Tag Archives: Nedbank

Nedbank Sweet Service and City of Cape Town Sour Service Awards

December 11, 2009

The Sweet Service Award goes to Roshan Sewmangal at Nedbank’s Head Office in Johannesburg, who has been incredibly efficient in addressing a customer’s needs that were not being met at business branch level. Roshan has an amazing ability to listen, to keep the customer informed about the progress of the query, and has been most efficient in quickly addressing the client’s requests.

The Sour Service Award goes to the City of Cape Town, which charges for payments over R 4 000, when made by credit card, to the customer’s next account. Many residents living on the Atlantic seaboard have a rates bill in excess of that amount every month, and would have to pay this particular account by cheque if they wish to avoid the hefty credit card commission charge by the City. Mastercard and VISA do not allow merchants to charge a commission charge on top of the purchase price. Interestingly, the City of Cape Town is not the merchant – Pick ‘n Pay’s EasyPay system is.

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.

PG Glass Sweet and Nedbank Sour Service Awards

May 8, 2009

The Sweet Service Award goes to PG Glass in Plettenberg Bay for coming to measure for the replacement of a broken bathroom window, and replacing it within one hour, in the late afternoon before a Public Holiday the following day.

The Sour Service Award goes to Nedbank, for its ineffective new bank website. It regularly has problems in allowing one to access one’s specific account pages, and a number of times per week one cannot print the latest statement page – it just has a blank. At branch level the staff are unable to address the customer complaint, referring one to the call centre. When the client requests that she be called by the call centre, no call is received. When the customer decided to seek help right at the top, from CEO Tom Boardman, his secretary was appalled at the cheek of the customer to want to discuss this matter with him, asking what would happen if millions of Nedbank customers wanted to speak to Mr Boardman!. Needless to say, Mr Boardman has not returned the call. The website still allows one to access the “old” website, which is far more efficient than the new website, and one therefore wonders why it should change, as there is no visible difference between the two websites from a customer perspective.

Nedbank Sweet and TELKOM Sour Service Award

February 6, 2009

The Sweet Service Award goes to Carol of the George regional branch of NEDBANK, for organising the delivery of credit card imprint forms two hours after the order had been placed with the Call Centre, after the bank had closed its doors. The Nedbank Call Centre promised a delivery time of three days, and it took 12 minutes to speak to Samiema to place the order for the forms. She continuously placed the caller on hold. When given the merchant name of ‘Whale Cottage Plettenberg Bay’, she asked which town it is in! But Carol saved the day, and showed excellent responsiveness and customer care with the same-day, after-hours delivery.

The Sour Service Award of the Year goes to TELKOM for causing extreme customer aggravation. For two months Whale Cottage Camps Bay was without the ADSL service, after it had applied for the ADSL line to be moved to a different and existing Whale Cottage telephone line in the same building. Over a two month period the TELKOM officials in the ADSL call centre and in the TELKOM shop in Sea Point gave a variety of reasons for the service not working, including that the line had been cut, and that there was a line fault and a cable fault. When Whale Cottage called in a computer consultant, he found the simple solution – the ADSL line had not been verified, something no TELKOM staff member had asked in the 2 month period at all! After 20 minutes, the ADSL service was working again. Not only did this severely inconvenience the Whale Cottage Camps Bay guests, but it also cost Whale Cottage the purchase of a 3 G card, so as to offer the Whale Cottage guests an internet service on the Whale Cottage laptop in the interim.