{"id":5259,"date":"2009-11-20T08:58:58","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T06:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=5259"},"modified":"2009-12-02T23:27:57","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T21:27:57","slug":"the-hall-collection-sweet-and-id-solutions-sour-service-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/the-hall-collection-sweet-and-id-solutions-sour-service-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hall Collection Sweet and ID Solutions Sour Service Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Sweet Service Award<\/strong> goes to Debbie Hall, owner of The Hall Collection, suppliers of bespoke beds and bedding, imported from the UK.\u00a0\u00a0 The customer had met Mrs Hall previously at a Slow Food lunch and reconnected with her recently at the launch of Cru Cafe’.\u00a0\u00a0 Mrs Hall has built up a reputation for her wonderful cakes and cooking.\u00a0\u00a0 Having established the Hall Collection two years ago, run from a house in Tamboerskloof, she hosts a lunch for customers wishing to pop in on Wednesdays, and offers coffee and cake on weekdays.\u00a0\u00a0 A request to buy some chicken pieces from the lunch buffet led Mrs Hall to generously give the customer\u00a0what was left over, refusing payment for it.\u00a0 In addition, she added two cupcakes to the “take-home” package.\u00a0\u00a0 Such generosity is seldom experienced!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Sour Service Award <\/strong>goes to ID Solutions, a supplier of contract furniture for the retail, corporate, leisure\u00a0and hospitality industries, “South Africa’s leading lifestyle furniture specialist”, its website says.\u00a0 An advertised sale in the Cape Times<\/strong> attracted attention, the customer wanting a new office chair.\u00a0\u00a0 Armed with the ad, she arrived at Black River Park in pouring rain, drew a parking ticket, and then looked for the building, denoted as “C1” in the ad.\u00a0\u00a0 Driving to the building in the complex where the company had\u00a0been located previously, no such number was visible on the building.\u00a0\u00a0 She called the company, who explained that they were no longer\u00a0in that\u00a0building.\u00a0\u00a0 The switchboard assistant Naomi was unable to clearly direct the customer out of the Black River Park complex, did not tell her about the exit being different to the entrance, and was generally unhelpful in\u00a0guiding the customer to their new location, ultimately saying that she did not need the customer to buy a chair from ID Solutions, and finally putting down the phone!\u00a0\u00a0 She had refused to\u00a0pass the call on to one of her colleagues, for better driving guidance and directions, when requested.\u00a0\u00a0 On arrival at the offices, the customer was ignored.\u00a0\u00a0 The same staff member Naomi walked past, and did not greet or react to the customer.\u00a0 The customer walked along the whole length of the shop and back, and not one person acknowledged her presence nor offered to help her.\u00a0\u00a0 When the customer asked for help, the receptionist Naomi said that she refused to help the customer.\u00a0\u00a0 On request, a sweet lady called Carmen got up to help.\u00a0\u00a0 The customer was told that all office chairs had been sold, even though the sale had only been advertised the day before, and there were no customers in the store.\u00a0 The customer found the ideal chair standing at a computer console, and was allowed to buy the chair.\u00a0\u00a0 She took out her credit card, only to be told that the company does not accept credit cards!\u00a0\u00a0 She was offered the chair, and was asked to make an internet transfer on return to her business.\u00a0\u00a0 In the process of hand-writing the invoice (one wonders why the sale chairs go through a manual hand-written system, and not the company’s usual computerised\u00a0invoicing system),\u00a0Carmen\u00a0was told that the chair could not be taken along by the customer until the payment had been done, contrary to her earlier communication.\u00a0 Carmen promised delivery the following day, on receipt of the proof of payment.\u00a0 A matter of concern was the price of the chair, as it did not have a price tag.\u00a0\u00a0 The owner of the company, Sean Weldon,\u00a0was contacted once the very unhappy customer\u00a0left ID Solutions, thinking that\u00a0the company did not deserve her business.\u00a0\u00a0 She\u00a0told Mr Weldon about her bad service experience at ID Solutions.\u00a0 He said that he was on his way to the office, and would get back to\u00a0her.\u00a0 The customer called again after two hours, not having heard from Mr Weldon, and he said he was still on his way back and would contact the customer the following day.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Mr Weldon’s tone was very unfriendly and unapologetic\u00a0the following day, even though the payment had been made, and he protected the rude behaviour of Naomi, his staff member of 10 years, he said\u00a0\u00a0 He was inflexible about the time of delivery, despite the customer’s request for it to be delivered before 11h00, as she was going out.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0It became very clear that everything is done\u00a0in the ID Solutions way, and that the customer is unimportant.\u00a0\u00a0 The customer told\u00a0Mr Weldon that she would collect the chair herself.\u00a0\u00a0 About an hour before collection , a worker\u00a0from the warehouse called, asking in broken English what the delivery address was for the chair.\u00a0 He could not understand that the customer had arranged to fetch the chair.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0When the customer fetched the chair, no attempt had been made to wrap it in bubble wrap or with any other protective packaging for the trip in the car.\u00a0\u00a0The customer called Mr Weldon four times, to report the unwrapped chair and the warehouse call, but he\u00a0did not bother to return the calls on that day, depite his cellphone message promising that he would so promptly.\u00a0\u00a0The customer felt shocked that such poor service was possible, but remembered that Mr Weldon’s previous company Innovation had gone into liquidation, and perhaps poor service delivery could have been the cause of the\u00a0closure of that company!\u00a0\u00a0 The customer will never fall for an ID Solutions sale ad ever again, or buy from\u00a0the company\u00a0again!<\/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>.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales <\/span><\/strong>newsletters on the <\/span>www.whalecottage.com<\/span><\/a> website.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sweet Service Award goes to Debbie Hall, owner of The Hall Collection, suppliers of bespoke beds and bedding, imported from the UK.\u00a0\u00a0 The customer had met Mrs Hall previously at a Slow Food lunch and reconnected with her recently at the launch of Cru Cafe’.\u00a0\u00a0 Mrs Hall has built up a reputation for her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,248,21],"tags":[2085,2707,673,32378,2710,2077,2705,2708,2709,2706,32373,1771],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\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\n\t\t