Wednesday 22 October 2014

Customer relations: compare and contrast

Today, being a nominal day off, I had admin & housekeeping things to do:  making sure students had made their shared google documents properly, translate my CV into Japanese... ouch,  give feedback on research projects, make tomorrow's breakfast (curry) since I'll leave before 7 for work tomorrow, reply to student emails that accumulate more quickly than they can be answered, and get tomorrow's classes (4 totally different subjects on 2 campuses that are an hour apart)....

So it was a lucky timing for needing to be at home to wait for my replacement credit card to arrive from Aus.
Well... compare & contrast....

Aus credit card arrives by DHL.  I'd rung the bank in Aus. to check it had been sent out since I was getting a countdown from Skype.  They said they'd put it in the mail.  I ring to activate it. Done. No problem.  I get off the phone, look at the card and the new card expires this month...    "Oh yeah... that's no good... we'll send you out a new one..."   Yeah... thanks maaaaaaaate. That'd be great. I hope that my skype credit lasts the distance and I don't need to call you back...  I wonder if ANZ does Facetime?

Compare & contrast
Hiro's mother rang to say she'd  sent a parcel that would arrive after 6; she'd made kiritampo (Akita's specialty hotpot) and sent it down for me to assemble since Thursday is my busy day at work.
Problem...
I'm overseeing interviews for a friend between 6 & 8. I rang the call centre of Yamato deliveries gave them my name and address and explained the problem. I didn't have the parcel number, because I didn't want Hiro's mother to feel as though she'd caused difficulties...  They said no problem and they'd track it down & get in touch.   The local office called 40 mins later and said they didn't have it yet, but they would call when it arrived.  It arrived at their depot while I was on the phone to them and they delivered it within the hour.
How good is that.