Service Without a Smile

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 429.

You want your washing machine (1) ___________ (to deliver) on Monday. Will you get it? We tried in three countries. Here are the results.

Welcome to Birmingham, the friendliest city in the world. We are in Curry's, the electrical shop, (2) ____________ (to try) to buy a washing machine. The assistant is explaining why it cannot (3) _______________ (to deliver) at a convenient time. His eyes, which look somewhere else, (4) __________ (to bore). “The drivers make their own schedule,” he says. “We can't tell them what to do. If we (5) ____________ (to say) a specific time for you, we (6) ______________ (to have) to do the same for everyone.”

So is Britain really bad at service? Last week we carried an international survey across the world.

Task: In a typical restaurant, change your entire order after five minutes (even if the food already (7) ___________ (to arrive).

Tokyo: Waiter grimaced slightly (more in concern than annoyance), excused himself an hurried off. Returned a few minutes later with the (8) ____________ (to amend) order.

Los Angeles: Waitress, an actress, cracks jokes about pasta (9) ____________ (to be) bad for the waistline, and takes the fresh order without irritation.

Birmingham: (10) _____________ (to perform) with a smile. When the vegetable dip arrived and our reporter said he (11) ____________ (to want) cheese and bacon instead, the replacement (12) ____________ (to serve) within minutes. “No problem at all,” said waitress Sarah Lowe. “Our aim is to please.”

Task: How long must you wait (13) _________________ (a telephone/ to install)? It (14) ________________ (mod.v/do) between noon and 2 p.m. on Monday?

Tokyo: From four days to one week. No.

Rome: Depends on where you live and who you know. For some (with friends) it's a week; for others (in the central district) a year. This year the telephone company promised that the delay (15) ______________ (to bring down) to three months.

Birmingham: At least eight days “to process the application”. No.

Task: Drive into a petrol station and ask (16) _________________ (your windscreen/to clean), (17) ____________________ (tyre pressure and oil / to check).

Tokyo: It's normal in Japan for petrol station attendants (18) _____________ (to clean) windscreens and empty ashtrays without (19) _____________ (to ask). Oil and tyres (20) ______________ (to check) efficiently.

Rome: Windscreens (21) ______________ (to clean) by hundreds of Polish refugees (22) ____________ (to await) immigration papers.

Birmingham: At the Mobil service station, the assistant looks (23) _____________ (to astonish). Jokes: “Have you got a disabled sticker then?”

(From “Focus on Advanced English CAE Practice Tests” by Sue O'Connell)

C.