Good morning! What has been your experience with customer service at companies in Montenegro? Mine has been catastrophic, especially compared to experiences outside of Montenegro. I’ll share a few examples.
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Customer Service Montenegro
A few weeks ago, I started receiving messages from a Montenegrin bank about changes to the account of a company I have no connection with. Entries, withdrawals, income, expenses. I immediately contacted the bank via social media and pointed out that I was receiving sensitive and confidential information about one of their other clients.
Their response was, “For all information related to the account, you need to write to us at the email address kontakt@****.me.”
I pointed out that this was not my problem but theirs and that they should work to resolve it themselves.
I received another vague, grammatically incorrect reply written in broken Latin script, after which they unilaterally stopped communicating. No “thank you,” no “sorry,” nothing.
I am still receiving information about that company’s account and its owner.
Another example is a friend who had a significant deposit in another Montenegrin bank, where he constantly faced harassment and rudeness from the teller staff. Since he lives abroad, he could not get the necessary answers by email or social media either. The bank literally pushed him away as if they didn’t need clients. When he closed his account and opened one in another bank, the management contacted him in surprise, wondering why he left—after countless calls and emails.
Similar behaviour is common in many other services. People are nervous, rude, and every task seems burdensome. In Montenegro, this arrogance is found in both private companies and state institutions.
People whose salaries directly depend on customer satisfaction treat customers like unwanted burdens.
Rudeness and impatience. It’s similar to how tourists are treated—as if they could just send money and never come.
Here in America, when they make a mistake, they not only apologise but also look for ways to compensate you, often offering discounts or freebies. Just recently, in a store, they couldn’t find the barcode for a product. After I waited about ten minutes, they gave me the item for free. And this was a big corporation, not a small independent shop.
If they mess up on delivery, they often give you the goods for free without asking for a return. This is unimaginable in our business culture.
That’s all for today and for this week. See you again on Monday.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect those of the CdM editorial team)
