Tag: poor service

Disappointing

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Service in South Africa is generally known for all the wrong reasons. And people here are quick to criticise poor service, but slow – despite their obvious amazement – to (publicly, at least) applaud good service. I have, in the past, publicly applauded good service though, and I only mention bad service on here when it’s exceptionally bad and when I’ve tried to sort it out personally and failed.

This week though, has been a revelation as to exactly how bad things can be. And thus, I present to you, a list:

  1. I bought two SA made light bulbs on Saturday. Get them home and discover that only one of them works. The cost of the petrol to get back to the light bulb shop for a replacement means that it’s not worth the trip.
  2. We bought a bedside table for our daughter from a local company. Before we actually gave it to her though, I had to repair it in two places, because it was so poorly made.
  3. Our guttering needs fixing. We contacted three companies to get quotes.
    One didn’t call back at all.
    One finally called back but hasn’t turned up. He hasn’t phoned.
    One promised to come yesterday, but didn’t show. He hasn’t phoned either.
  4. Our gate intercom broke. The gate intercom repairers turned up, “mended it” inside 5 minutes, stuck their company stickers on every electrical item in the entire house and billed us. Except the gate intercom still doesn’t work.
  5. Our recycling company didn’t turn up on Tuesday.
  6. We have three plumbing problems: one I could deal with, but two which are a bit beyond me, so I called a plumber out. He promised to come on Monday. When he still hadn’t showed on Wednesday, I called him. His bakkie broke down over the weekend. He hadn’t bothered to phone.
  7. We ordered food from a new “trendy” delivery service. Online ordering was great, the delivery was prompt, the food was terrible. Sadly, that last bit will stick with us more than the online ordering and delivery.

We’re told that times are hard. We’re told that people and companies need work, but then they treat their customers like this?
Why would I choose to support you in the future when you’ve let me down now?

Yes, guttering people, I know it’s been more than a bit wet this week. Maybe that meant that you had to alter your schedules unexpectedly. But did it really stop your phone working?
Cos mine’s been fine for the last few days. It’s just not been taking any calls from you.

Plumber. Just phone me. I will understand.

Recyclers. And now? Are you going to refund us for your no-show?
Or should we expect you to just turn up when you feel like it now that we’ve paid you in advance?

Bedside table and light bulb manufacturers. Manufacturing bedside tables and light bulbs is your job. Sort it out. Do it well.

Food people. Train your cooks. That was horrible.

I’m understandably disappointed all round.

Let Me Despair

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You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting many of my photos lately. Other people’s photos, sure, but none of my own. And the reason for this is pretty straightforward – a lack of hardware.

The rocker zoom switch on my lovely camera has malfunctioned and Panasonic’s official repair agent in SA is the George-based LetMeRepair. A look at their website doesn’t inspire confidence. Unless perhaps you’re still residing in the early 1990s.

But the website might be misleading. Maybe they’re not utterly useless.

No, sadly, they are utterly useless.

5 days for a quote, 9 days for the part, 2 days to repair and then back to me, I was told. So, 16 days in total then. This doesn’t quite explain why they’ve still got my camera, unrepaired, some 65 (sixty-five) days after I handed it over to them for repair.

But things can go wrong. And when they do, it how you deal with them that makes the difference. Sadly, letmerepair haven’t done very well with this aspect either. My requests for information are generally ignored, but when I do mange to get a human on the other end of the line, they blame customs, citing delays for the part entering SA. One would perhaps imagine that letmerepair would have some experience of bringing camera parts into the country. But obviously not.

Perhaps I should have looked at popular consumer website hellopeter before I used letmerepair, but these guys are the ones who Panasonic chose to repair any of their devices over here. It seems that, like me, they may have made a big mistake.

So, a 6000 miles… tip: If you need something repaired and letmerepair are suggested as the company to use: Don’t.