The Sweet Service Award goes to Bahia-Sub in Vilanova de Arousa, and its skipper Santiago. The boat company uses its rubber duck, seating about twelve Camino pilgrims at a time, transporting them on the Rio Sar, from Vilanova de Arousa to Pontecesures, a journey of about one hour, but we were on the water for 90 minutes. Skipper Santiago was a true gentleman, slowing down or stopping the engine to show and inform us about interesting sights along the way, including the mussel farming outside Vilanova de Arousa, the second largest in the world, clam fishing, crosses in honour of Saint James and two other holy persons on a little island on the river, and ruins of a church and a castle on the river bank, with a replica of a Viking boat that pilgrims used to travel to Santiago de Compostela. The real spoil was a tea break, with hot tea and a mini muffin served.
Tag Archives: Sweet & Sour Service Award
Sweet Service Award goes to River Café; Sour Service Award goes to Soyogi!
The Sweet Service Award goes to River Café in Franschhoek and its delightful assistant who served me when I went to buy ice cream there on a very hot day. Standing in a queue with other customers, the young lady was called out of the kitchen to assist me, and allowed me to photograph their ice creams from the other side of the counter. I was intrigued by their black Charcoal ice cream, so she proudly came to my table to explain how it is made, she having made the ice cream, as her manager who normally makes it had the day off on that day. She told me the recipe of how it is made, and brought me the bottle of Activated Charcoal she added to give it the black color. She was so proud of her job, a rarity to see in Franschhoek! It was clear that this was a popular stop, with a number of other customers sitting outside and enjoying the ice creams too, very reasonably charged at R25 for two scoops. Continue reading →
Sweet Service Award goes to Sorbet; Sour Service Award goes to Woolworths Sea Point!
The Sweet Service Award goes to Sorbet at the Point Mall in Sea Point belatedly. I was sent a text message, offering me a discount for their beauty salon services during my birthday month of December, which I accepted gratefully. I received efficient service from three staff members, and one of them even offered to return my Bootleggers coffee cup to the nearby coffee shop.
Sunday Times Sweet and Rocketseed Sour Service Awards
The Sweet Service Award goes to Mohammed and to Wilma of the Sunday Times, for helping a customer to subscribe to the paper, after 6 months of frustration in trying to do so via the call centre. A chance connection to Mohammed in the Human Resources department of Avusa, the company owning the Sunday Times, helped the customer to find Wilma, the person responsible for subscriptions in Cape Town. Wilma can be contacted at tel 021 488 1823. The delivery of the Sunday Times has been perfect since contact was made with her.
The Sour Service Award goes to Rocketseed, a company which sells branded signatures to the tourism industry. The signature has to be designed by a separate company, and then Rocketseed sets it up with telephonic support. It soon became evident to the user that the design has a weakness in that the “footer” does not follow the e-mail content when an enquiry from a prospective guest is replied to. For more than a month the customer tried to get Rocketseed to fix this design error, but received the poorest service from the support staff at Rocketseed. It appeared that they did not know how to fix the problem, and kept the customer tied up on the phone for hours on end, in trying to load a revised version of the signature. When the customer requested that a more senior staff member assist with problem, Henry Jonker, a director of Rocketseed, called. He was extremely arrogant. His response was to threaten the cancellation of the customer’s annual subscription of the branding service, which had to be paid in full prior to the customer being able to test the signature application.
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.