The Sweet Service Award goes to Pick ‘n Pay and its regional manager Russell Thomas, for finding no-name Greek yoghurt, which went out of stock without consumer notice due to a packaging change for the second time in two months.  A plea to Pick ‘n Pay via Twitter, and sms messages to our regular branches in Garden’s Centre and Camps Bay, proved unsuccessful.  A sms to Russell resulted in the same day sourcing of the yoghurt, which he was even prepared to deliver to the guest house at 19h00 in the evening!

The Sour Service Award goes to Multichoice, for its poor quality call centre staff. This is not the first Sour Service Award for this subscription TV service company! Despite one calling a Cape Town telephone number, one lands up in the call centre in Johannesburg. Most of the staff speak an English which is difficult to understand, they are rude in interrupting the caller (staff member Simpatia), listen badly when one is providing Smart card numbers, and the system seems to be very slow in calling up one’s details, after one has had to provide various personal details to verify one’s identity.  Out of three calls made to cancel two Smartcards, the phone was put down in two of the calls when asked for an alternative staff member to take the call, due to the communication problems experienced! While one receives a reference number (one number for two cards), there is no sms or e-mailed confirmation that the card numbers have indeed been cancelled, as one does from Telkom!   When calling the Multichoice Head Office, the switchboard operator Catherine was rude in screening the call of complaint made to the manager of the call centre.   The manager called back a few days later, and acknowledged on listening to the recordings that his staff had erred in their communication.

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.