{"id":1916,"date":"2009-04-10T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T22:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2009-04-10T11:50:57","modified_gmt":"2009-04-10T09:50:57","slug":"oneonly-cape-town-sweet-and-vodacom-sour-service-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/oneonly-cape-town-sweet-and-vodacom-sour-service-award\/","title":{"rendered":"One&Only Cape Town Sweet and Vodacom Sour Service Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Sweet Service Award <\/strong>goes to Stephen Towler, Group Sommelier of One&Only Cape Town.\u00a0\u00a0 Towler is knowledgeable, offers excellent service and he has presence without being obtrusive about it.\u00a0\u00a0 He was spot on with a suitable choice of shiraz, showed customers to maze his 5 000-bottle\u00a0 Wine Loft, and sent complimentary glasses of a dessert wine to the table.\u00a0\u00a0At no stage did one feel that he was trying to recommend the more expensive wines on the 35-page winelist.\u00a0 \u00a0He took interest in the service deficiencies of maze, and helped to address them quietly and efficiently, even though\u00a0the food side is not his responsibility.\u00a0\u00a0 For a detailed review of maze at the One&Only Cape Town, read the\u00a0WhaleTales<\/strong> blog post of 9 April below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Sour Service Award <\/strong>goes to Vodacom, for the appalling poor service customers have to endure when the cellphone company cuts off its customer’s line, even though payment was made by Easypay two days prior.\u00a0\u00a0 No sms to warn one of the line cut was received.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One has to call the Vodacom accounts department, and the call centre (which can vie for the unenviable award of the worst Call Centre in the country, shared with the Sunday Times) is completely customer unfriendly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is no apology expressed or understanding what inconvenience such a line cut can\u00a0mean to one’s business, that is totally dependent on sending sms-messages and making calls when one is out of the office.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead one is treated as a criminal, with “verification” questions asked about oneself – ID number, postal address, type of Vodacom package one subscribes to (be warned to\u00a0not get this vital piece of information wrong, as one then is hugely suspect), name of bank one banks with, and type of account one has with the bank.\u00a0 The significance of the questions, other than the ID number, was questioned by the customer.\u00a0\u00a0 One then has to fax the proof of payment, and is told that it will take an hour for the reconnection to take place.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The customer however had to call three times, and go through the verification process each time, because she expressed her frustration to each of the call center representatives, who then “punished” her\u00a0by not reconnecting the line.\u00a0\u00a0 The customer was cut off for 6 hours due to the\u00a0unacceptable behaviour of the Vodacom call centre staff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No apology was received for the inconvenience caused!<\/p>\n

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards<\/strong>\u00a0are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.\u00a0 Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at <\/span>info@whalecottage.com<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sweet Service Award goes to Stephen Towler, Group Sommelier of One&Only Cape Town.\u00a0\u00a0 Towler is knowledgeable, offers excellent service and he has presence without being obtrusive about it.\u00a0\u00a0 He was spot on with a suitable choice of shiraz, showed customers to maze his 5 000-bottle\u00a0 Wine Loft, and sent complimentary glasses of a dessert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,20,248,21,19],"tags":[1153,32366,1154,32378,427,790,503,255,145,1072,1146,502,501,1152,32373,10,1151],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t