Fish and Chips - Service versus Product

Fish and Chip shops are pretty common and I never really gave much thought until the other day about why you choose one over another. I have about four or five close to my house but generally tend to go to the same one. I guess the quality of the product over time has played a factor in that, the speed of service, and other things like parking near to the shop.

So taking a punt on a shop in a different town, you don't know the service or product quality. So I entered the first shop I found and it looked a little unusual, it had plastic furniture and an old fridge for the drinks, and took the time I was waiting looking at the unusual lights and other strange features of the decor. There was a small mistake with the money and certainly left the shop thinking it wasn't the flashest fish and chip shop in the world.

But then I tasted the fish and chips, seemed to me to be the best fish I had ever had and suddenly the experience in the shop meant nothing compared to the quality of the product. I was thinking then that I'd have to go back next time I was here, it was funny how it made me as a customer realise the look of the shop might impact my first visit, but were irrelevant to a return visit, the quality of the product was the main reason for visiting a fish and chip shop. Next day I had didn't feel so good, but I don't think it was the fish, but it did make me realise that food poisoning would have been a complete killer for any revisit to the shop, so avoiding that happening is the first requirement of a fish shop, then quality, and then service

Hats Off To Hyde Park Hotel

I've spent most of the last week staying at Hyde Park Hotel in Sydney. As a tourist the main function of a hotel is a place to sleep, so providing the basics are done well, the customer is unlikely to notice the service. So after four nights at the hotel I realised I hadn't noticed the hotel service, and given the temperature had got up to 42 degrees then there were things that could have been noticed.

When looking for a hotel to stay in, I was looking for a reasonable location and a reasonable price, but these factors aren't ultimately how i would end up judging the service of the hotel. I hadn't really factored in air conditioning coming from Wellington, but that turned out to be pretty crucial as the temperature was still 39 degrees at midnight. The room was clean, had the things expected even though I've never made a list for myself of what to expect. So I guess it would be relatively trivial things I would notice like lack of an ironing board, lights not working or something overlooked in the set up of the room. Fortunately this was all done well, and the location and price now kick in after the fact as making me think very favourably of the hotel.

However if something had been amiss, it is how the hotel responds to the problem that makes the difference. I'm staying at a motor camp this week and there was a small problem, the host fixed it up very quickly and therefore it will be a positive factor of how I respond to the service. I've learnt in my recent travels that customers don't always know what they want until they don't get it, and the service experience is a combination of how well those expectations are met, and how well those not met are responded to.

Ticketek - Cancel On Me Again

Well in case you don'y recognise the title, that's a line from a song by Bombay Bicycle Club, a band I went to Sydney to see. Unfortunately for me - they bought the concert forward five days and no one bothered to even send an email to give me advance warning, even though the tickets had been purchased months earlier. Unfortunately another sorry saga in my dealing with Ticketek, who seem to be able to screw up anything that can be screwed up. I've had season ticket for Wellington Phoenix delivered after the season starts on three occasions, once because they changed the address and sent my tickets to another suburb. My experience tells me their systems go wrong a lot, and they aren't well set up to deal with it. And when you finally find out you don't have tickets to a concert you flew three and a half hours on a plane to see, all they can say and do is tell you they'll get a refund to you in a few days. I don't think I'm that demanding as a customer, but I can't help feeling they should have done more than that. Well I've written a complaint, we'll see if they respond to it or not.

Convenience Stores - Sydney Style

I'm off to Sydney tomorrow, a place where I often find the service in convenience stores somewhat different than I am used to. In New Zealand, It is fair to say I think that whether the service is otherwise good or bad, the person serving you is friendly and willing to participate in a bit of friendly banter about the weather, sport or whatever is in the news.

In Sydney I find they like to grab your money and give you a one word "thanks" as they peer at the next customer. When I first went to Sydney this took me by surprise, almost seemed rude by New Zealand standards, but over time I have got used to it as I'm sure anyone who lives in Sydney is. I like the New Zealand approach more, and I find it isn't an Australian thing as they seem perfectly polite in Melbourne. 

So it must be some kind of cultural expectation, the same customer given that service in New Zealand would probably shop elsewhere, but in Sydney you wouldn't consider friendliness part of the service. And if you're shopping for an item like a razor you forgot and the transaction is going to take twenty second it shouldn't matter should it? Seems the answer is depends on the customer, depends what the competitors do and depends on other factors like how you respond to complaints. But I still can't help feeling a friendly convenience store owner in Sydney would find a market not covered particularly well at the moment.  

Cisco - Sorry We Stopped Supporting That

I few years ago I purchased a product called Network Magic - which is now owned by Cisco. I was very happy with this product but last year Cisco decided to stop selling it. No problem as I had a perfectly good license for the product that would surely let me use it for as long as I wanted to.

A few weeks later I decided to upgrade to Windows 8 and as part of the reinstall process I earned that I had installed Network Magic the maximum number of times I was allowed to. Given I couldn't buy a new license, this didn't seem fair as surely if I purchased a license I was still able to use the product I had purchased.

So ff to the Cisco web site and a request asking how I could get to use the license I had purchased. I explained the problem but the person responding couldn't help and referred me to someone else, who didn't know and referred me to someone else, who didn't know etc/ Nearly four months and twenty or more emails later I am being asked questions like what the mac address is for the the product I buy.

Now I have no idea who Cisco gets to answer these requests or why they are incapable of finding out who can answer my question, but in all honesty they seem to be completely unaware there is a problem. Now you would think if you sent a question to a link as Cisco says you should on their web site, that the person would know something about the product or know someone who would. But no they don't even know they have such as product or that it is software not hardware.

So after three months of talking to the wall that is Customer Service at Cisco, I was pleased to find out that a rival company Netgear had produced a free alternative Netgear Genie that does mostly what Network Magic did. Now I understand that company is also producing some of the best routers on the market at the moment, which hardly seems a coincidence after months of talking to Cisco. 

So when I come to buy my next router, should I look at a Linksys (Cisco) router or a Netgear??