The Sweet Service Award goes to M-Net and its investigative program Carte Blanche, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last week, with Derek Watts being in the hot seat from the outset in 1988. Sunday’s program paid tribute to some of the top stories which the program has researched, including the death of Brett Kebble, the danger of Social Media, Rael Levitt and Auction Alliance, the Thuli elephants, the alleged fraud by Mama Jackie, and many more. The programme will Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Anita Scott
Pick ‘n Pay Sweet and Woolworths Sour Service Awards!
The Sweet Service Award goes to Pick ‘n Pay, for their efficient Twitter service. As the telephone number of the Camps Bay store had changed and is not provided by the Telkom voice which informs that the old number is no longer valid, I Tweeted the retailer, and received the new number within ten minutes! The Camps Bay store has a new manager Grant Ross, and the store’s service has improved greatly since he took over, it previously having been one of the worst managed stores in the group. Earlier this week I bought an sms bundle for a member of staff, but had been given a MTN data voucher, which my colleague put into the phone, not realising the error made by the Pick ‘n Pay till operator. Grant kindly replaced the data bundle with an sms bundle voucher. Continue reading →
Mercedes Benz Sweet Service and V&A Waterfront Sour Service Awards!
The Sweet Service Award goes to Mercedes Benz Culemborg, and their car service booking executive Karen, for her excellent service in organising a replacement pair of windscreen wipers immediately, so that I could drive to the workshop to have them fitted within an hour of calling. A loose fitting windscreen wiper arm was tightened when it was found that it was not wiping the windscreen on one side. A strong smell of oil, due to another supplier not closing the oil filter cap properly, was fixed as well, without an extra charge. Karen was previously at the Century City branch, where she gave excellent service too.
The Sour Service Award goes to the V&A Waterfront management, for its lack of response to our Tweets about the poor quality of the new Ladies’ cloakroom which has been moved across the upstairs passage next door to Fabiani. The previous ladies cloakroom has been closed to create a new shop. The new (ex-Gents) cloakroom is one-quarter the size of the previous Ladies’ cloakroom. Transformation into the Ladies’ loos was incomplete, with tiling not finished, the loo door was sticking, not openable from inside, and there was no toilet paper at 19h00 on 10 April, and the cleaner seemed uncertain as to where she could find more. The toilets were very dirty. Angry men were standing in the passage, looking for their cloakroom, nowhere to be seen nor was it signposted. When shared with the V&A, the Marketing head Chantelle Cole responded as follows: ‘Thank you for highlighting this with us and I’m sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience. It’s particularly helpful that you have given us a specific time of the incident; we are investigating this further with the shift manager, to understand why it was in this condition. Our maintenance team had already snagged the issues you highlighted regarding the door sticking and the tiles needing replacement; the tiles were damaged during the conversion and will be replaced at night, when the mall is quieter. As you point out, there are only four cubicles and so we opted to have all four operational, rather than close this one to allow for the repairs. We’re doing a number of exciting changes, including expanding the store space for Superdry and Markhams. To accommodate these extensions, we have had to close one of the toilets. We are building new men and ladies’ toilets near the Post Office, which will be opened in the next few months. We appreciate it has resulted in some inconvenience and we hope our visitors are understanding of this short-term impact. We have prominent signage in place regarding the location of alternate men’s toilets and have signposted the upcoming conversion for the past few weeks in the lead up to this changeover. Thank you again for highlighting this issue and apologies that your tweet was not responded to. This should not have happened and I have discussed this with our social media team, so we don’t have this experience again’.
When replying and asking why the Ladies’ Cloakroom was opened for use whilst substandard and why the signage was so poor, contrary to the V&A’s reply, Ms Cole wrote back, without answering the substandard question, and gave a classic non-Customer Care response to the signage question: ‘Your feedback 
is noted; yours is the only complaint we’ve received on signage and we have tested it with a few people however we will continue to monitor this’ ! A visit to the ladies’ cloakroom last night (2 May), three weeks later, found the toilet cubicles still untiled, and three basins leaking!
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.
Woolworths Sweet Service and Overstrand Municipality Sour Service Awards!
The Sweet Service Award goes to Woolworths and its Customer Experience Manager Anita Scott, who took over dealing with our complaint about the W Café at the V&A Waterfront, after Tribeca, the external operators of the W Café, did not contact us as promised. A 3-cheese toast with mustard looked unappetising, the bread having fallen apart on the plate when served, and it had unidentifiable red bits. There was no manager on duty. The supervisor was out of his depth. The Woolworths Store Manager logged the call, but it did not reach Tribeca, they claim. After 10 days of non-response, it was a delight to speak to Ms Scott, who was frank about what steps would be taken with Tribeca (she herself had experienced the toasted cheese on another occasion). I asked her why Woolworths is allowing Tribeca to destroy their brand name with such poor service and poor quality food, as experienced in their Paarl, V&A, and Sea Point Piazza St John branches. She diplomatically did not answer, but it seems that some serious action is on its way.
The Sour Service Award goes to the Overstrand Municipality, and is nominated by property owner Sybille Rutherford. It has been edited to reduce the length: “I herewith wish to raise the issue of the changes made to the refuse collection being shifted from Mondays to Fridays in the Voelklip -and Hermanus area. We are saddened that this has been made without consulting anyone – as to what the implications would be. Most of us homeowners have the second homes as weekend retreats- we dont stay there permanently. The previous refuse collection day on Mondays was a perfect solution, as the mainstream of visitors to Hermanus is always on a weekend. There have been a few baboons around our area in 09th Street-and I fear that the collection of rubbish on Fridays (leaving the bins and bags open in the Street for some 5 days) will attract the troops of baboons from the caves in the mountains behind our properties en masse- and even if they cannot open some of the special bins provided- there is always the overflow of rubbish in bags which gets placed alongside the bins for collection. Apart from being a definite “draw card” for baboons and bergies – there is also the mess that dogs make when they scrounge in the bags, littering the sidewalks and roads, as well as a stench which will accumulate from all the rubbish lying there for 5 days waiting for collection. In summer arrives this will make matters worse with the heat.It will also attract flies to the area. Are we really wanting to create problems for our beautiful, clean, well run Hermanus town, which is becoming more and more popular with tourists-and people wanting to rent houses for the weekend to spend some time away from home or international guests who rent homes there on a regular basis, be it for families or golfers,hikers or mountain bikers? Once they discover that troops of baboons descend from the mountains and gravitate towards the rubbish – they will feel threatened and more than likely find another little “safe” town to spend their holidays in“.
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.