As someone whose walls are decorated with a fair amount of typography and calligraphy (an abiding interest from my wife’s days as an art student) I was interested to see the furore generated by IKEA’s decision to change its catalogue font from Futura to the more screen-friendly Verdana. Is this just an issue for font-geeks or a massive erosion of the brand loyalty engendered over many years of superior flat-pack design and serving countless Swedish meatballs?
Less-than-superior examples
Don’t leave me this way: switching mobile networks
Having been happily married for many years I don’t really remember my last relationship break-up – and it’s probably fair to say that any notions I have are informed by films, plays or books (or the Archers come to think of it). However I had a reminder of what it might have been like following a recent break-up with O2. Paraphrasing somewhat, it went a bit like this:
Better late than never – the 2008 Open Chord awards!
I’ve spent a large chunk of the holiday season reading the papers and they’re chock full of articles looking back at 2008 and looking forward to 2009. Depending on how grouchy I’m feeling it’s either a neat bit of recycling or plain lazy journalism. Whatever, this year I’m not going to be left out and so I’m proud to present the first annual Open Chord Awards for superior customer service.
Moto’s feedback-handling turns Ow! to Wow!
Driving down the A1 from a holiday in Yorkshire the other week we were in need of a coffee so pulled in at Grantham North service area. Years of UK driving have lowered my expectations of service stations considerably but Sunday afternoon at Grantham North set the bar even lower. However, this is a superior service post so read on…
BA: When sorry seems to be the hardest deed
It seems that British Airways will continue to receive bad publicity over the disastrous opening days of Heathrow Terminal 5 so my own recent example of less-than-superior-service from the World’s Favourite Airline will hardly make much difference. But it does illustrate how difficult it can be to do the simplest things to say that you’re ‘sorry’ and to mean it.
London Underground: tube theatre
Another day of commuting, another day of misery on the District Line… however this blog is about celebrating superior service whenever it occurs and whilst my overall customer experience on the homeward journey tonight was less-than-superior due to a “customer incident”
Feedback: your view is important, but not very
To round off last week’s series on feedback here’s a story from my recent experience with the BBC. Prompted by a discussion on Ecademy about the new series of Dragon’s Den I realised I had been really annoyed by the trailer.
I’m a fan of most business programmes, particularly the ones we can watch as a family – my 11-year old son has been addicted to both Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice – but I get more than a bit irritated when the “showbiz” aspects of the programmes overshadow the business content.