The amp for my hi-fi has been a little problematic, so I have been looking at upgrading it to a new one. My amp is quite a fancy one that connects to the DVD player, uses Dolby Surround sound etc, so the replacement gear is not cheap.

So, I have been spending time in the Hi-Fi shops, looking at what is currently available, and getting an idea of what sort of price I will need to pay.

One of our better Hi-Fi shops is Tafelberg Furniture, in Diep River, Cape Town. They have got three home-theatre rooms permanency setup, so you can go there any try out the different combinations of equipment.

I went there on Friday, and all the sales assistant were busy. So, I just went into one of the demo rooms and started playing with the equipment. Because there was nobody to help, I started doing things myself, connecting the different gear to my heart’s content.

I found a couple of receivers that interested me, but I wanted to find out more, so I took the gear out of the shelves, looked at the connections on the back, compared with other equipment etc. So, I looked like a little child playing with his lego blocks, spread out around him on the floor.

Do you know that during the entire time that I was there, not a single sales assistance came to see what

a) I was doing taking apart their home-theatre demo room or

b) see if they could assist me?

Bear in mind that I was not looking at cheap gear, you could easily (assuming you have the budget), walk out of that room R200,000 poorer. These were big ticket items that I was looking at, and nobody offered to assist.

Tafelberg, if you want to make the sale, get your staff into gear! One onion to you.

Tags: orchids and onions, tafelberg furniture

For her birthday, Lois wanted a new pair of sunglasses, so on Saturday morning, we went off to Spectacle Warehouse to see what we could find.

While Lois was looking at sunglasses, I tried a few pairs on myself, and I found a pair that I quite liked, but I wasn’t really looking for me. Lois found a good pair of sunglasses that she wanted, and when I paid for them, they told me that they would give me the second pair that I had ben looking at – at no cost!

Now this did not happen before we had made a decision, so it was not an incentive to get my to buy. They were not running a 2 for 1 special. The sales assistant simply told me that we would have the second pair at no cost, just because she could!

That is what customer service is all about – !

• Did it cost them anything? – probably
• Will it build long-term customers? – yes
• Will we tell everybody about the great service? yes
• Did she have to do that? – no
• Will we be back? of course

Well done Spectacle Warehouse – three orchids to you.

Recently, Lilly, who are one of the major manufactures of insulin, changed  he design of on of their insulin pens. One would think that a major pharmaceutical company would spend a lot of time and effort ensuring that the pens work fine, wouldn’t you? Apparently not! Take a close look at the images below.

Can you see how the needle on the top pen sticks out over the end of the closed en on the bottom? Yes, if you put a needle onto the insulin pen, the needle sticks out by about 3mm, and the cap is too short to fit onto the pen. So, you either have to switch to a shorter needle, or get a new pen!

Here you can see how the cap will not fit with the needle attached.

Pretty poor design…

Two onions to Lilly!

About two weeks ago, I bought a USB memory stick from Chaos Computers in Kenilworth. The stick cost about R250. Well, get this – they gave me a courtesy phone call yesterday afternoon to check that all was fine and could they do anything to assist further.

No sales pitch, no special offers. Just a friendly call to check that all was ok. Well done, that is great customer service (their prices are also pretty good).

Two orchids to Chaos.

I ordered about 4 cases on wine from GetWine.co.za on Monday evening (after business hours). On Tuesday morning at 10:00am, the driver arrived at our house and dropped off the wine. And on top of that, they also gave us a free gift of a box of home-made chocolates.

That is just amazing customer service 12 hours from placing of the order to delivery – well done!

3 orchids to GetWine.

By the way, they have a pretty good selection of labeled and unlabeled wine at fantastic prices.