Over the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to get an internet service sorted for the place I am furnishing. This place has a Telkom phone line, but nothing more. Our Internet Service Provider is Webafrica, so we decided to try them first.
Mike got hold of them at about 8-15am, but the person he spoke to said he was ‘technical support’ and Mike must phone again to speak to ‘sales’. Mike tried again, but he just couldn’t get through. Now when one is in the middle of the work day, you can spend a tea break doing this kind of thing but not the entire day. Eventually, he called me and we made an arrangement that he would continue to call Webafrica, while I would call Telkom.
I have heard recently, that Telkom is hopelessly difficult to get hold of telephonically. Walking into their stores is also tedious and time consuming. I wondered what my experience would be. I called and got their automated answering service with instructions to follow which I dutifully did. Eventually, the message came back for me to be patient as they were very busy and it may take a ‘very long time’ for me to get through. I put speaker phone on, set it down next to my computer and carried on what I was doing. The music came on, interspersed with voices telling me about special packages – that happened for 5 minutes, then everything stopped. I said “hello” a few times, but there was no response. No music, no voices. So I gave up.
Then I decided to go onto the website of Afrihost…
There I found a form to fill in that said a consultant would call me. Aha! This seems pretty harmless. Let’s see if I get a call. So I filled in the message form very clearly stating what my needs were and I hit ‘send.’ That was probably about 11am. Truly, I half forgot about it. I expected a call a day later or two days later or not at all. So I was surprised when at 3-40pm, the phone rang and it was Afrihost. By the time loadshedding kicked in at 4pm, the options had been discussed, the deal was done, the package procured and payment made. 🙂 And to my delight, turns out they probably are the cheapest. I’m glad it’s Afrihost – we advertised them on CCFm for years!
Telkom is going to have to do something about their service. It’s too abysmal to get stressed over though. I will deal with them as infrequently as possible. If I have to walk into their store, I plan to do it just before they open. They sent me an sms, asking me to rate their service and asking if I would recommend them. Sorry, I can’t. They asked why. I told them their waiting time is way too long. They asked if my issue was resolved. I had to say No, it wasn’t resolved by Telkom and that I’m using another ISP. That can’t be good for business.
The other day when we went out for Sushi at Salushis in Claremont, one of my friends had her sushi arrive with some of the topping messed up.
She didn’t notice, but the waiter did. The next thing, the waiter returned with two pieces of sushi to replace the ones that had been smudged. Then to all of our delight, he allowed her to keep the squished ones and have the new ones! Free sushi! No one argues. No one complains. Everyone remembers it and it makes you feel good about the service and the restaurant as a whole. It doesn’t take much to make a good impression. But having said that, it doesn’t take much to create a bad one either. This morning, having cappuccino at Tribeca at the Blue Route, our coffees came not very hot and Riana’s was in a large cup while mine was in a small cup! We got charged the same. “Those are the only cups we have,” the waitress said, “Sorry, we can’t do anything about that.” I think if they are going to do that, they should at least send matching cups to the clientèle and not give them odd ones. I felt hard done by! It was busy and it was right after load-shedding, so I understand things may have been a bit chaotic, but a good waitress would have said, “You’re absolutely right, let me give you a refill!” That would have been the right thing to do.
One thing about living in the world today, is that it doesn’t matter where you live or work or go, there is no reason for bad service. If clients are your livelihood, be nice to them. Put them first. Make them count. Leave them with a good experience. You’ll have them coming back over and over again. We in South Africa can do this. We just have to make it happen.
In the Old Testament, someone who set himself apart as a man of excellence was Daniel. It got him places…
Daniel 6:3
Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.
Let’s have an excellent spirit within us.
Keep the smile going!
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂