· happened: In June 2023
Renfe fixes an «outage» in four words: try typing Ourense
A user wrote to Renfe saying that when trying to buy a ticket to «Orense» the station wasn't showing up as available, and asked whether something was wrong with it. The @Renfe account replied suggesting he try typing «Ourense», the official Galician place name. The reply went viral and circulated widely on Galician social media accounts.
«Buenas noches. Prueba a poner Ourense. Un saludo.»
There's no joke here, and that's exactly why it lands: the reply is just a greeting, the fix and a sign-off, in standard customer-service tone. All the comedy is supplied by the context, and the community manager has the discipline not to underline it or add a triumphant emoji. That's the difference between solving and humiliating: the customer leaves with his ticket and the brand leaves with the applause, which almost never happens at once. It also defends the official place name without delivering a lecture on official place names — the only way such things ever get read to the end. Lesson: sometimes the sharpest comeback is spelling the name correctly and signing off politely.
Source: El Español (Treintayseis)
Left without a comeback?
Ask me in the chat →