Moo.com are a great little printing company. I use them a lot for my business cards.

Yesterday, I took a few out of the box, and I realised that a few were damaged (the lamination was coming loose). So, I fired off an email to them , and within an hour I had an apology, and a replacement pack is on its was, free of charge.

I’m sorry your order didn’t come out as expected. This was a finishing error (when we laminate and cut your cards to size) and should have been spotted by our quality checkers.

I’ve re-processed your order, free of charge, and your reprinted items will be dispatched as soon as they are ready. Apologies for the inconvenience and any delays this might’ve caused.

No fuss, no hassle, just great customer service. By the way, these are the guys that print individual runs, whereby every card is unique.

2 orchids to moo.

Yes, believe it or not, Incredible Connection receives an orchid!

Last week, I bought a new camera bag from Incredible Connection, and after a few days the lining started to tear. So, off I went to complain. However I had lost the receipt, so I was a little worried about them giving me a refund.

When I arrived at the store, they were fantastic. Theywere friendly and helpful, they didn’t mind that I did not have a slip. They even managed to find my original purchase on their computer, and after a few minutes I had a full refund, no problems at all!

So, here is your orchid.

I had to unblock the SIM card on my Vodacom datacard, which should be a simple task; I had to phone the call centre twice, and navigate through menu’s nine levels deep to eventually get hold of a real person to assist me. When I eventually spoke to a human, she gave me great assistance and solved my problem in about 2 minutes. However it took me far longer trying to navigate my was through their system.

Wouldn’t it be nice if at the first menu they gave you an option to speak to a real person?

I just wish that customer-card would actually mean the care of the customers’ needs, and not just the cheapest and least labour intensive solution to your customer problems.

The worst part is that when you finally speak to a person, you are so grateful that somebody has actually answered the phone, that you don’t complain in case they disconnect you, and you can never find you way back through the labyrinth!

Well, at least it wasn’t the Multichoice call centre, where you have to speak to the voice recognition system that never quite manages to understand you.

2 Onions to all poorly run call centres!

The first orchid goes to the Malawian waiter from Jasers restaurant who called me after he arranged for a friend of his to bring us some Nali chilli sauce from back Malawi. Nali make the hottest peri peri sauce in Africa, and it is really good.

Anyway, we met him about six months ago when we were having drinks at Jaspers. We happened to mention how we love Nali sauce, and I gave him a business card. So, he kept it, arranged a couple of bottles, and I collected them last week. This was all for service sake, and for no benefit to him.

The second orchid goes to the training company that accidentally sent me their newsletter with my email address and about 100 other email addresses in the TO mail field. So they accidentally gave my email address to 100 other people. Now this is not why they received the orchid. That was onion behaviour!

They are receiving the orchid because after I complained, they made amends immediately. They offered to send me and anybody that I employee on their project management trainig course for free. This is a course that costs over R10000. Pitty they are in Johannesburg. I am not going to mention their name because they really messed up at first, but they were fantastic at resolving the problem.

It is good to know that there are still companies and people that are providing exceptional service, and that are doing their best to do right. These are the people that are going to perform and do well in the next few years.

A blogger is being sued for defamation by the RCI-affiliated Quality Vacation Club (QVC) for criticising it on his website Insights and Rants.

This is of huge interest to be, because I often write about good and bad service in my Orchids and Onions section of my blog site. Personally, I feel that if you don’t open your business to public scrutiny and comment, you should question your business practises and integrity very closely.

According to Independent Online,

Donn Edwards was phoned by a telemarketer last year and told that he had won a car. All he would have to do to claim his prize, he was told, was attend a prize-giving ceremony in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.

When he and his wife arrived at the venue, they discovered that the prize-giving ceremony was a QVC marketing presentation at which he and his wife, and the other “guests”, were told to choose a key, after the airing of a video, to determine if he had won the car. He had not.

Edwards wrote about his experience, and his unhappiness about being misled, on his blog.The result of this is that QCV are suing him for damages of R461 500.

Pamela Stein, a partner at legal firm Webber Wentzel Bowens, said the blogger would be able to defend his actions on the basis of fair comment.

“The right of fair comment, along with truth for the public benefit, is one of the fundamental rights of free speech,”

“I have no doubt that commentary that is in the consumer’s interests is in the public interest.”

It will be a very sad day if RCI win this court case. Freedom of expression, and the right to tell the truth are fundamental rights. If RCI are concerned about Donn’s views, they have every right to respond, to comment and to tell their side of the story. However, in my opinion, a large organisation suing a single person that is unhappy is not the approach to follow.

The full artice is on IOL.

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