering off into the kitchen. During this time, the guy kept pointing at his cheese (sorry, I really don't know what he was complaining about - it was loud and I was looking over someone's shoulder).

He made his final point by picking up the plate, pointing at it once more for effect, before throwing it on the floor, smashing it and evoking cries of "eh, ô,ô" from the customers (I don't know what effect an ^ has on an ordinary 'o', but it makes it look foreign). At this point, the manager, having removed his apron, returned from the kitchen. He arrived behind the indignant customer who was still remonstrating with the waiters. He calmly tapped the man on the back of the shoulder, and, as he turned round, gave him a swift head-butt. Silence. Problem solved, no ugly shoving out onto the street, no calling the police.

"Got a problem customer? No sweat, a swift smack on the head will soon sort that out".

Nobody, including the buttee knew what to make of this (is buttee a word?- if not, remember that you saw it here first! "buttee" = "one who has been butted". We use "butty" in the north of England to signify "sandwich". A double-butty is far more appetising than a double-buttee. But I digress.).

After a few seconds, he regained his indignation and continued to insult everybody, all the while retreating towards the door as he saw that he might receive another for his troubles. He left, the mess was cleared, and the boss continued to collect orders as before. Problem solved...

Not for me though. We had only just started our meal and I think it shows how paranoid we are because for the rest of the meal, I expected the guy to come back, maybe, god forbid, with a weapon. I am sure that I am not the only one in there that was thinking this, even though there were nervous laughs all round. As Morrissey said "I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was terrible. Oh mamma, let me go". Actually the "Oh mamma let me go" is nothing to do with this article and is a story in itself.

Anyway, my original point that there are very few places in the world where you would see something like this happen, especially in a family restaurant. I checked this story with my French colleagues this morning, who were equally as shocked as me, so my "evidence-of-a-grain-of-truth-in-a-sweeping-generalisation" theory is not exactly vindicated, but its an interesting little interlude in itself.

What doe all this mean though?

1. I will never go there again, and probably neither will many of the other customers present
2. If I do go there again, I won't order the cheese
3. If I don't like the service, I will be very careful about how I complain.
   

I wondered what I would do if I had been the owner watching this? I can't go into French employment law because there is only a limited amount of disk-space in the world. However, putting that aside, I would think I would take one of four options:

1. Send the boss home for the day to keep him out of sight of the remaining customers and then give him a written warning when he comes back, or,
2. Send him on a course on how to treat customers
   
3. Sack him on the spot
4. Recommend him as a bouncer to any night-club-owning /debt-collecting friends.
   

To me, it doesn't seem to be something you should allow your staff to do, even with the most difficult customers...what would you do? Comments welcome.


As a complete aside
In case you don't understand the title of this article. Zinedine Zidane is the 2nd best player I have ever seen (after Maradona). My kids are young and love playing football, but, if you mention Zidane, they follow it up with a "coup de boule" gesture (see the video). If they grow up as football/soccer fans, then it would be a great shame if this is all he is remembered for.