Cultural Differences: Service

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski Mar 7, 2007

Don’t expect perfect strangers in Finland to be talkative or effusive. In customer service situations, whether in a store, restaurant, or office, there are certain rules most Finns follow when interacting with customers, who are essentially strangers with whom a Finn needs to engage. There are exceptions to every rule, but in my experience the generalizations I make below apply to most customer service interactions in Finland.

.If you are in a Finnish store or an office and you are looking for information, you should know the right question to ask to get the answer you need. Open ended questions generally don’t work so you need to be specific. For example, I once asked a travel agent if she had a phone number of another branch office. She responded “yes.” Full stop. She didn’t volunteer the phone number. I had to ask her if she would please give me the phone number. While this example is extreme and most people are much more helpful than that travel agent, I think it demonstrates a mentality that people in customer service situations can be very literal. People will not freely volunteer information. When I am trying to get an answer to something, I’ve taken to asking, “is there anything else I need to know to get this done/make this work?” Finns don’t view their attitude as being unhelpful, they view it as not interfering or being bossy, so don’t take it personally.

Another obvious difference is that the clerk who is helping you probably won’t make any small talk. If you attempt to engage him /her in a conversation about the weather, whether or not they are having a nice day, or any other seemingly harmless subject, chances are you will make the person very uncomfortable. They’ll likely shoot you a look that I reserve for crazy people.

A benefit of dealing with Finns in customer service situations is that they are generally honest when they are selling you something. They won’t try to talk you into buying a more expensive model of something if it seems to be frivolous, nor will they try to sell you a bunch of unnecessary add-ons to a product or service. Unlike certain stores or restaurants in the US, people don’t jump on you as soon as you walk into a store or interrupt you mid conversation during a meal to ask you if you need anything else.. Sometimes Finnish customer service can be frustrating, but sometimes I welcome their low key approach because it can be unhurried and relaxed.