Customer care in Belize

Hello everyone,

The way customer services are handled can greatly affect your views on certain brands, products, companies or stores. As a consumer, it is important to get familiar with local practices regarding client assistance in Belize and try to understand how things work in the country.

How would you describe your customer service experiences in Belize?

Do you feel welcome when you enter a store? Do you get useful tips and advice?

Are after-sales services available in Belize?

Thanks for sharing your experience,

Priscilla

To reply to your post about customer service:

Yes, I think in Belize there is great customer service in general in stores.  They are very friendly and helpful to find things you are looking for. I live on Ambergris Caye, so I shop in San Pedro and Belize City on occasion as it is much cheaper on the mainland. I always enjoy both places and look forward to shopping there. Also most of the businesses have very friendly and helpful staff too

For areas that need improvement:

I have found that the customer service in many restaurants is not what get in most restaurants in the US.  There are some that really could use training for their servers.  It is always important to leave your troubles at home when you are a server and know that the better and friendly service you provide means a better tip.  I think it is just a matter of training.

The biggest complaint I have is working with the government.  Sometimes I feel there is a prejudice towards "gringos" thinking that we are all rich and should be taken advantage of.  It has been two years and we still do not have the title to our home.  They decided to re-assess it a year and half after we purchased it and want $14,000 USD more for the new amount...this is just ludicrous..  So, I would caution expats to be careful to be sure you work with a legitimate Real Estate Agency and a Lawyer.

Well, I hope that answers your questions about customer service in Belize.

In general I have found customer service / care in Belize to be excellent, probably the happiest and most helpful staff I have come across and I have lived on 3 different continents, there is however one exception, the Chinese owned supermarkets, here you have the rudest most miserable and unhelpful people on the planet - and they are the owners !?

I agree about some Chinese supermarkets, they can make you feel like you are just an inconvenience to their day.

Good Morning, overall I have found customer service to be excellent. Even at the fish and vegetable markets. I have been chastised for not asking.
Now the Chinese. From very rude to attentive, and polite.
Government of Belize somewhat the same way. One postal will hardly look up from his phone, while the next will greet you with a smile and a salutation.

We were in Belize for a month checking things out. We stayed in Corozal.  There was a good little grocery run by chinese that we used a fair bit but I have to say in general that the other Chinese run shops were terrible and treated everyone equally badly, no idea what customer service is.  China is not much better unless you are in some upper scale shop. I think it is their culture not to smile until after you have done business and they have the money.
The Indian grocery stores and shops were generally cleaner and much better experiences. Vegetable and fruit stands in general were all good and happy,  got to know a few by name. The Belizian run stores were all cheery and good experiences.

It has been our experience that customer service in Belize is as varied as here at home in the US. In a San Pedro restaurant we were charged double what the bill should have been and when we asked why the check was so high, we were talked to as though we had no idea of how money exchange rates work. It was not an exchange rate issue, is was a theft issue.  In Belize City near the cruise port some of the most polite and well serving customer service anywhere (including in my country). In Caye Caulker on an extended visit the Chinese seemed to have no real use for us but wanted our money. It made shopping for groceries tough because there was absolutely NO customer service in that area in that business. For the most part Chinese restaurants were the same- just plain rude in most cases. One of the very best customer service experiences was from the Happy Lobster owner and staff and the staff at the Sports Bar on Caye Caulker. Top notch!

Generally speaking I think our best customer service in Belize comes from street vendors. Both gift stands and food stands have the best idea of how to handle foreign customers. There are many differences from industry to industry there. However, In our experiences there over the last 12 years the differences are more divisible by nationality/country of origin of the owner. And that held true across the board across the country.

Shame on the restaurant in San Pedro. Would love to know woh they were. WE were lucky when we were there. found various degrees of customer service. The Belizeans' were awesome and the expats that had businesses there. Very friendly and helpful. The rest could not give us the time of day.