Good Service, Bad Service

I haven't been blogging much lately - but that's mostly because I tend to blog about things that either really bug me or make me happy. Which would be fine, but there tend to be more bugging things than good things, and I don't want to be complaining all the time :-)

Especially when it's things that only affect me in a 'no man is an island' kind of way. Copyright issues, Telkom, eNatis, that kind of thing. But there are a few things that have been irritated me on a personal level, and so I might as well vent and get it out of my system.

Firstly - what is the use of estate agents that only work during work hours? I'm looking at townhouses to rent, but the agent with all the good properties won't show them after 5pm or over the weekend. Which is pathetic - most people work during the day, all day, every day.

Secondly - and I've mentioned this one before - companies (in the UK) that will take money from your bank account, but will only refund by cheque. I'm trying to negotiate with Tiscali at the moment, but I suspect it will, again, end up being a refund cheque. It may work in the UK; it doesn't work if you've left the country; and it specifically doesn't work if you now live in South Africa. And as an aside - British Gas still haven't replied to any of my queries or complaints, and the Energy Ombudsman won't even consider stepping until 3 months has gone past with no reply. Again, pathetic.

And my last complaint for the day - Satrix. This is an ETF/index tracker investment fund in SA, and the nice thing is that you can invest directly and don't have to go via a broker (thus avoiding brokerage fees). I'm sure the investment side is great; they've been posting really good returns. But the admin side is, again, pathetic. Really unprofessional and disorganised. They lost my application form; they lost my internet access application form. They have different fax numbers on the form and on their website. Their website looks like it was designed by some who thought they were being really clever, but were just being an idiot by being totally non-standard. Queries get answered by multiple people. Queries get answered incorrectly (I was told my internet account had been activated, and it took 3 or 4 days of errors to be told it hadn't been activated). A letter I received in the post from them had a phone number written on the back, scribbled out. The grammar used by the customer service agents is barely primary school level: "I have tried to allocate it on our systems but was not successful. it seems that your forms had been missed place and no submitted through." Notice the allocate instead of locate, missed place instead of misplaced, and no submitted instead of not submitted. And "We apologies for the inconvenience." So I just hope their money management is better than their customer management!

On the good side, and just to prove that I don't only complain, I bought a new car a few weeks ago and I was very impressed. It's a Kia Picanto, in Diamond Blue (I'll post a picture sometime), and the whole experience was remarkably simple. I thought it might be a problem to get the model I wanted in the colour I wanted, but luckily one was just arriving by ship when I started talking to the dealer. The salesman (from Kia Cape Town - the other branches aren't as good) was pleasant, friendly, knew what he was talking about, and wasn't at all pushy. They delivered the car to my house, and every now and then phone up to see if everything's going okay (which it is - the only problem is the licencing, and that's the government's problem, not theirs). Really, they were brilliant and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone who wants to buy a Kia. The car itself is also great, although I haven't driven for a year, and not much before that, so I need to practice a bit before I'm comfortable driving to work :-)