Washing Machine minus £90

Posted: Mon 3 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

When we ordered the washing machine, we paid £440. (OK, that’s rounded up – we paid about 5p under that)

However, when we got home, we did some checking around and found that another place had it for £370, which is a fairly significant difference.

Thankfully, the place we ordered from has a price-match guarantee, so I went in there yesterday with the printouts, and they’ve paid back that difference. Even better, their price promise is that they’ll then undercut the price by £20 – so all told, we’ve managed to get £90 back, and thus will be getting our new washing machine for the princely sum of £350 instead of £440.

Not bad, for an hour’s “work” on t’internet, I think you’ll agree.

Guesstimation

Posted: Mon 27 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related | 1 Comment »

One of my biggest bug-bears in development is having to come up with arbitrary methods of scoring.

For instance, I’ve got to work on an assessment system where there are three levels of skills based on roles, and three skill levels for the relevant tasks. For example, a question such as “I can touch-type” would have three levels, such as “Can’t at all”, “can but not properly” and “Fully qualified touch-typist”, but touch-typing itself would be a skill level of 2 (don’t ask me, I don’t know where the levels came from). Once the tests have been done, I’ve got to come up with some completely arbitrary method of taking the scores from those role-based skill levels, and from the skill level in each role of the user, and saying “User [x] is at skill level [y] and thus needs/doesn’t need extra training”.

But the actual formula for working out the points is being left to me – no-one else can get their head round it, so it’s been left to the techie. And I think I’ve got something that works, and weights things properly in favour of the higher skills, but I don’t really know. Even worse, I suspect we won’t really know whether I’ve got it right until the entire system has been fully tested and used – by which time it will (in theory at least) be far too late to do anything about it.

It’s enough to drive me crackers.

GMT

Posted: Mon 27 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Geeky | Leave a comment »

So – did you remember to put your clocks back?

As always, we’ve changed pretty much all ours now. The heating system only got changed this morning, because I forgot it last night, but other than that I think we’re pretty much sorted.

Mind you, I still think that the best thing when it comes to the time changes are the radio-controlled clocks that tune in to the Time Signal, and just change themselves. That, so far as I’m concerned, is just grand – and it makes me wonder why more things don’t do it. Even “just” the essential services (heating system, for example) would be nice, but having one’s cooker (another prime example) being auto-updated would make life a lot easier…

Service Outcome

Posted: Sun 26 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Driving | 1 Comment »

Good and Bad news from the car’s servicing yesterday…

For the most part, it was absolutely fine. Didn’t even need topping up with oil.

However…
The bad news is that the power-steering pump is well on it’s way to dying – apparently it’s cracked, and is not in a good state. In fairness, I’ve known it’s on the way out, as it’s been getting noisier. Last time it went in for a service (about six/seven months ago) they commented that it was noisy, but couldn’t find the problem. So it’s no surprise that over that time (and some 10-12,000 miles more) it’s got worse, and they can now see what the problem is.

Price for repair? £400 .

So it’s booked in for a couple of week’s time, seeing as the power-steering is pretty important, but I need at least a week for a new insurance certificate to come through for the courtesy car.

But that’s it – and I class the power-steering as wear-and-tear once it’s coming close to the 100,000 miles. These things happen. I’m just pleased that the car and engine all seem to be fit and well, which is no bad thing at all.

Stuart Rose

Posted: Fri 24 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Own Business, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

I know I’ve written about Stuart Rose before, but he’s one of my business heroes, so sod it, I’ll write again.

Don’t know who he is? He’s the Chief Executive (and Chairman) of Marks and Spencer, and has been since about 2004. Any time I’ve seen him interviewed on TV, he’s always come across really well, and most definitely not your standard Chief Exec. He’s someone who believes in the company he works for, and to me that’s fantastic.

This time, he’s in a feature by the Guardian about their clothes, taking the Guardian’s columnist round the shop and showing her clothes, following her comments that M&S didn’t have clothes for women in their 20s.

Now first of all, when did you ever hear about a shop’s Chief Exec acting as a sales assistant to take someone round the store? And particularly one who actually knows his own stock lines and themes? Let alone actually wears clothes from the store?

He insists that he doesn’t expect even loyal customers to dress entirely in M&S, but to select key pieces to team with other clothes and accessories. The suit he is wearing is from M&S – he opens his jacket to prove it – but his shoes are not.

© Guardian newspapers 2008

To me, that’s what a Chief Exec should do. I just think it’s a pity that it’s something Stuart Rose stands out for doing, rather than it being the standard.

Unique IDs

Posted: Fri 24 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Bloody fucking Barclays Bank, their internet banking service, and their unique ‘Membership Number’.

I don’t mind unique reference numbers – I really don’t. But I do wish companies – and today, particularly banks – would make them easier to remember. After all, it’s not rocket-science really.

My main bank, Royal Bank of Scotland use your date-of-birth, followed by a small, memorable unique number. I’ve never yet forgotten it, or had an issue with recalling it. It’s useful to both RBS and the customer. That’s how it should be done. It’s u

Barclays, on the other hand, have a 12 or 16 digit number, which starts off with either 2010 or 2020, and it has no fucking relevance to anything. In short, it’s an ID that is useful to Barclays, but not to the customer. And that’s just frustrating every time you come to need to use it.

In an absolutely ideal world, you let the customer choose their memorable number – it could be date of birth (although that’s easy to find) or something surreal like ‘Numberplate of first car owned’. Check that chosen ID, and if it’s in the system already for whatever reason, add a small number to it. No more than three digits. Simple, and memorable. It’s still unique in your own system (i.e. the bank’s database) so there’s no issues with replication or non-unique-ness, but it’s memorable for the customer too.

Except of course that banks in general still don’t operate on the principle that they should be a convenience for their customers (Note : not a public convenience, although God knows I’d like to piss all over them sometimes), rather than that their customers are there as a convenience to the bank. And I can’t see that concept changing any time soon, unfortunately.

Staying in Business

Posted: Mon 13 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary | 1 Comment »

Sometimes I wonder how some companies stay in business at all. I’ve recently had two perfect examples of this.

1. Three months ago, I ordered something from a bunch of shysters called Urban Junkie. When it hadn’t turned up after a month, I chased them up, and on the third chase-up, finally got a response.

“I have checked your order, unfortunately the item has gone out of stock and is not due back in for a few more weeks. No payment has ben taken and we fully understand if you wish to cancel due to the delay.
Sorry for the inconvenience.”

And that’s been it. Two more months and no word at all.

So I’ve cancelled the order.

2. Back when I was using the bunch of shyster twunts known as Parasol IT (I’ve now had £1800 of tax refunds for two consecutive tax years because of Parasol’s inefficiency – that’s £150 per month for two years that they were fucking up) I also got a stakeholder pension through one of their related companies.

Since leaving Parasol, I’ve told Parasol Financials on no less than four occasions that I’ve left Parasol, and need the details of the pension so I can keep on paying in to it. Last week they called, denied having ever heard from me about leaving Parasol (although that soon changed once I forwarded them copies of the emails, and replies to them) and getting quite snotty.

The snottiness changed when I then asked them to send me details, and asked what address they held for me. And (again despite repeated updates from me to them) the address was still the one in fucking Bracknell. From two years ago. Useless twats.

So yes, needless to say, I think I’ll be pulling the pension out from Parasol Financial’s control ASAP.

Really, you just have to wonder how organisations like these stay in business, don’t you?

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