How not to manage one of the worlds busiest museums….

Ok, so I admit I am not averse to complaining – in my opinion no one should be, it is the only way things improve. So when there is a total lack of information or perceived management of a situation it annoys me…..

The situation I refer to relates to the closure of the Louvre in Paris on Wednesday 10th April – now the French are very proud of the museum (quite rightly) as it is one of the largest and most visited in the World. This would therefore assume a good level of management. So when we arrived as a family and found barriers up, security staff guarding the doors and very small messages saying the museum was closed – but giving no reason why and no idea when it would reopen – we were naturally somewhat annoyed.

But what really didn’t help was the total lack of real information, it took us at least 45 minutes to discover the reason the Louvre was closed – a strike by staff due to pickpockets – and also that there was no chance of it opening at all on that day. This last point was not clear from the note at the entrance (and the ‘help line’ mentioned on the message was never answered – on strike too?)

Who did I find out from? A security guard – no one else was around from the museum staff.

But what really annoyed me? The fact that the message on the website (which only appeared many hours after the strike started) was so incongruous. One might almost say it was deliberately vague – perhaps they didn’t want visitors to know that the staff strike and that pickpockets are a big problem? I would hardly call a strike in France ‘exceptional circumstances’!

Come on – this is Paris, France – the home of strikes and now it appears Europe’s capital of pickpockets!

So in trying to ‘keep it quiet’ it appears to me that the Louvre’s ‘management’ may well have scored a huge own goal – typically French?

 

We are all working harder – well most of us….

The general theme that comes across when I talk to people in business is that we all appear to be working harder than ever (generally for lower fees), this is not a complaint (that comes later) – it is a fact of life. The economy is in a bad way so we have to ‘dig in’ and work through it, or at least most of us do – but not it seems the Royal Mail…..

courtesy of Viz…

I will admit to not being one of the Royal Mails biggest fans, I have blogged various times before about them and can’t recall any of them being positive, and this one isn’t either!

I accept that if I am not in the Royal Mail can’t deliver packages to me, and I have asked them not to deliver them to my 85 year old neighbour. Previously the card left asks me to wait 24 hours for the package to return to the sorting office – around 2 miles away. That is fine, I really don’t have an issue with this.

However, it now appears that it takes 48 hours to do this – why?

All I can assume is that the package is placed back into the Royal Mails own post – as we all know everything (even first class post) takes at least 48 hours these days……

 

A case of ‘cart before the horse’?

What happens when you put a package delivery service together with a mobile phone operator? Chaos!

Over the last few weeks I have been intrigued by the actions of the delivery company Yodel – they tried to deliver a package to me – but I wasn’t expecting anything and it wasn’t anyone’s birthday for months. So what could it be…….

I decided to wait until it had been attempted to be delivered three times, so that I could then collect it from the depot (in Loughborough). Unfortunately the third delivery attempt was not notified to us by a failed delivery card (although according to the Yodel website it occurred when we were in the house!). So the package ended up being returned to the sender.

A call to Yodel confirmed the sender was Virgin Media – I am a Virgin customer so I rang them to ask what they had been trying to send to me – and why I had not been notified! I was told that nothing had been sent and that they would have advised me if they were sending something out to me.

Fair enough – this was a few days ago, and I decided to let it rest. And then today I received the attached email saying they had sent something to me. It is also related to a safety recall. It appears that my current modem power supply could overheat and catch fire (as confirmed in the link they sent me).

So I am not impressed with Virgin for a number of reasons;

1. They didn’t tell me the item was on its way to me

2. This is a safety recall – surely it should be dealt with in a more professional manner?

3. A text? really the best way to deal with it?

And as far as Yodel are concerned – next time you ‘deliver’ at 8.30 in the evening perhaps it would be worth actually coming to the house? I might even be in!

 

Fingers crossed – “problem sorted”

Regular readers of my ongoing ‘experiences with mobile providers’ will be aware of my recent run in with T-Mobile. You will be pleased to hear that the matter has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. This is great news, but it is rather tiring having to resort to an email to the CEO to get that resolution!

The gentleman I dealt with in the CEO’s office at T-Mobile was very helpful, polite and most importantly was in a position to deal with my problem quickly and efficiently. So, I am grateful for his actions, but really rather aggrieved that it always takes this level of input from me to get things sorted.

Now I accept that these are very large organisations, but that is no excuse for the quality of service failing. I cannot help but point the finger at call centres – they are a great way of saving money, and can work for basic issues. But, if the matter in hand is even slightly ‘off piste’ they just can’t deal with it.

At the end of the day it all comes down to the relationship between the provider and the customer – all business is based on relationships and trust – the banks have learnt this again the hard way over the last few years, and we shouldn’t forget this.

The man from EE did suggest to me that they might be having a ‘few issues’ with T-Mobile since they took them over – I would say that is an understatement – but at least there was an acceptance of an issue – perhaps there is hope for our telecoms providers after all?

 

Call centres – time for another option?

I have recently had cause to speak to a call centre in the Philippines – it services T-Mobile and has the usual very polite and friendly staff that one gets in all call centres. So what is my problem? If the service is friendly and helpful why complain?

Well friendly is all very well, and in my experience the staff are always very apologetic (I only appear to call if there is a problem) – my issue is that they all work from scripts that don’t usually answer problems – they just deflect them! I find that the only way you can get a resolution to a problem is to ask to speak to a manager, and in effect escalate the issue – which is always a major issue for the staff member you are talking to!

I realise that call centres can work for very basic issues – like “how do I do this on my phone” or “why won’t this work on my phone” – but as soon as you throw them a “curved ball” the system can’t cope and they just end up being even more apologetic and friendly!

So why can’t the call centres have an option when you ring up (and they have lots of options!) that is for people like me who only call when they are forced into a corner? The option could be something like this;

“Press 4 if you are at the end of your tether a want to kill someone”

It could work and actually save time at the call centres as well!

 

Phone networks – friend or foe?

The mobile phone is a part of everyday life now – the smart phone is rapidly getting to the same position – how many people do you know who haven’t got one?

The mobile phone operators are all keen to land us as clients – they make great offers to lure you over to them, but how is the service then? At work we received some interesting ‘care’ from Orange before we had even signed up with them – because of this we didn’t move to them from Vodafone – perhaps this should have made me think before going with T-Mobile for my daughters iPhone!

The deal was (is) good, and the network is great. But, once things go wrong the care becomes rather less ‘impressive’.

Daughters iPhone was stolen this weekend (second time – not good, but not her fault). So a replacement SIM card was required – not a massive ask you would think as we have a contract – but there is a £10 charge! They give them away free to new customers! Also the opening times on the EE website (which has recently been updated) were wrong for the Nottingham stores – but that is another story!

And it gets better, we needed a ‘fill in’ phone while we sorted out the insurance, so a cheap pay as you go was required. But, and there is always ‘a but’ – we had to add £10 airtime to a sim we didn’t want. I asked the question – “can’t you wave that on the basis that we have just paid £10 for a sim anyway” – apparently not!

So we went to Carphone Warehouse who were very helpful and let us use a pay as you go number on another network to do an upgrade and therefore pay only for the phone.

So brilliant service (and advise) from Carphone Warehouse, but money grabbing and greed from T-Mobile, Orange, EE or what ever they call themselves today. If I need another mobile who will I be going to do you think?

 

Street View is back!

You would have had to have been on a deserted island not to have seen the details of the Apple Maps debacle in recent months. Apple sent Google packing – they had previously had a close relationship with them over many things in iOS (the iPhone operating system). But, in IOS 6 they finally got rid of Google maps with its amazing detail and street view and replaced it with their own Map App – which was (and is) rather poor by their standards (actually by anyones standards!).

Heads have rolled at Apple and they have made a public apology about the Maps – a rare event from Apple. There is talk about them buying TomTom who provide the data to enable a faster solving of issues – time will tell.

But now we have Google Maps back on iOS (iPhone at least) in the form of a new app – and it looks great (much as it did before – but better).

It will be interesting to see what Apples response will be – the pressure is on!

 

Trying to find a positive spin?

It was pointed out to me a few weeks ago that blogging ‘negative’ stories was not such a good idea (thanks John), perhaps that is true, and if I am honest I do try not to go into ‘grumpy old man mode’ if I can help it – but sometimes I just can’t help it!

So in an effort to put a positive spin on something that drives me to the verge of insanity please read on;

Morrison’s self scanning tills – one of life’s more trying experiences! I have blogged about them before (so won’t say anymore). A recent visit confirmed my previous experiences and I do wonder just how much trade this loses Morrison’s – particularly from the casual ‘small purchase’ market. That is something only they can quantify, and if the lack of activity on improving their scanners is anything to go by they haven’t considered it!

However, after giving up on the self scan I went to a ‘real’ till with a young lady (showing my age here) who was both pleasant and swift. I mentioned to her my problems (with the scanners) and she said she hated them as well – but it did make me realise that it also protected her job – which is a good (and positive) thing.

There you go – not always grumpy after all!

 

Possibly predictable – but interesting!

I have had various comments about how numerous my ‘Apple’ blogs are from people I know, I make no apology – although it would be nice to get the same effect as my colleague Tim Garratt and his Jaguar blog! I still believe that the retail world can learn a lot from Apple and how they run their stores and staff them – they are universally seen as ‘the way to do it’, but recent data further supports that by showing just how efficient they are at selling!

Apple Stores are the possibly the envy of every other retailer on the planet. From their wonderful design to the constant stream of customers, they are all but universally a success. But, how much better do Apple Stores do than the competition? According to a new American study (and one assumes this would be the same the World over), they bring in twice as much in sales per square foot as anyone else in the market.

The research by RetailSales shows that Apple top the list of chain store productivity, pulling in $6,050 in sales per square foot of store. Tiffany the jewellery store come in second place, at $3,017.

The numbers were generated it appears simply by taking the brick-and-mortar sales numbers from the companies, and splitting it among the square footage of store space they occupy.

Apple is the only tech company to break the top ten, a section otherwise dominated by luxury and clothing products. Interestingly there are plenty of other retail chains that sell more than Apple on a per store basis, they just tend to be physically much, much larger. Apple stores are also often in very prime retail locations – so the rents are likely to reflect the footfall. So the data is not as clear as it first looks – but it makes a nice story…..

 

How not to run a restaurant

As most people I receive the weekly deluge of ‘deal’ emails from restaurants and the like. This seems to be the norm nowadays, particularly with the chains such as Pizza Express…

I have been to the West Bridgford Pizza Express on a number of occasions, normally booking via the iPhone app (sad I know, but so easy). However this weekend when I tried to book this way I had left it too late and had to phone – you remember the phone, it’s the thing we all used to use to book tables before the Internet took over!

I expected this to be a fairly simple matter, a quick call and a confirmation yes or no as to the availability of a table – or that is what one would expect – but no! The recorded message told me no one was available to take my call BUT – and this is the good bit – I couldn’t leave a message! I was asked to ring back later!

Well after around 6 attempts I gave up, rang other restaurants who all answered almost instantly and eventually got a table elsewhere.

I assume Pizza Express are busy and don’t need or want my custom – it would be nice to know which? Until I find out I won’t be bothering them again!

We actually ended up at a much nicer restaurant due to this – so perhaps I should be grateful for Pizza Express’s lack of interest!