Isakat

Hi everyone, I have been absent for some time. I tried to add a few more 'customer care' cases to the old thread, but it was locked, hence a new one.

1) I contacted the plumber who we know for over 5 years. He did the plumbing for a new bathroom, kitchen plumbing, 2 pumps and installed a small hot water boiler over the years. I asked him for a cost to change the heating boiler and he said 500 euro. I sent him a message saying my husband was surprised at the figure, only for him to reply-he can always go and ask someone else to do it. I checked with other people and the figure was very high. I did not reply, but deleted his contact from the phone. Rude, with no sense to keep his customers. I think he is too busy and has no time to do the installation, but he could have said that rather than being rude to a long standing client who has never challenged him on his prices before.

2) my friend and I always go for coffee after Pilates in the same bar where the girls know us, we do not even have to tell them our order. Yesterday while parking in their car park, I saw smashed glass on the floor and tried to avoid driving over it. Upon entering, the owner was at the bar and I informed him that there is glass on the floor and someone could cut their tires on it. He replied that type of glass does not make cuts( looked like smashed windscreen glass). I said if I was the owner of the bar, I would make sure that the car park is safe and clean for my clients. Then he brazenly said: you can come this afternoon and clean it. My friend walks in the bar and the first sentence coming from her mouth is: there is glass on the car park floor. I turned to her and said, do not bother, they are not interested. We had the coffee, but after this incident I will try a different bar.

3) following on the plumber episode, I contacted several companies for a quote by email. One responded by phone call on sunday evening ( sounds a bit desperate, but after the other 'customer care' fiasco, it seemed refreshing. He is a local guy and told me the girl will contact me in the morning and make an appointment. She did, she was pleasant and professional and I liked her until she said they will charge me 60 euro for the sopraluogo. That enraged me, I told her I am not paying for a quote and not to bother. I even said to her I might be straniera but I am not stupida. She soon changed her tune and said, its OK you do not need to pay.
The guy came today, I was cautious with him. When he said buy the boiler and the parts and call me for the installation cost, I said that that did not work for me. Until I have his installation cost, I am not doing anything. He said he is sending it via email today.
I contacted 2 more companies and nobody charges for a quote.

philat98

May be you should keep with the original plumber if he does a decent job. Even if you find a polite person he might do a bad job. Changing the boiler is probably 1 day of work so it is going to be at least Euro400.
When we changed ours we had the plumber back twice to repair his mistakes and it was fitted very poorly. Remember to get the correct documentation too.

Geordieborn

I agree with Philat98.

scrubbedexpat142

Suggesting you find an alternative is perfectly reasonable if you are not content with a proposal.

Builders should charge for quotations. Currently many lose much time & money preparing spurious quotations - & that can only be recovered from those who actually place business.

Lorna at Vicenza

Some Italians just don't have a clue or just don't care.
My friends and I have met up at least once a fortnight for a lunchtime aperitivo in a village bar for the last few years. It never was a smart or posh place but it was a handy meet up place for all of us. Those coming from work, those on their way to school to pick up kids or the one using crutches waiting for a knee operation. It has a courtyard which could never be called a beer garden, but it was in the sunshine and fairly spacious. The owner of the bar got a rescue puppy at the start of the summer ....... and let it use the courtyard as its toilet. One day the four of us sat down and then told the owner that every corner of the courtyard had dog poop in it. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "yeah yeah whatever I'll get round to it."
WTF? You'll get round to it?

philat98

I just spent a week near Padova and I thought how perfect it all was.

Isakat

Its both, some Italians do not have a clue and they do not care. Its disgusting walking in Rome with the dog poo on the pavements. And do not start me on drivers opening the window and chucking rubbish out.
Maybe Padova is more civilized?

philat98

I think they are a bit more organised in the Veneto. They have plastic bag dispensers in the centre of town for the dog poop.

Having purchased a dubious bottle of new olive oil (good for making soap) in Bomarzo yesterday, I read afterwards George Dennis's account of the town 1850.
Dennis says "for what will not an Italian do for gain ?—especially the Romans, who, however unlike in some points, resemble their ancestors in thirst for foreign spoil..."

Isakat

I am sure they are better organized in the North. I watched several people yesterday stab their cigarettes in the nice flower pot inside the train station in Monteverde. What does it take to put a big ashtray outside the station? Everywhere you look there are cigarette ends on the floor in the city( on top of the dog poo and overflowing containers with rubbish).

Jake.White

A lot of what Isakat says could easily be transposed over to England - dog poo in the streets : tons of the stuff everywhere, and what's worse is that much of the time they pick it up and put it in one of those little plastic bags, only to discard it 100 yards down the road where no one can see them. I even get it chucked over the fence into my allotment on occasion by well meaning and conscientious dog walkers. But the story of the tradesmen who couldn't care less really resonates with me as I work in the building trade and hear the same story from many of my customers here in England on a regular basis.

I remember a number of years ago in Italy when I had new windows and doors installed in my house and they made such a mess of the surrounding stone work leaving great big holes all around each window and door. When they said the job was finished and asked for payment I asked them if they were going to tidy up and fill in all the holes as the wind was howling through them ( it was in December) and the answer I received was "non facciamo cemento" (we don't do cement) and that was it. I had to pay up as there were three big guys there and just me alone to take them on - 5000 euros and I had to do all the cementing myself. The moral of the story : if you have the knowledge and the capability to do a job yourself, then do so because at least you know what you'll be getting for your hard earned cash and you get the added benefit of cutting all the dodgy characters completely out of the loop.

What Expatrick suggests about charging for quotes is an interesting point but one which would never work in practice as folk simply wouldn't pay it, especially here in the grim north east of England where money is tight all round. Just the other day I wasted over an hour as well as a litre of diesel driving to and from a possible job to give an estimate and then spending half an hour answering the wifies questions, only to be told "I'll get back to you" which up here is simple code for "get lost"

Despite everything though, Blighty is still streets ahead of Italy in general terms for customer service and I've usually found that if I buy an item or a tool in Italy from somewhere like Leroy Merlin which promptly breaks as soon as I try to use it, the lesser of the two evils is to simply cut my losses and buy a better one elsewhere rather than try to get my money back, or better still just bring one out from England as it's been my experience many times over the years that our kit and tools from the diy shops like Wickes, Screwfix etc is/are more reliable and of better quality than much of what I can find in Italy, and often cheaper too.....

Geordieborn

Great post Jake, but I had to laugh at a couple of bits. We bought a nice cheap little work bench from Brico when we arrived in Italy. First use and the plastic vice handle snapped, then another and…. It was then I noticed the branded sign and smaller “Made in Durham England”. The other is our total failure to find a builder in West Yorkshire to even answer, let alone come out to provide us with a quote, oh to be back in the Northeast ….

philat98

I have never seen anything with made in Durham written on it. I didnt think anything was made in Durham.
We get a Romanian to do any building work. He has certificates from Germany in electrics, plumbing and tiling and is an incredible hard worker and very precise. When you find someone good in Italy they are often better than their UK equivalents.

Jake.White

Lol. Nobody is perfect I suppose.. To be fair, Italian stuff you get in the diy shops (Perhaps 'shop' would be more appropriate as Leroy is the only big one I know of) has improved a fair bit over the years. Most of the classic cases of things I bought in Italy breaking on first use were back in the days when the only place for miles around was a kind of 'habitat' type place called Conforama which I still in my own mind refer to as "Craporama". I distinctly remember buying a really robust looking garden spade there which snapped in two the first time I tried to dig with it... A lot of the stuff is made in Germany now with the 'TUV' stamp on it and is of better quality.

Geordieborn

It’s a bit like when I went in to the ferramenta and said I wanted some batteries and said “I don’t want any of those Chinese cr@p you sold me last time” He looked at me with a very serious face, laughed, and then reached under the counter and said “we keep these hidden here” – Duracell made in Belgium (?)

Isakat

Regarding charging for quotes, I contacted several other companies and when I asked if they charge, they said no. When I told them one company wanted 60 euro, they said-'no signora, this is not how we work'.
While I understand that time costs money, I do not think many people here will pay for a quote.

And, regarding quality of tools, I find OBI to be better than the other shops with Chinese low quality imports.