The Sweet Service Award goes to DEUKOM, for passing on the reduced cost of its contracts with German TV channels to its South African customers, resulting from the strong Rand, by reducing its subscription cost by 6,8 % from December onwards.
The Sour Service Award goes to Cape Town Tourism and its PR Manager Skye Grove. Public Relations is the management of relationship building with a company’s publics, and in the case of the tourism body, these would be its members and the media. Whale Cottage Camps Bay is a member of Cape Town Tourism and is on its media list for this blog. The defamatory response by a non-paying guest on Twitter to our exposure about the attempt by him and his editor wife to defraud our Whale Cottage Hermanus of payment, was retweeted by Ms Grove, making her guilty of defamation too. Not leaving matters at that, she wrote two Tweets, questioning why we had retweeted the link to an article in a national newspaper about the alleged fraud. Worst of all, however, was a Tweet that she wrote to the guest, suggesting that our Tweets be reported for “abuse” and providing the Twitter link for it, in an attempt to damage our professional reputation. Ms Grove did not offer this link to us, nor did she retweet our warning to hotels and guest houses about this couple, which would have been in the interest of Cape Town Tourism members. No apology nor response has been received from Ms Grove when she was notified about the Sour Award, other than removing two of her three Tweets on the topic.
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.
