And the "Worst Customer Service Award" goes to...

Customer service? No thanks, we are Germans! This is how it was when we left eight years ago. Germany was still considered a bit of a "service wasteland".

So, on our return we were quite positively surprised that business hours for shops and grocery stores have meanwhile extended from previously 6 or 7 PM to a regular 9 PM (some are even open until 10PM), and we were impressed to encounter friendly and helpful service personnel at all times, when in earlier days we were used to sales people who would duck and cover on a customer approaching.

There are of course some exceptions from the rule: Extended business hours still seem to be foreign to other significant services such as banks (Saturdays? You must be kidding.), insurances (We are on lunch break.), or of course any kind of public service (But we were never used to actually get service there anyway.). Well, you know it and get used to it, that's not what we are ranting about today.

Due to the torrential rainfalls we have encountered since our arrival we wanted to shop for decent motorcycle rain gear, and made the mistake to drive down to FC Moto in Würselen, who promote on their website to be "one of the biggest stores in Germany" and claimed to be "No. 1 in pricing", but they certainly weren't best in class in service.

First there was no greeting on entering the store, nobody even bothered to look up. Second, at no time we were approached and asked if we needed help. Third, we requested customer support twice at the front desk before somebody made a move for us. Forth, it took the sales person about fifteen minutes to find the requested goods in their warehouse. Fifth, he brought the wrong size for Sonja, and left anyway. Sixth, we asked for support again, but nobody came up to us. Seventh, we stopped a store guy passing by who claimed to speak French only, which would not have been an issue for us, but before we had the chance to pose our question, he stormed away like on a mission. Seventh, we told who we thought might have been a manager how we felt about the lousy service, and he mumbled something about lunch break and people away or busy. Long story short we ended up walking away without buying anything. Dear FC Moto sales staff, thank you very much for your "professionalism". Please take our apologies for wasting your time. We certainly won't come back and also won't recommend your "services".

Later on we went to Polo, Hein Gericke and Louis (located in Düsseldorf, in walking distance from each other) and got excellent customer service and product advice on a variety of rain gear. We ended up buying the FLM Stormchaser, a two piece rain suit from Polo, which offered the best features for our purpose to be worn over summer moto gear:

- Waterproof, windproof and breathable
- Adjustable sleeves (Velcro)
- Hood to wear unter helmet
- High viz features
- Easy access into pants due to zippers and adjustable velcro
- Jacket and pants connectible through zipper
- Small packing size
- Overall good bang for your buck

We would have preferred a bit more hi-viz orange or yellow but this doesn't seem to be very popular on the German market.

Thanks to the Polo, Hein Gericke and Louis staff in Düsseldorf for restoring our faith in customer service.