I can feel deeply for the incidents where one gets such horrible customer service, as I been there, had it.

It is a bit of over generalisation to compare it in such way. Between Swiss and other places like UK. I live in the UK but there are still horrible customer service experience here.

Personally, I will say this. Not as an attempt to undermine previous comments about people who is honestly expressing their opinions, I find that there is a generalised view of expecting the highest possible level of service from being a paying customer.

I have the money. I am the paying customer. You, waitress/counter person/conductor, etc. work for money and I expect you to treat me with decency.

When the balance of power tips too much of the mentality the customer is always right, the approach of a mutual respect in a sales encounter diminishes.

In a position if I think I am a service worker, would you imagine that I would want to serve you with proper respect if you have a rude attitude? I may be a very nice person who likes to serve. You may know that you can complain if my service falls below your expectations and your complains and rants especially to a much higher level will cause me my job. I would hate to lose my living that way.

Still, do I deserve to be treated with little respect only when most customers think they are the kings?

Now. Isn’t that a strong point one may need to consider? I am not a salesperson or in such a service provision. I am an author on happiness.

If we start and consistently deal with service men and women with great respect, you will find that such experience would been more pleasant.

That comes from my own experience as well. No, I don’t get 100% pleasant encounters all the time. However, I get it 9 out of ten times. Sometimes, the chemistry is not right, the person behind the counter had a bad day (maybe her pet just died) or it could be anything, you maybe let down.

However, that is a part of life.

When more people practice greater tolerance and respect to others, life and working encounters would been so much better. Imagine going to work daily knowing you will help lots of nice and friendly faces. The horrible person on some occasions may ruin the day, but that won’t be too bad when one learns to accept it.

I only started wanting to say a few sentence of how much I love Switzerland it’s high level of:
Class.
Culture.
Sophistication.

And to say I feel and emphasise deeply with everyone’s experience here.

We can continue to make ourselves unhappy over them, or we can look forward to make our simple selves a bit happier, and I hope in that simple process, snowball it to greater things in life.

Thank you if you have come this far.

Thought you might love to know that my complaint didn’t fall on deaf ears after all. Just received a phone call from SBB customer service informing me the waiter was fired two weeks ago, because other customers had also complained about his poor mannerrs and foul behaviour. The ticket inspector is also being investigated and further feedback will follow regarding his treatment of customers as well
Satisfaction at last and well done SBB, I say!!

Unfortunately for the waiter as well as the ticket conductor, and unbeknown to myself, my friend recorded the entire incident on her mobile phone. It’s quite entertaining to be frank with you. The matter is now being investigated by SBB and Swiss Tourism, as they both agree we did nothing wrong After all, we wanted to consume something and thus spend money, however, our attempt to do so was foiled by the waiter’s poor manners and total inability to serve anything and nothing.
Furthermore, you are totally missing the point. It doesn’t matter whether there was a technical problem or not. What matters is that the customer should receive a friendly explanation and apology, for the inconvenience caused by whatever glitch there might have been, not marching orders for having done nothing wrong except wanting to order something from the menu. Fact is Swiss customer service, nine times out of ten, leaves the mind boggling. Instead of going the extra mile for a customer the Swiss aren’t even willing to offer the mere basics of customer service. Five years I and my wife tried buying an HP laptop at Interdiscount (who do not really sell anything at discounted prices btw). Nevertheless, they had the machine we desired and the store was on the ground floor of the building where I worked at that point in time. To cut a long story short, we knew what we wanted to buy, we were not in need of any advice regarding the machine, and so the plan was to walk into the store, spend about CHF 2′500 at the store and walk out again with our new purchase. Nothing more simple than that - one would think. But, oh no!! We were told they have no time to fetch the box from the back store room for us, because it’s lunch hour and they had other customers waiting! Our attempt to simply spend money, without even requiring customer service, had thus been thwarted LOL We ended up going to Manor instead, where the service was and still is first rate, I am happy to report
Fact is Chigs, customer service consists of a lot more than just taking people’s money and running off with it, or in Interdiscount’s case not even managing to do that LOL
Go to North America, go to the UK, go anywhere but Switzerland and you shall receive sensible and friendly customer service. Also, I fail to see why you feel the innate need to defend the Swiss regarding their total lack of customer focus. Why defend something that is simply rubbish? How about encouraging the Swiss to be more customer focused, especially in these economically harsh times? I mean, is it really asking too much for Swiss people to be friendly to their paying customers? I think not! If only because in the traditional sense of the meaning to be in service is to be employed as a servant and servants are there to serve, be polite and this is especially true if they are being paid to do so in the first place! I really fail to see what is so wrong or terrible about being polite to paying customers…., but I’m always happy to be enlightened as to the error of my ways