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I WANTZ A BIGGER LAWWNN

// July 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // humour, marketing, random madness

Strolling through Rondebosch the other day, I did a serious double-take, checked my pockets for evidence of psychedelic materials, and finding none, went for a closer peek at the lawn I had just seen driving down the road.

Seems that with the FIFA World Cup drawing ever nearer, everyone is getting into the spirit…a spirit which will undoubtedly blossom into full-blown soccer fever in the near future.

If this eye-catching mobile lawn created by AGA (Artificial Grass Africa) is anything to go by, I can’t wait to see what else our local marketing wizards have up their sleeves for 2010!

I must confess at this point that I’m a total n00b where soccer is concerned, and i fail to understand the murderous rage it incites in rival fans, especially in Cape Town, where most of the fans seem to support teams that aren’t actually in South Africa. In addition to this, the teams supported, such as Man United and Liverpool are seldom made up of people who actually come from Manchester or Liverpool (etc) – I wonder what percentage of premier league teams are composed of geographically correct individuals?

I do admit to a twinge of the soccer madness over the last world cup where we elected to do a random pool at work to draw teams. I ended up with Italy and Uruguay, and bemoaned the fact that I had two teams that didn’t stand a chance in hell. As the cup progressed I watched with growing fascination as Italy began to beat the odds. By the final match I felt a distinct urge to bite the ears off any nearby Frenchmen (not in a good way either) and almost wet myself watching the penalty shootout.

The madness soon passed and I returned to watching rugby, which is raaight, lekka and as it should be, but come 2010, who knows? Perhaps I should stock up on nobbly boots and a silly scarf in the mean time in case the madness strikes again.

SHAMELESS SERVICE ii – THE CRUX

// March 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // humour

Another of my early forays into the job market in the mid 90′s, was working nights for a Shell call center, servicing service stations (and other people requiring kilolitres of highly flammable substances at short notice). Apparently it was one of the first of it’s type in the country, allowing owners of service stations to call in and place orders 24-7, receive helpful and friendly advice, report problems and the like.

I’ll never forget the job interview. It went thusly:”it’s 3am and a panicked Frikkie calls in from Blikkiesdorp, saying a petrol tanker has just careened into his forecourt taking out two petrol pumps…what do you do?”

Barring the obvious answers like “tell him not to light a cigarette”, “throw sand on it” and “call the fire brigade”, I was stumped when the team leader kept shaking his head. The correct answer was, of course, “call someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about”.

We had a lovely office environment, made even better by the never ending supply of hot chocolate and coffee from the Nestle dispenser in the corner (nickname “Fred: the angel of deliverance”) and the really big couch cushions which afforded us lovely nesting material for the wee hours.

The take home part of that job was that we got a two day seminar on customer service, and got to practice it on a daily (nightly, actually) basis. It’s stayed with me to this day.

I will always have fond memories of those 5am phone calls from farmers in the middle of boerewors territory. Men who got up and did 300 press ups before going to wake the family rooster. Men who had only ever heard rumors of a language called English. Hard men. Men who, when they calmly asked for 2000 litres of diesel by 7am, expected to be obeyed, all the while hinting that if they were not, some very long and firmly spoken Afrikaans words would follow.

For me, service delivery can be summed up in one line – the customer is a customer…you work for him, you’re not there to do him favours, you WORK for him..treat him as you would your boss…show some respect.

ALSO:

1. The customer IS always right.

2. Even when the customer is wrong, he’s still always right (I use he, because women are obviously never wrong)

3. No matter how much of an arsehole he is, he’s still still always right.

4. Deal with it.

5. Suck it up, breathe, put your ego in your back pocket and smile..and people can tell if you’re smiling over the phone.

6. If that doesn’t work, try Valium.

SHAMELESS SERVICE

// March 3rd, 2008 // No Comments » // humour

So this is going to be a total rant, but I’m wondering if there is actually a ranking by country on the quality of service delivery in that country, and which of the last 5 places this country occupies. And which countries occupy the first five places, so I can start getting my visa’s organised.

I have just been through a series of incidents which have really left me shocked at the mutt-dumbness of people in business who do not understand this really simple and fundamental principle: customers don’t complain to your face, they just don’t come back….and they DO complain to their friends, family, babysitters, pool-guys, tennis partners, vet-shop assistants, etc..you get the picture…word of mouth can just as easily destroy a business as it can make one.

I really find it quite sad that we all seem to have so much to rant about on this subject. I also find it disturbingly wrong that instead of demanding and expecting good service, I am pleasantly surprised when I actually receive it.

Possibly my annoyance stems from the fact that I’ve had that “service with a smile” etiquette shoved down my throat from work-experience day 1, so I simply come to expect it in others. Like many other naive, vulnerable unfortunates finding themselves much in need of a little extra dosh once that wellspring of pocket money ran dry after school, I ended up in that sheer gut wrenching horror that is waitressing (or waitronning? they’re all PC now).

So, like many other foolish mortals, I chose to work at the Spur. Where that’s concerned, let me simply say that I don’t eat there. Ever. I have my reasons.

But I digress…service delivery: if at 18, you want to go to the loony hippy “summer of love” party in red hill (ticket price R200) where Bob, the really cute guy from your BIO 101 class will almost certainly be (or so his friend Ted says), you very quickly learn to suck up to Mrs Jones, her snotty nosed birthday boy, and his 32 snotty-nosed screaming little friends. For 6 hours. No cigarette break. 4 types of fizzy drink spilled down the new uniform (which you have to buy yourself). Lungs bursting from inhaling helium and squeaking like mickey mouse to entertain the kids.

And all the while, a happy beaming face, which beams even more once the old girl totters out leaving you the “xx Spur record tip of that year”.

So..good service pays off…and even if the old bat had left a miserable R20 tip, there will always be people who don’t appreciate good service when they get it.

I think they spoil it for the rest of us actually.

I think it’s a hard and fast fact that none of these people ever worked as waiters.. You could probably put money on it. If you show someone true appreciation for doing the job they’re damn well meant to be doing, well, the more likely they are to continue doing it well.

So, suck-uppery is a vital tool in business..I think small businesses are much more acutely aware of this and tend to get it right a lot of the time, because they are in a sink-or-swim scenario. It’s actually when big-business and corporate chains or whatever they’re called get sloppy and stop caring that I get most pissed off – they should know better. Also, they make more money. They should be able to pay more people to suck up…or people more to suck up…whatever. It exhausts me just thinking about it.

TBC…