Customer Service in Poland, what are your experiences?

What kind of experience have you had in Poland with customer service? For me was bad.

Care to elaborate?

I find that it goes from one extreme to the other: Either spot on and just right (efficient attentive, but not in your face) or just dire - sulky and uncooperative.

Happened friday. Long story but it got nasty.

Don't be coy - share it....

Surely it can't be as bad as the time when I was living in Germany and had to throw a tantrum which almost resulted in the police being called, because I wasn't getting a basic level of service at a certain mobile phone company...

I have had worse service in other countries.
But I do find excommunist shops a laugh, there are more staff than customers, I do not know how they still survive,
My local supermarker (must be about 15 staff at any one time) , you walk in, there is a woman who will take, weigh and give you , your fruit and veg, the next woman will give you bread, half a loaf or full or presliced etc etc... And the amazing thing is they are all sssssoooo busy, you have to inturupt them to get what you want, but they are very nice and helpful, I suppose they have to look busy to keep their jobs?

And for some strange reason they do not sell toiletries?

My daughter called and ordered a pizza on thursday night,I gave her the money to go pick it up and she went to get it put the money on the counter and got the pizza and come home.The next day they called in the afternoon after we went by the place a few times and said she didn't pay for it. She goes there alot to order and when we go we pay when delivered. The girl that was on the phone said that she didn't pay for it and if I don't come up there now she will call the police, so I'm like what's going on she paid for it and you are wanting to call the police, so she said started getting loud and told me that you are in Poland you speak Polish, mind you she is speaking english at the time .It was alot of drama after that but thats the basics.Never have we went to a place in Poland and had a tab always paid on delivery.The manager was a *****.

wow - so did it get resolved?

No!!! Waiting to find out who the owner is of the restaurant. Funny thing is nobody knows.

Heh, Heh, you should go to Romania for excommunism!
My worst ever experience was in a cafe there (ok, so it's not Poland).

I went in with a friend, sat down, empty cafe. We were ignored by the half dozen or so staff for about 15 minutes, who were chatting to each other,. Then we left. I wanted to start a row or something but I wasn't allowed by my friend (a Romanian), who just said well this is how things are in Romania.

A strange surreal experience..... :)

I even wrote an e-mail to the place in Polish because they advertise on internet and no response.Either the owner don't give a damn or it went into the wrong hands.

Take it to the local press... name and shame them wherever you can.

Just don't buy any more pizzas from them unless you want to get "extra toppings" :)

LOL. She always got pizza or pasta. Spent alot of money there but I guess they didn't appreciate it.I'm not finished with them. I will go to the end with this even though I'm leaving July 10.This place lives on Foreigners and they are suppose to speak several languages. The Resaurant beside them, all the waitress speaks English and German.

I had an experience like this in a Chinese in the UK. If it taught me one thing it was to always ask for a receipt for absolutely everything.

Most likely someone in the pizza place pocketed the money when they saw it lying which is just not on. So LC's idea about going to the local paper (or even threatening to) is a good one. Good luck.

Customer service......
I had a massive problem opening a bank account, Went in asked what I had to do, Showed them all of my documents including passport and they gave me a form to fill out, Got the form filled out took it back and they gave me another to get filled out, took that one back and I was given yet another, Got that all sorted and bearing in mind this went on for several weeks, I took this form back and was told that there was nothing they could do as I was english. I explained to them that they saw my passport checked it and gave me loads of paperwork which I had filled out and signed by the relevant authorities and I was then told that its not their problem and to go away, This was after wasting several days of my time spending a fair bit of cash on parking, Not to mention the my time out of working where I could have been doing something constructive,

The service was appalling and they wondered why I was shouting at them... I dont shout often but this really wound me up.

I wonder if they could have helped me if there was some vodka involved......

My biggest gripe is whenever I call a business in Poland:

My call is usually greeted with a huge sigh when Magda* on reception realises that I don't speak Polish. Sometimes, she just hangs up...

OK, fair enough... maybe it's my fault for not speaking Polish, however I find the huge sigh totally disrespectful. And surely, she can work out that I am looking to speak to <insert name here>

* not a real person, just a generic name that I've given all receptionists.

You can't blame a non English speaker for hanging up on you, If a non english speaker called my office and tried speaking to me in for example Japanese I think I would hang up too! Have you tried saying good morning, Do you speak english? In polish when you call as opposed to just calling and expecting them to respond in english? I found this works a treat and they are much more willing to help,

I've been in that situation lots of times (with Russian and Chinese speakers) and I've always muddled through. The last thing that I would do is greet the caller with a deep sigh, as if to say "I was in the middle of filing my nails when you disturbed me".


Sure - and I always crank up the friendly - smiley voice in these situations. Makes no difference... click click... brrrr....

Fair play then... I usually get a polish speaker to call for me, I must admit I find it annoying when non english speakers call my office and expect me to speak urdu or chinese, I cant help thinking that Non english speaking Poles get the same treatment when calling UK companies,

lol - In my Romania days I sometimes had to speak on the phone to people with no English, with my poor Romanian, but they were always nice, maybe because I started out speaking in their language. I even managed to call to Hungary a few times with my one carefully learned hungarian phrase... The real trick is to get past the receptionist / flunkie / whatever who's day you have disturbed and connect with whoever it is you need to speak to.

The worst country for this sort of thing, impolite disinterest, I find is France, particularily Parisians, and especially taxi drivers and building concierges - the latter sometimes won't speak English to you even when they know how to understand it, having spoken it with you on earlier occasions!

Pig ignorant stupidity, that's what it is.

People who are paid to answer the phone should always be willing to tolerate calls from polite callers who can't speak their language. Even if their first reaction to such a call is abject terror!

But they still hang up on you. lol

We opened a savings account with Multibank (the branch in CH Arkadia in Warsaw) last year. That was done in 15 minutes' time. The only thing they did was copying my karta pobytu and wrote down my Pesel and that was all. No stress at all. Was it one of the old state banks you went to? From them I hear all kind of horror stories.

As for efficiency I am very impressed by the friendly and efficient work by the nice girls in the Foreigner's Department in ul. Długa here in Warsaw. (EU citizens' section) I lost two years ago my karta pobytu and I got it replaced without any fuss.

Did you travel to work on a horse and cart ?

You are so lame, NoImmi...

Shame on you LC for picking on a person of restricted growth ... he's only seven inches tall. I saw the other thread.

Actually, we've found that's it gotten better since the first time I was in Poland in 1993! Back then it was a real shock to go shopping in a store or to go to a restaurant. I lost my temper once in a small deli in Zakopane - it was early and I don't drink coffee in Poland as back then it was "turkish coffee" which to me is just grounds and hot water. There was a long list of items to choose from on the sign behind the counter girl. I started at the top and asked for: white cheese - she responded (all the while looking past me at the door behind me) nie ma; yellow cheese - nie ma, kielbase - nie ma, ham - nie ma - and on and on and finally I ordered tea with lemon and was told - nie ma czytryna. I blew my stack and said very not nicely (and much to the shock of my Polish father-in-law and brother in law "kurwa mac - nic nie masz" and stormed out of the store.

And intellect LOL!!


I bet that this is a brilliant story, but can I have a translation please :)

fcuk this you don't have shyt

Waaaaah!!! :D

if you think customer service in Poland is bad you should go to some parts of Africa. Having just returned from a business trip to Kenya I have encountered some shocking examples.. I waited 2 and a half hours for my meal in a restaurant where I was the only customer, when it came it was totally the wrong order.. but I ate it anyway.. at another hotel almost 2 hours after ordering I was informed that there was no rice (why it took 2 hours to find this out is beyond me) and they had already made the curry to go with it, which was stone cold.. as it had presumably been sitting for some time waiting for the non existent rice. Besides restaurants, hotel cleaners will enter your room and actually ask you to leave, even if you are in bed, so that they can clean the room. There can be signs for all kinds of credit and debit cards posted all over the hotel, but there is no guarantee that they will take any of them.. they are just there to look nice. The toilet broke in my room and I was told how to try to fix it myself! Of course there are some very nice hotels in Kenya, just that I didnt stay at any of them...guess I need a new job. Sorry this has nothing to do with Poland, just felt like having a rant.

I never considered Poland to be a part of the third world, but if you put it like you did then I have to agree that there are many more countries with bad customer service.For example Africa, Asia and parts of South America.