A customer

     A customer is the most important person on our premises, He is not dependent on us, We are dependent on him, He is not an interruption to our work, He is the purpose of it, He is not an outsider to our business, He is a part of us, We are not doing him a favour by serving him, He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.  Attributed to Mahatma Ghandi  I have handed this poetic expression to my commercialista, notaio, avvocato, geometra, idraulico and the technico at the commune.  Those who read English smile and treat me differently afterwards, those that do not read English say grazie but smile and treat me differently at our next encounter.  So far I have not had to give a copy to any shopkeeper or health professional (I am not entitled to NHS Italian medical care). I was pleasantly surprised the other day when my ottico rang me to say he would come to my place to deliver my glasses.  When he arrived he had a bottle of wine and apologised that I had to wait ten minutes in the shop and felt obliged to leave before collecting my glasses. Great service! To get the better of the public services and manucfacturers who procrastinate on sorting faulty goods under guarantees we have joined "altroconsumo" which is the equivalent of "Which" in the UK.  They got my neighbours a refund of 50% ( a bonus voucher) on their ticket to Milan after Trenitalia refused to pay.  The air conditioning system was not working during my journey on the inter-city train to Rome 2 weeks ago.  We are entitled to a refund of 50% of the fare, and have been told to present the tickets after 21 days when we will receive compensation.  The same thing happened on the journey back on the regional train, but we were informed that there is no compensation system for regional trains.  The shop where we bought a faulty water pump sent it back for repairs under guarantee but has not received anything back after six months.  Numerous telephone calls by the shop to the manufacturer have fallen on deaf ears.  I think this is a case for altro consumo. 

www.altroconsumo.it/