The Sweet Service Award goes to M-Net and its investigative program Carte Blanche, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last week, with Derek Watts being in the hot seat from the outset in 1988. Sunday’s program paid tribute to some of the top stories which the program has researched, including the death of Brett Kebble, the danger of Social Media, Rael Levitt and Auction Alliance, the Thuli elephants, the alleged fraud by Mama Jackie, and many more. The programme will be launching a new transparent look, symbolically representing the show’s slogan of ‘The right to see it all’.
The Sour Service Award goes to Woolworths, which trumpeted that ‘Membership makes a difference’, and that ‘The more you spend, the more you are rewarded!‘ in a wrap-around advertisement of the 25 August issue of the Sunday Times. Most Woolworths shoppers have one or more of the retailers WRewards, MySchool, and its four different credit card cards. The advertisement promises all card holders generically ‘save from 10% instantly on over 1000 items’, ‘invitation to preview sales’, and ‘NEW Green WRewards’. The green WRewards are not explained in the advertisement, and as a WRewards card holder, we have never received the promised sale preview advertisements. These three reward promises are allocated to ‘Valued‘ customers. i.e., the entry-level customer. The ‘Loyal’ customer, spending R7800 – R24000 annually, receives a free ‘W‘ magazine in the store and ‘WRewards spend and save vouchers’. We could easily qualify for this customer level, yet have never received feedback about our spend level, have not received the magazine, nor any of the promised ‘spend & save vouchers‘! In the ‘VIP‘ customer category, with an annual spend of more than R24000, additional benefits are ‘Discount vouchers on new food products‘, as well as ‘10% off anything birthday voucher‘, new discounts which are not explained in the advertisements.
POSTSCRIPT 6/9: Anita Scott is a customer champion at Woolworths, and called this afternoon, to confirm our ‘Loyal’ customer status, and that they are investigating why we have not received any benefits for this status level.
POSTSCRIPT 9/9: Anita Scott called again, to say that they cannot identify why the magazine and reward vouchers have not reached my post box, even though they have the correct address details. She kindly sent the rewards via an sms gift card.
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 whalecot@iafrica.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.
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