The I am a pirate/fireman, I am not a hijacker thread, all about nothing in general

[Aussie Wendy]

My thought exactly-will see what the bosses say Monday! I have some stuff I still have to do tomorrow too but hopefully won't take quite so long. Have to go sde Mum and Dad too (about an hours drive away).

 

[PrincessInOz]

Just a whinge-worked from 7am til 5pm and its Sat today because of receiving documentation and data I needed to finalise a major report for Monday really late from academics. SIGH! I don't normally charge to overtime but this follows a 5 day very long hours week so tempting to see if I can. Roll on holiday!!

So sorry Wendy. That's not a fun thing to be working weekends.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Thanks PIO-but if I want to go on all these hols and indulge my Dis-fesh have to earn the $.......you have all corrupted me-now I am thinking about 2014 already and I never used to do that til the next trip was over!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Thanks PIO-but if I want to go on all these hols and indulge my Dis-fesh have to earn the $.......you have all corrupted me-now I am thinking about 2014 already and I never used to do that til the next trip was over!

Glad to see that we are no longer alone.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Scotland is all sorted but I do need to get back onto finalising Spain-accomodation is sorted, have some idea of what we want to see where and starting to note opening times, costs etc but not yet got onto the most important-where to eat! Dang work getting in the way of important trip planning.

DD is experiencing Asia at the moment-by the time she gets back I think she will have convinced me an Asian trip needs to move up the bucket list. So far she wants to return to Luang Prabang in Laos and Hanoi in Vietnam (she's now in Hui).

 

[PrincessInOz]

Hmm....3 months or so before Europe and its much more exciting to be organising Spain than doing work! What a choice!

 

[WanderlustNZ]

I just noticed that the Lion King musical is coming to Sydney in December. I've seen it 3 times already in London, but I love it so much I'm tempted to cross the Tasman to see it again.
I mentioned it to DH thinking he'd get grumpy that I was thinking of another trip so close to our September one. But, knowing how much I love the show, he said I should try and get a bunch a girlfriends together and make a weekend of it. Woohoo! Now I just need to convince a friend or two that the show is good enough to justify the cost of the flights to see it. Hmmm, not feeling too confident...

 

[PrincessInOz]

Go for it!

 

[PrincessInOz]

So today, I experienced the most awesome Customer Service!

DS's school provided us with the option to buy e-books instead of hard copy. And as we are in the 22nd century, we decided to give the hard copy books the heave-ho this year.

The science e-book was sold as textbook and workbook. DS downloaded it at school during class and found that he only had the textbook. No workbook. Turns out that about 5 other kids had the same problem.

I called the bookshop when he came home and told me. The conversation I had with the person at the other of the line was fascinating and such an insight into Customer Service 101:

1. If you KNOW that there is a problem with an item, wait until the customer calls before doing something about it. There is no point in ordering copies with the correct products included in advance. Wait until all complaints come in and then collect all requests before submitting one order.

2. Because of first point, advise the customer that their children will need to go without the said workbook for at least 1 month. Make sure to tell the customer that there is nothing you can do about the situation because it is company policy to only submit one order 10 working days after the start of the school year. Afterall, company policy is company policy.

3. If the customer complains about the policy or points out how unacceptable this is, tell them that they are free to source the said workbook somewhere else. There are other companies that do sell it on-line. It is completely okay to conveniently forget that the customer has already paid for that item.

4. If the customer still complains, put them on hold whilst you speak to your manager. It is okay to forget to put the customer on mute so that you can hear every word of your conversation with a colleague; not your manager.

5. Just so you can get the overly-complaining (DIS-inappropriate words) customer off the phone, tell them that your manager has advised that you can place an order on urgent backorder immediately. Tell the customer to feel free to call back in 3 days to check on the status of the urgent backorder because that's the best you can do.





Maybe it's this overly-complaining (DIS-inappropriate words) customer, but why wouldn't you:
a) Place an urgent back-order once you know that there was an issue with that product so that you had it on your shelves when customers called?
b) Place an urgent back-order for the customer immediately, in the event that you didn't want to do the above point a???









No disrespect intended to some of the fantastic FOH and BOH Customer Service Reps that might be reading this or lurking!!!

 

[Marlea98]

We've kind of got a similar, but not as important, thing for DDs booklist. The compasses that were on the book list that have been ordered and paid for have still not arrived in stock. And I didn't find that out until I went to pick up the order the week before school started. We are now in week two of the term and the compasses are still on order from the supplier. I refuse to go elsewhere and buy one as I've ordered it and paid for it. At least there are a lot of other kids at school in the same situation so if the teacher starts lessons requiring the use of a compass and singles out these kids I'll be very unimpressed. The school would have to be aware of the issue (I hope).

 

[miss.potatohead]

Oh PIO the same has happened to my sister. They start the the next academic year at the end of last year, so a few of her books hadn't even been published yet! Now that they have been published you'd think she'd have them but no, the book shop have sold out. But what about the kids who bought them IN OCTOBER LAST YEAR! Apparently there is a separate back order for the school. School says book shop has them. Bookshop says school has them...on and on.

Also the school's gone the 'ipad' route so half the books are now on the device. There was a code for the maths book to download but the website wouldn't allow her to register for the site. Instead, the head of maths placed the book online through the school portal for them to download. What was the point of buying the $50 code then!

 

[WanderlustNZ]

4. If the customer still complains, put them on hold whilst you speak to your manager. It is okay to forget to put the customer on mute so that you can hear every word of your conversation with a colleague; not your manager.

I'm sorry you've been mucked around, but this is just so ludicrous, I had to laugh.
Some people aren't even good at doing their job badly.

What was s/he saying to the colleague?

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'm sorry you've been mucked around, but this is just so ludicrous, I had to laugh.
Some people aren't even good at doing their job badly.

What was s/he saying to the colleague?

Something about what a *awful* customer she had on the phone and that she wasn't responsible for the bad situation. She did carry on about what a *bad* customer I was for a bit.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Oh PIO the same has happened to my sister. They start the the next academic year at the end of last year, so a few of her books hadn't even been published yet! Now that they have been published you'd think she'd have them but no, the book shop have sold out. But what about the kids who bought them IN OCTOBER LAST YEAR! Apparently there is a separate back order for the school. School says book shop has them. Bookshop says school has them...on and on.

Also the school's gone the 'ipad' route so half the books are now on the device. There was a code for the maths book to download but the website wouldn't allow her to register for the site. Instead, the head of maths placed the book online through the school portal for them to download. What was the point of buying the $50 code then!

We had the same with some of DS' books. Turns out its a two-part code. He enters the one we get and the school needs to then enter their side before he can download it. In some of the others, he needed to download it with the school email account as the "contact" point.

But yes....that sounds like a similar circular non-argument!

 

[WanderlustNZ]

Something about what a *awful* customer she had on the phone and that she wasn't responsible for the bad situation. She did carry on about what a *bad* customer I was for a bit.

That's dreadful. Did you come up with anything clever to say to embarrass her and let her know you'd heard the conversation.
That would have been one of those situations where, afterwards, I would have come up with all these witty things I should have said and been kicking myself for not thinking to say them at the time.

 

[PrincessInOz]

That's dreadful. Did you come up with anything clever to say to embarrass her and let her know you'd heard the conversation.
That would have been one of those situations where, afterwards, I would have come up with all these witty things I should have said and been kicking myself for not thinking to say them at the time.

I did think about it but in the end decided it was probably better to let it go. Sometimes, its all about knowing when to pick a fight and when to let things slide.

Afterall, it really isn't a war if only one side shows up.

So, I thanked her for her help and said that I knew it wasn't her fault but perhaps that she could let her manager know that the customer experience in this instance was not a good one.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

As an amusing aside-browsing TA restaurant reviews for Disneyland and found this in a new Rainforest Cafe one: "most kids beef products off the menu were cancelled due to horse precautions - and that was explained". Uum I admit not being up with the latest in food scares that always seem to rock Europe and the UK-but is this saying the kids "beef" is actually horse?? or am I misunderstanding.

Mind you we had no idea what we had for dinner one evening at our farmhouse homestay in Slovenia several years ago-some tough meat. A donkey had been braying non stop, shut up in a barn for several days-and then stopped! It crossed our minds....we also had some fantastic dinners there too btw. We still drool at the memory of the oozing with chocolate pancakes the size of dinner plates served with some sort of pureed strawberry drink that came in wine glasses and you drank with the desert.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

For our enlightenment and to ensure Rainforest Cafe good name is not smeared I have googled the news-ah ha-Feb 10 News Item:

The Europe-wide scandal over horsemeat sold as beef spread Sunday as six French retailers pulled products from their shelves and France promised to have the results of an urgent inquiry within days.

A senior British lawmaker meanwhile upped the stakes by calling for a temporary ban on importing EU meat, as a French minister suggested London was threatening food safety standards by pushing for EU budget cuts.

Several ranges of prepared food have been withdrawn in Britain, France and Sweden after it emerged that frozen food companies had been using horsemeat -- traced back to Romania -- instead of beef in making lasagnes and other pasta dishes, shepherd's pies and moussakas.

Frozen food giant Findus has lodged a legal complaint in France after evidence showed the presence of horsemeat in its supply chain "was not accidental", while a French meat-processing firm has said it will sue its Romanian supplier.

Highlighting the complexity of European food supply chains, the meat has been traced back from France through Cyprus and The Netherlands to Romanian abattoirs. Romanian officials have also announced an urgent inquiry.

 

[PrincessInOz]

I've been chopping at the bit .... but pulling my head in with the reins ...... dare I say neigh ....... someone needs to be horsewhipped over this???

 

[Aussie Wendy]

I also should have said I was researching Rainforest Cafe at DL Paris-only in Europe! You can tell we don't have a TV - I gather this is old news!!