ECO Conferences

 

Earls Court and Olympia can provide flexible conference facilities for 50 to 1,000 and more in a central London location. Having visited Earls Court recently, I was impressed to see the state of the art conference facilities available. If you are holding a conference of any size, Earls Court is well worth contacting.

 

Visit the Earls Court and Olympia website

02 - Customer Service Is Rewarded

I wrote an article at the start of this month, that I felt needed it’s own category, about the merits of first rate customer service. Well even though I have spent a small fortune with 02 over 14 years of being a customer; it is an amount worth spending for the pleasure I get from dealing with them.

Innovation and customer service should be rewarded. So when 02 advertised a broadband service better than my current service, for £10+ a month cheaper, I was pretty interested. In fact my current provider was Virgin Media, almost the total antithesis of 02.

In December 2006… yes 2006… I moved properties and rang Virgin Media to organise for the switching of my broadband service. They also offered a package that reduced my £17.99 a month service to £14.99 a month provided I signed a 12 month agreement. I was happy with that offer and asked them to dutifully switch my service. That was on 12 December 2006… christmas came and went… new year likewise and towards the end of January, finally the service was operational.

However I noticed that my bills were not reduced. I spoke to them on 14 occassions regarding my account and was bounced back and forth between different call centers. They could not even pass my call between them, I had to call another telephone number. In fact Virgin were so bad that I can not remember the number of different telephone numbers presented, but it was more than 5?!? By June I had given up getting Virgin to stick to their promises.

So when I agreed to the 02 service I was nervous that I maybe left without broadband for a month. With gritted teeth, I started down the path of migrating my service.

Stage 1 - getting a MAC code from Virgin - great. Well what a surprise, dealing with Virgin was as straight forward as trying to get  a mouse and elephant to mate. 15 calls to a bizarre number of different phone numbers, 5 emails, countless broken promises, I eventually received a MAC code. First I was told they could not be supplied by phone, then was told they would be emailed and then was told that they could be supplied by phone. Really the worst customer service ever. What is a joy with 02 is so painful with Virgin. What is even sadder is that I looked up to Richard Branson as a hero, and icon… now I think he is involved in businesses that do not give a stuff about customers… in fact worse… they despise dealing with customers. As such I now no longer consider Virgin Wines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Money etc and can never see me dealing with Virgin Media again.

So after that little rant, how did 02 compare. Well a total joy again. I sat down with a nice operator in the Leamington Spa branch. She talked me through the whole process, fed my details into the computer, advised me that a free wireless box would be sent etc, all within 20 minutes.

I then received text messages advising me of the progress of my order, and before I knew it, I was connected to 02 broadband. It was all so simple, no downtime, the wireless box setup with ease, the security was set as default and everything worked better than I could have ever expected.

Good job 02 (again) it really is ‘broadband made better‘ and Happy New Year to you all !!!

TNT Outsourced Services updated on TNT website

TNT have recently updated the TNT.co.uk web site to show their range of Outsourced Services. There are three core areas:

• Inbound Services
• Onsite Services
• Outbound Services

With the full range of services extending to include

• Archive Services
• Archive Storage
• Box File Management
• Laser Printing
• Computer Tape Storage

02 Mobile - First Rate Customer Service

When you read articles on the web you often see people complaining about bad customer service rather than praising good customer service. Is that the British way? Well it may be. However I have come across customer service that is so good, I felt it deserved noting.

I don’t owe 02 anything, and am not being paid to premote their cause; but their customer service is first rate. I joined 02 in its guise as Cellnet in 1993 when they launched their GSM service offering. That was 14 years ago. I can’t even say 15 long years because using 02 has been an utter joy, and the years feel relatively short.

Over 15 years they have solved queries and dealt with issues very promptly and efficiently. One call is all it takes. They have provided first rate advice on mobile upgrades and have continued to innovate and provide me with better and better services.

What I have found most amazing is that their ‘call service advisors’ treat you like they care. There is no fobing off between 15 different departments, and being passed around like a used piece of meat between call centers. Each operator just gets on an assists you with anything and everything they can. They will even take your contact details, deal with a problem and then call you back with an update.

This ethos also would appear to pass down to their retail stores. They also provide a first class service. I have used this service in stores in Leicester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leamington Spa, London and everytime it has been a joy.

I am sure that one day something will happen that causes me to pull my hair out. However their excellent customer service to date has earned so much credit with me, that it would have to be a huge problem for me to leave them as a customer. My wish for 2008 is to see more companies follow the excellent example set by 02. Stop passing customers through endless calling systems and train your operators correctly to better sell your products.

Well done 02 - Happy Christmas to all of you !!!

TNT Outsourcing Services

It is interesting to see how businesses develop and more into different horizontal / vertical markets. Most of us know that TNT is a logistics company delivering letters and parcels around the UK. How many of is realised the scale of their other businesses. I’ll list some of the businesses that I have come across so far…

• Audio Visual & Media Management
• Computer Tape Storage
• Data Capture Services
• Document Scanning Services
• Archive Storage & Document Management
• Box File Management
• Database Management Services
• Mailroom Management
• Distribution Services & Inter-site Mail
• Laser Printing

 

It certainly makes sense in this day and age, to outsource non-core business functions. Even though this list would appear to be non-transport related, all of these functions can fully utilise the transport network developed by TNT. Whether distributing documents between different businesses or within the same organisation and different depots, all require use of a comprehensive transport network… and if you are distributing those documents and need to store them somewhere either for archiving or security reasons, long-term or short-term, TNT have a solution too.

My First Skydive

Firstly - thank you to everyone who sponsored my charity skydive. As a national charity for autism education, Treehouse is a very worthy cause - and are using raised funds to develop the school to take 80 pupils.

So now back to the skydive - if you haven’t done one - you should - truely mind blowing. I was pretty nervous prior to jumping, but once I had jumped - it is just such an amazing feeling falling through clouds at 140 mph, whilst waving to two people falling in front of me - really amazing… anyway for those of you who would like to see a snipet of the fall, click here.

Once again thank you to those who sponsored me - to raise over £400 for an amazing experience makes the whole experience even more worth while

Charity or Just Crazy - Kilimanjaro 2008…

 

 

Well after considering climbing Kilimanjaro for a good 10 years… I have finally made the booking and will be climbing the little peak in February 2008 !!! Those of you who are interested… heres some more pictures of Kilimanjaro.

 

Although the more I read the more concerned I become - oh well you only live once… may as well make the most of it !!! If you have any interesting comments or anecdotes on Kilimanjaro, please let me know !!!

Favourite New Albums

OK… here we go - an insight into my personality… this could almost become an online diary…

In line with my new years resolution to make this blog more about me !! In fact tonight I was once again reminded on about one of those things that I think is most important in life - friendship… and whilst I am talking about making my blog about me, I will slightly divert from the title of this blog. and talk about tonight and my thoughts on friendship.

I have a number of aquaintances and friends… I love being with other people… I know some of you out there will prefer solitude… but I happen to love being around people. That (as with everything in life) has ups and downs… but once you get to know me - it can lead to a happy path… if you need to talk, eat, drink or laugh I am pretty happy to work plans around organising that… I will confess that it has become more difficult with my little son… as I do love spending time with him… however tonight I have come home pretty happy - all due to the company of a friend…

We went for a drink after work. Big deal you might think… but although it was only one drink… after a crappy day we were able to relax and laugh a little… put life into perspective… and organise grabbing something to eat next week. That was it - but it turned my day from being crappy and going home slightly downbeat into one that was really quite good, getting home quite upbeat, turning on the music and relaxing with a glass of wine… total bliss… friends / aquaintances get a tick in my book… I will talk more about friends / aquaintances / collegues / manking etc another time… but for now I just want to share that experience with you…

Now back to the title of my blog… three albums this year that I have bought and love

1. Killers - Sams Town 9/10

2. The Fratellis - Costello Music 9/10

3. Klaxons - Myths of The Near Future 8/10

Sustained Magazine

 

Came across this tonight… so quickly copied their about us section…

 

Sustained is a FREE! national magazine that aims to inspire the people of Great Britain to make small and simple changes within their lives that make a big difference collectively. With a distribution of 10,000 magazines across the UK in Organic Vegatable Boxes, Organic Shops, Farmers Markets, Libraries, Pubs, and other venues, sustained is able to reach a huge array of the different types that make up the British public…

This is very valuable to the global community - please support it  - every small effort to help our planet is a valuable one !!!

Charity fundraiser… well enough to scare me…

It is 2007… and being a very lucky chap, I have started to make a number of plans for the year.

 

One of this is to raise some money for charity… totally selfless act… well not quite… I have always fancied jumping out of a plane… so why not use the excuse to pester friend / collegues / aquaintances etc for a charitable contribution… an excuss for me to enjoy something, whilst raising money for an incredible cause… watch this space for more….

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