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.