To Whom It May Concern

Guess where I am! I am in a lovely hotel with my husband for a romantic night away. Unfortunately for him, I am (a) at my laptop working (and taking a quick break to blog) and (b) full of coughs and snot.  And as we all know, there is nothing particularly romantic about snot.  Although truth be told, this was not about a romantic night away but more about using the opportunity to have a rest and catch up on some sleep. Alas, that didn’t happen either as my dear husband’s phone went off at 6am this morning. It was his boss. And by boss I mean He Who Thinks My Husband Should Be Thinking Work 24/7.

I spoke about surrogacy (<-- need to talk to you about surrogacy!) at an event recently and the lovely organizers gave me a gift of one night’s stay at a really lovely hotel – the Protea Colossuem in Century City.  What a gorgeous hotel!  Seriously.  The hotel is stunning – Marko is raving about the decor.  Very mod.  He loves that type of thing. I love that it is spotlessly clean and everything is working as it should.  Plus all the staff are super friendly and efficient.  Really is a gorgeous hotel.  Highly recommended.

Thanks Protea Hotels and the Singer Group for the night, you have an absolute jewel in your crown with this hotel.

Moving on, I must share this with you – I am a letter writer.  I write letters to companies complaining (or complimenting) them on their poor (or excellent) service.  Which means that I am officially old as that is what old people do – write letters.  The next thing I will be writing letters to the newspaper complaining about The Government.

Funny aside – my dad phones me the other day to ask me for a word – (he was struggling to find the right word. He would have asked my mother, but my mother has done a Shirley Valentine and skipped off to go lie on the beaches of Thailand with her second and third favourite daughters for 2 weeks).  I gave him the word and asked him why he needed it.  He said he is writing to the bank (the Bank) to give them feedback.  Oh, I ask, what happened?  No, nothing happened he says, he is responding to a question they sent him saying “How would you rate our service?”.  I think they were looking for an answer from 1 – 10.  Instead they got a 10 page lecture on how they don’t have any loyalty to their customers anymore and do they know that he has been a customer of the bank for 40 years etc.  Poor bank. I do hope they reply to my dad’s letter.

So I write letters. In fact, on reflection, I have not only turned into my mom (“go take a headache tablet and lie down, you are not dying, you will be fine in the morning”, I have turned into my dad too.  I wrote a letter on Wednesday, because I was very cross.

On Wednesday I had to have my car serviced.  I absolutely HATE having to have my car serviced as it is a royal waste of my time and it always takes longer than they say it will.  After five years of traumatic service experiences and lots of letter writing (with little or no response) with Renault, I swore never to get another Renault again – purely because of their extra effing useless service. And I loved my Renault.

I bought a Toyota Fortuner and on Wed it had its third service.  I wont go into the long story about the experience (although I could just reference my letter dated 13 April 2011 – Re: Poor Customer Service), suffice it is to say that my car was NOT finished on time, that this made me late for an appointment (which is an absolute sin in my eyes, I am a stickler for being punctual) and that the car was not cleaned.

So I wrote a letter to management, sure that I would either get some insipid response or no response at all. Was I wrong!  The first thing the next morning I got a call from both the general manager at Barloworld Tygervalley (Hilton) as well as the service manager (Grant).  They emailed me to say how sorry they were and have arranged to have my car collected from my home, have all the things sorted out and they will give me a courtesy car sorted out while I wait.  I love the way they manned up to the complaint and didn’t try to fob me off. 

In the customer service experience, It is not really that you have fucked up, it is how you address and resolve the fuck up.  Toyota Tygervalley did an outstanding job at that.  They have my loyalty.

I am going to talk to you about surrogacy in a separate blog post because I must dash  now. Bottom line – we need surrogates! Badly.  If you love being pregnant and you have the passion to help other people, please, pretty please consider becoming a surrogate mom.  It is the most rewarding, beautiful, generous, amazing, spiritual thing you will ever do.  More information to be found here:  www.surrogacy.co.za

Right, off to be romantic with my husband. I hope he doesn’t mind the occasional sniff or cough (knowing my husband, he will be so happy to get ANY romance, he wouldn’t mind if I was bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to the leg, as long as he was getting some romance.  Poor deprived chap. Oh well, his fault, he wanted three kids.  Oh….sorry – my mistake, it was ME who wanted three kids.)

Marko playing with my iPad while he waits patiently for me to get off the computer.  

 

Comments

[Mash]

I once took my car in for a service to Hyundai. When I got it back, it leaked oil all over the garage floor. So I took it back to them and they said I needed to have the engine skimmed (whatever that means) at some astronomical price. Took it for a (free) second opinion to the AA - the oil plug had not been replaced during the service. Nothing wrong with the engine. Hyundai didn't even RESPOND to my complaint! Feckers.

Fast forward a few years, took my VW to be serviced, it was making a *funny* noise. Took it back to them three times, and eventually they also quoted me an astronomical price (many thousands of rands) to have some fan motor somewhere replaced. Second opinion - the guy climbed under the dashboard of the passenger seat and removed a leaf. Noise gone.

I no longer take my car to dealerships to be serviced, get much better value for money elsewhere!

[Geraldine]

I had a similar experience at the same dealership on the same day...... I actually saw your name on the list just above mine and wondered if you had bad service as well. Grant has also phoned me and the car is going back on Monday.... Not sure if it was a good thing as they really got me at the wrong time...... Why bother keeping up with technology and doing an online booking and they ignore everything that you requested them to do.

[A Daft Scots Lass]

you go on a romantic weekend and you're blogging??

[Sabrina]

Well, I know plenty of experienced surrogates looking for a new match.. but alas, the're all in the states! If I weren't officially medically retired I'd fly on over in a heartbeat! Good luck to you!

[Aussie Outdoor Spray]

Fantastic Site..sounds great.Keep them coming because u have a fan here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGszA07PqVs I was just searching for a similar topic on blog and i am here now.. Glad to visit ur blog.. Keep up the gud work..

[sheilah]

Ahhh...I loved being pregnant...was very good at it...had none of those unpleasant side effects that often come with that condition. Sadly am too old for that nonsense anymore *sigh*

[Angel]

I write letters too! Complaint and compliment and I am always impressed with a proper response.