The Sweet Service Award goes to the Pepper Club Hotel and its restaurant Sinatra’s, for their invitation to try out the R50 Business Lunch in 50 Minutes, which includes free parking too. An order of a Smoked Chicken salad, with Danish feta, corn kernels, peppadews, avocado, and lettuce was brought to the table 10 minutes after arrival, and the generous portion eaten within 25 minutes from arrival. Other lunch choices are Grilled Beef Burger, Chicken curry, mushroom penne pasta, and cajun spiced chicken pita, all costing R50. Service by Sally, the manager, and the waitress Noku, was friendly and efficient. The restaurant is a peaceful haven relative to the buzz of the city.
The Sour Service Award goes to DSTV, for changing its Dish TV magazine to a smaller format, and removing the movie schedules. Multichoice has motivated the change on the long printing lead times, which make programme schedule information unreliable due to short-term schedule changes. The company also believes that its viewers will be able to access up to date programme information on their PVR, but it appears that not all viewers are technically proficient to find this information, and want a printed guide. Complaints are directed against the company for its ‘arrogance’ in making the change without announcement nor conducting market research, once a hallmark of the company when it was launched by Koos Bekker, when we were part of his initial team, and everything was researched. Subscribers received an after-the-fact sms survey on the Thursday before the long weekend, at 21h00, hardly a consumer-friendly time for a business survey!
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.
POSTSCRIPT 23/5: DStv has announced that, after its subscriber poll, it will send subscribers who voted for a TV schedule in their DISH magazine a custom magazine with the schedule. One can still request a custom magazine with the TV schedule from them.