The Sweet Service Award goes to Paarl Motors. A customer locked the keys in the boot of the car. The spare keys were in Cape Town. Fortunately the customer had left the windows of the car partly open. The internal boot release would not work as the alarm went off once the car door was opened. The customer called Paarl Motors, and the Service Manager Dougie Taylor was of the opinion that the problem could be fixed via the car battery. The customer was not able to do the technical procedures, and therefore two mechanics were sent from Paarl to Franschhoek, to assist the customer. With telephonic guidance from a colleague, the two mechanics managed to get the internal boot release to work, and the customer could get the keys out of the boot. When the customer called Dougie to thank him and his team, and to make arrangements for the payment of the service, Dougie declined the offer for payment, saying it was part of the service they offer at Paarl Motors!
The Sour Service Award goes to ADT in Paarl. The customer had picked up that an accidental alarm activation had not lead to a call from ADT in Paarl. ADT was called, and they stated that they had not picked up an alarm signal. It being a Sunday, the technical assistant said that he would leave a message for his colleagues, to visit the premises the following day, to check the alarm. By lunchtime the following day, no call had been received from ADT, and therefore the customer called again. The technical advisor had no record of a message about the alarm, but promised to send his colleagues immediately. However, he was most pedantic about the payment, insisting that the service call be paid for immediately and demanding to know the method of payment, without knowing what the problem was with the alarm. The technicians took about one and a half hours to arrive in Franschhoek, and sat down to write the invoice before they even looked at the alarm. Once again, they were adamant to know how they would be paid before they looked at the alarm. It appeared that the radio receiver had to be replaced. Before paying, the customer wanted to test the alarm, but everytime the alarm was activated, no call was received from ADT’s control centre. However, the technicians called and sms’d the control centre, asking them to call the customer, which was hardly proof of the alarm working. The customer was under time pressure, and had to leave, and the ADT technicians left as well, without payment being made. No ADT executive followed up to check on the customer’s satisfaction, nor to clear the payment issue. An invoice was sent by ADT to the customer by post, and was paid, as a subsequent test of the alarm showed that it was working again.
ADT RESPONSE: “Adrian Good, Regional Managing Director of ADT Security Western Cape, said, “Thank you for highlighting this although the technician was testing the system correctly, he seems not to have communicated the process he was following adequately to the customer. I will address this with him and our other technical staff. For more information on the testing procedure: When testing an alarm system, the technician places the system on SMS testing. This means that when he triggers the alarm to test it and the signal is received by the Control Monitoring Centre an automated acknowledgement is sent by the system directly to the cell phone as an SMS. This is to ensure that alarm testing does not interfere with ADT resources that are handling potential emergencies.”
In both instances the customer had a technical problem to solve. Paarl Motors did not talk money, nor conditions of payment before or after completion of their call, compared to ADT, for whom payment was the be all and end all, and the customer satisfaction apparently of lesser concern. The customer holds Paarl Motors in even higher esteem than before. Perhaps ADT could entertain invoicing service calls, as was done ultimately, as a lot of unpleasant interaction can be avoided, valuable technician time can be saved, and a better customer relationship can be maintained.
The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.
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