Woolworths Cafe | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The Sweet Service Award goes to Woolworths and Candice Bull, its Food Technologist: Perishables, who has walked the extra mile since we reported the 5 cm bone in the chicken sandwich bought at the Gardens Centre branch of Woolworths last Saturday. Candice was the only person on duty at Head Office when we called on Monday, our Twitter feedback not having resulted in any reaction over 48 hours. She requested that I drop the packet and the bone off at the nearest Woolworths branch, which I did at the V&A Waterfront. The person I gave it to did not tell me that he was going on leave, as was the person he delegated the responsibility to get the packets sent to Head Office. Yesterday Candice went to the branch herself to collect the packet, but it was nowhere to be found! When I sent her the photograph, she identified the packet and sandwich as being from their Woolworths Café, made by Tribeca in-store, and passed the matter on to them.

The Sour Service Award goes to Cape Town Tourism, which we called yesterday to enquire about car rental for a Whale Cottage Camps Bay guest. The staff at the information centre were inefficient in answering the calls, the calls being dropped five times between the switchboard and the Information Centre. Finally we were put through to the Kirstenbosch branch (not being told so) due to the overload on their Burg Street branch staff, and Yolande Young promised to search for a car to rent as soon as she had finished with a tourist sitting at her desk. When we had heard nothing from her after six hours, we called, and she told me sweetly that she was still getting back to me, and that there were no cars available anyway! One wonders how Cape Town Tourism can offer such a shocking service for tourists visiting our world class city. Not surprising was to hear from the switchboard operator that all the Cape Town Tourism management is on leave, and that the most senior person on duty is the secretary of Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, the CEO of Cape Town Tourism, who is not available to her staff, being on holiday in Pringle Bay! Despite a Tweet about the poor service, Mrs Helmbold did not call or ask one of her staff to do so!

POSTSCRIPT 28/12: Shehaam phoned from the Customer Care division of the Woolworths Head Office, and apologised for the incident. She did explain that the Woolworths Café at Gardens Centre is not operated by Tribeca, but by Woolworths itself. They will be training their staff in deboning chickens again, she said. She promised to send a gift voucher by sms for the inconvenience, but it has not yet arrived. Philip, a store manager at the Gardens Centre branch, also called to apologise, and invited me to fetch the voucher from the branch should it not arrive by sms.

POSTSCRIPT 29/12: Not having received a response from Mrs Helmbold to our Tweets and to the Sour Service Award, we sent her an e-mail with the blogpost link. This is the reply we received, interesting in that the switchboard did not even know that Ms Nzima Soci (the Executive Manager: Financial and Corporate Services) is the Acting CEO of the company during Mrs Helmbold’s holiday! She told us that Mrs Helmbold’s secretary Elana Theunissen is running the operation!:

“Thank you for your message. I am currently away on leave and will be back in the office on Thursday, 10 January 2013. Should you wish to have urgent or immediate response to your mail and/or assistance, kindly note the following arrangements: CTT Acting CEO for end December to mid-January period: Nzima Soci; Mzunzima@capetown.travel / 021 487 6800; CEO Office / admin assistance: Yolandy Lakay; Yolandy@capetown.travel / 021 487 6803; Media enquiries and comment: Skye grove (sic) (PR Manager); 079 368 0764 Wishing you a blessed and peaceful festive season. Tourism greetings”!

POSTSCRIPT 29/12: Mrs Helmbold has responded, at 22h00 this evening, requesting that the complaint be addressed to one of her managers! As CEO she is ultimately responsible for the quality of service offered by her staff. She has also demanded a proper complaint, not accepting the content of the Sour Service Award, even though we sent her the link by e-mail, and wrote “COMPLAINT ABOUT POOR SERVICE FROM CAPE TOWN TOURISM” in the Subject Line!:

“As requested via Twitter, you are welcome to direct your complaint in writing to me and Enver Duminy, Executive Manager Tourism Services, will follow up. He is responsible for the CTT VIC network and will respond in line with the complaints procedure“.

POSTSCRIPT 31/12: The promised Woolworths gift voucher arrived today, three days later!

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.

Brand ‘South Africa’ and ‘Fairtrade‘ will be in the lips of hundreds of thousands of Olympic Games supporters for the next three weeks, being branded on two of the three official ‘London 2012’ wines produced for the 2012 Olympic Games, reports Winemag. The Chenin Blanc and Rosé wines (made from Pinotage, Shiraz, and Merlot) come from Stellenrust, the largest Fairtrade-certified wine estate in South Africa, one of the largest family-owned wine estates in the country, and ‘a very successful winery’, according to its Platter entry.

For the first time in Olympic history, the International Olympic Committee contracted with Bibendum, a London-based wine merchant, which was awarded the title ‘European Merchant of the Year 2012’, to source 650000 litres of 2012 vintage wines, for sale at the Olympic Games venues in London. The third wine is not Fairtrade-certified, and comes from Brazil’s Seival Estate, being a Shiraz, Tempranillo, and Gamay Nouveau blend. The Brazilian wine reflects the country hosting the Olympic Games in 2016, and its emergence as a wine producing country.

The wines are to be sold at £4,80 (R62) for a 187 ml recyclable PET bottle, and at R250 for a 750 ml bottle. One million bottles each of the Rosé and Shiraz Tempranillo will be available for sale, as will be 1,2 million bottles of Chenin Blanc. A total of 9 million tickets have been sold to Olympic Games spectators.

In addition to the marvellous branding benefit for the country and its wine industry, an excellent outcome of this win for the Stellenbosch wine estate is that R450000 will go its staff, for allocation to social upliftment projects, which will be overseen by the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK, reports The Times.

WOSA (Wines of South Africa) and SA Tourism couldn’t have wished for a better free marketing opportunity to give the world a taste for South African wines and for marketing South Africa as a tourism destination

POSTSCRIPT 5/8: The Fairtrade ethical logo is attracting increasing custom, reports the Cape Argus, internationally its brands having generated sales of € 5 billion in 2011. In the UK the spend on Fairtrade brands increased by 12% last year relative to 2010. Locally, Fairtrade sales more than tripled to R73 million last year. Cape Chamber of Commerce President Michael Bagraim said that the Fairtrade certification could help give local products a competitive edge in international export markets. Wine and coffee are the Fairtrade products that have sold best locally, South Africans having bought 255600 bottles and 3,5 million cups of coffee certified by Fairtrade. Woolworths Cafés, operated by TriBeCa, sell Fairtrade certified organic coffee.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage