Friday 5 March 2021, Day 5 of Level 1, Day 345 of Lockdown đˇCorona Gratitude đ
#Grateful for another beautiful day, at 27C; for a good writing and Social Media morning; for a terrace sun snooze; for a walk to Camps Bay and Bakoven, the talking interruptions along the way decreasing my heart rate, earning me 200 Discovery points today; for being happy and healthy. đ Continue reading →
Friday 2 October 2020, Day 12 of Level 1, Day 190 of Lockdown đˇ
Corona Gratitude đ
#Grateful for surviving the gale-force Black South Easter, my only loss being Mayaâs sarong, and one of our electric fence panels blowing away; for getting Henryâs help in finding a plastic bucket and basket which blew down the steps, and for fixing some small wind-related issues; for an eventful walk through Camps Bay to see the wind damage at the Beachfront and to report things to fix to Councillor Nicola Jowellâs office; for a quick tea and croissant at Firefly CafĂŠ, protected from the wind there; for a productive trip into town and Sea Point, surprised at how busy the traffic in town was, compared to past trips during Lockdown; for how clean Bo-Kaap looked when I drove through it; for how love rules, despite Covid and the storm, when I chatted to a bridal couple on my walk â¤ď¸; and for being happy and healthy. đđ Continue reading →
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. Â A plea to Pick ‘n Pay via Twitter, and sms messages to our regular branches in Garden’s Centre and Camps Bay, proved unsuccessful. Â 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. Â 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! Â 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. Â 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.
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.Â
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.
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