Why Virgin Mobile South Africa sucks…

If you’re one of my followers on Twitter or you’re a friend of mine on Facebook (or even if you know me in the real world), you’ll know of my deep-seated dislike of Virgin mobile South Africa.

I was a very loyal MTN subscriber for close-on 10 years but as has been the case with MTN, the gradual fall in customer service quality and the general lack of concern the company has for keeping its existing customers happy over acquiring new one – and I decided to cancel my decade-old contract for “greener pastures”

Virgin Mobile had all the great promises – the lowest call rates in South Africa, no contract tie-ins, free text messages, true per-second billing and a very low per/MB rate for its data traffic.  Heck, they even had the phone I wanted so badly at that point in time (Nokia E90), so it looked like heaven compared to MTN.

I suppose I should have noticed the first warning signs when it took me three visits to the Virgin Mobile Sandton City retail store in order to sign up for the package that I wanted.

Two of the three times I was told that “the system is down” – an excuse that would become the most spoken phrase at Virgin Mobile over coming months – even if they didn’t know it yet.

I eventually ended up signing a 24-month package with Virgin Mobile.  And so began my slow decent into mobile phone hell.

And here’s why:

• After about 3 months, my Nokia died and had to be sent in for repair. It took Virgin Mobile over a month to fix a simple software glitch – FAIL
• In October 2008, Virgin Mobile “migrated to a new system”, which sent their billing and other systems into total disarray. To date, errors that were caused by the system migration still persist and the migration is still being blamed by call centre agents as the cause for billing and Vrewards problems – FAIL
• On the subject of Vrewards – the system has been broken from day one. Virgin Mobile claims that its Vrewards have real cash value – which they initially did. But later Virgin Mobile decided to change these “real cash” Vrewards to airtime, which is now credited to your account – even though the pre-recorded message on their phone lines still claims that their Vrewards have “real cash value” – FAIL
• Free unlimited SMS packages were falsely advertised as so and are now subject to a draconian “fair usage policy” – FAIL
• Virgin Mobile piggy-back on Cell C’s GSM network as a virtual network operator. Cell C’s network is not the best when it comes to coverage and quality of service – and as a result dropped calls, “Network Busy” errors and terrible data speeds are a sad reality for Virgin Mobile subscribers – FAIL
• The claimed “super fast” data network is based on Cell C’s Edge network and is slow, continually times out and has some of the biggest latency issues I’ve ever seen. 3G is not even on Cell C’s radar – EPIC FAIL
• Earlier this year, Virgin decided to “bring it’s 1-year free itemised billing” to an end and automatically slapped R20 extra onto my account – which, despite having been asked to stop it, is still being charged to my account – FAIL
• The average hold time on Virgin mobile’s call centre line is 20 minutes – FAIL
• The company’s call centre agents have no power whatsoever – they continually over-promise and under deliver, never call back when they promise to do so and are merely a mechanism for blaming continual system problems for the ongoing issues that Virgin Mobile has. – FAIL
• Virgin Mobile’s network is horribly broken. It takes numerous attempts to make a call. “Network Busy” seems to be Virgin’s new payoff line. – FAIL

There are all sorts of rumours going around about the future of Virgin mobile in South Africa – especially because of uncertainty around Cell C’s future and I, for one, am scratching together every cent I have to get myself out of this God-forsaken 24-month agreement.

Admittedly, all I need to do is pay the outstanding balance on my phone and Virgin will “set me free” (unlike the jail sentence that MTN or Vodacom tie you into when you sign a contract with one of them) – there are no penalties for cancelling contracts early.

The only thing is, with the total and utter incompetence that Virgin Mobile staff demonstrate on a daily basis, am I willing to take the risk of paying R3,500 to Virgin to cancel my agreement and then sit with a six-month battle to stop the debit orders and subsequent wrongful credit bureau blacklisting that Virgin is all too happy to slap onto innocent people.

We’ll have to see.  But one thing is certain, Virgin Mobile is doomed to failure if they carry on the way they do – and I’ll put money on it, by 2010, they’ll be gone.

Richard Branson would be ashamed.

Doing the rounds: Jacob Zuma + SA – More Good News

President Jacob Zuma

This is a copy of a new viral mail that’s doing the rounds at the moment – written by the joint CEO OF AdReach, Brad Fisher. 

It’s very much an a-la Alan Knott-Craig Jr.-type mail – trying very hard to stir up positivity in its readers about what is a very uncertain time in South Africa’s history.

I must admit that I don’t agree with everything in this mail.  Fisher makes some very bold and [sometimes] unsubstantiated claims.  Given the mere fact that Jacob Zuma never did have his day in court means that a lot of these claims will probably never become substantiated.

HOWEVER, that’s not to say that I don’t agree with the positive sentiment of the mail and what it’s meant to achieve.  On the contrary, I have a lot of faith in the future of SA and I’m optimistic that our new leaders will have the wisdom and foresight to govern SA properly.  I’m not one who’s going to join the droves of ex-pats running away to the far reaches of the world with their tails between their legs.

But, as with everything, time will tell.  I hope our new leaders don’t make me look like a moron for writing this.

Here’s the mail:

I have just been forwarded an article in the UK Daily Mail by PETER HITCHENS which is now unfortunately doing the rounds and no doubt doing damage to SA both at home and abroad. I have purposefully not attached the article as I believe it is ridiculously one sided and unfair on Jacob Zuma and I do not want to actively assist in its distribution. However it has prompted me to respond generally to a lot of the unfounded and distorted stuff that gets forwarded around on this topic. I have collated interesting facts on the topic from discussions I have had with various people more informed than myself (including a well renowned and highly respected South African beyond just SA who knows Jacob Zuma well).

We must be mindful that JZ was subjected to a malicious character assassination driven by his political opponents within his party, the NPA and the Media. Journalists need to write something about the elections in SA and often dig out literature off the net to make their case. In this case and many other articles it is clear that this journalist has selectively collated years of propaganda against the man. If a reporter spent sufficient time researching only negative articles about say Gordon Brown – without verifying the truth, they could also paint a frightening picture of the UK and their leader. Here are some positive points I have picked up about Jacob Zuma and SA in general:

He is a proud Zulu – with a strong sense of tradition. This does NOT mean he is intolerant of other cultures

1. He intervened and potentially saved thousands of lives in the run up to the first democratic election in SA (‘93/’94) in the most volatile areas in Natal and is thus recognised as a major contributor to stopping a civil war between ANC/Inkhata.
2. He is clever and humble enough to know he does not know it all and will surround himself with capable people. He has already dismissed the notion that he owes anyone favours and in fact has stated he only wants one term in office in any event. I believe we will be impressed by the top posts he appoints in his government.
3. He genuinely cares for the poor and understands that to deliver to these people he must have capable people in place. (recent example – he  is the only high level politician to vote in their rural area)
4. He established a bursary fund using funds that each cabinet member of the KZN Province was given to use on any project of their choice. He successfully used his allocation to help educate poor people in KZN. Today there are in excess of 1000 pupils being assisted at primary level and 10 at tertiary institutions through this initiative that he personally started and nurtured.
5. He is determined to deliver services to the poor as well as all South Africans such as cutting crime, better education, housing, health.
6. He will fire people that do not deliver – he believes he and his cabinet work for the people and if they can’t deliver they will be fired.
7. He is a strong man and has proved to be incredibly resilient. If anyone has the guts to tackle crime in SA it will be him. (got this from a senior Afrikaans cop) I believe that he understands the importance of this to SA and I thus think that our chances of reducing violent crime are better now than they have been for many years.
8. Jacob Zuma was NOT responsible for the tragic arms deal decision. He was not even in National Government when the decision was taken in 1999!! Yes It is possible (albeit not proved) that his senior party officials gave him some leftover scraps from the “incentives” from the arms company (R500 000) and yes he may well have been naïve enough to accept this. However, one must take into account that his whole life he had been given handouts from the ANC (like all other senior operatives during the struggle days and beyond). I am not condoning this (if it is the case) as he should have known better than to accept this. However this has been trumped up and distorted by his political adversaries and the media.  Clearly he was the scape-goat and it is evident that the state’s apparatus (including NPA/Scorpions) were ruthlessly used against him for political ends. We do not know the true reasons for him using all legal means at his disposal to avoid a trial but it is reasonable to accept that the whole situation is complicated and his actions do not necessarily mean that he is a dishonest man.
9. He was set up in the alleged rape case. This was the 5^th rape case this woman had been involved in and was clearly used by JZ opponents to set him. This was a most evil attempt to destroy the man – they could not have possibly thrown anything worse at him and he still suffers from the negative perception round this
10. He made a speech after his acquittal apologising to the youth for the irresponsible behaviour he demonstrated round having unprotected sex and unequivocally warned the youth that AIDS kills. The shower storey is typical of the press where they have often maliciously quoted him out of context. His enemies have ridden this to the hilt.
11. He is NOT a racist and has nothing against the whites – in fact is determined to create a more patriotic society for all South Africans.
12. The man dragged himself up from his bootstraps and attended night classes under the most difficult of circumstances.
13. He has the respect and support of the poor – a crucial fact necessary to guide SA over the next 5 years and hopefully do a better job of delivering to them.
14. He has several wives – so what this is what his culture permits (some would argue that he is a lucky man)

Jacob Zuma has been democratically elected and has the support of the people who are most impoverished and deserve a better life. Sure all citizens deserve basic rights like not living in fear of crime, but to achieve this in SA I believe the president needs our collective support. For the sake of our country we should give our new president the benefit of the doubt and be more positive and proactive.

 MORE GOOD NEWS

1. The election was free and fair. There were over 8000 polling stations with over R17m votes cast. There was no violence and no incidents to disturb voting. The ANC got 65.9 % of the vote and therefore do not have a two-thirds majority but have a solid platform to still implement their policies without trying to run things with more of a consensus approach. The DA got 16.68 of the vote and 51.4% of the Western Cape. COPE( Congress of the people) won 7.42% of the vote after only 132 days as a new party with mainly ex-ANC members. Cope is significant as they can grow their support over the next 5 years to become a larger opposition party. So we have more of a balance developing. We could not have hoped for a better result.
2. SA was regarded as safe enough to house the IPL (Indian premier league) even during a major election.
3. ESCOM is addressing its issues and Water Dept at least have acknowledged they must fix things
4. Our banks have stood up relatively well and we have thus far been less affected by the Worldwide economic slump
5. We are the Rugby World Champs, just about to win the Sevens International series and are ranked 1 in On Day Cricket. We overall were one up o Oz in the Summer Series – no mean feat.

At very least, we must recognise some of the good coming through in SA and not just keep propagating bad news, which just erodes confidence – one of the vital ingredients for growth and improvements in SA.

Regards

Brad Fisher
Joint CEO – Adreach Group of Companies
Tel: +27 11 327-7110
Fax: +27 11 327-7112
E-Mail: brad@adreach.co.za

Red Junkfood Crapparatus

I’m not in the habit of bad-mouthing rock bands (especially one I’d like to see here in SA) but I found this page onSA rock band Cassette’s website and I had to share it.

Looks like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus managed to piss a lot of people off by cancelling their scheduled appearance at this year’s My Coke [Zero] Fest music festival at the eleventh hour.

There was this apology posted on RJSA’s MySpace page, but it’s clearly a pathetic excuse considereing the reaction from tens of thousands of fans who were expecting them to deliver a performace at the festival.

It has to be noted that Bullet for my Valentine also cancelled their scheduled appearance at the festival at the last minute but, seemingly, South Africans are a little more understanding of their excuse (recording comittments) as opposed to the seemingly nonchalant “apology” and reasoning that RJSA gave.

Honestly, there’s too much of this “South Africa is not that important to us” attitude from international music artists and companies alike.

Bands that cancel their appearances to the dismay of thousands of fans (Read: Limp Bizkit, Nickelback, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Bullet for my Valentine) are ranked right down there with companies like Apple and Microsoft Xbox that are so happy to make money out of South African Consumers and then don’t care to deliver the services that they want so badly.

Actually, there’s lots of money to be made here from hundreds of thousands of South African consumers who are happy to pay for serices like iTunes and Xbox Live or buy well-produced, high quality music from International artists.

But South Africa is just a pimple on the arse-end of the world isn’t it?

Tourism in SA – a raw deal?

Are tourists paying way too much for their South African experiences? It would seem so.

I was lucky enough to spend a few days at Bongani Mountain Lodge (Ed’s note: Go there, it’s a phenominal bush break!) for my birthday, where my wife and I met some very nice people.

One couple, some newlyweds from India, had been travelling South Africa for the past 15 days and were staying at Bongani for a few nights before ending their 22-day honeymoon road-trip from Cape Town all the way up to Sun City.

Bongani’s very close proximity to the Kruger National Park obviously meant that a trip to the Park was something to explore for them as part of their “total South African experience”.

We told them that on Indian passports, they could drive there and gain entrance for about R140 each in conservation fees. As they did not have a hire car for this particular part of their travels they had to rely on a tour operator to pick take them to Kruger. But the price that they were quoted was nothing short of obscene.

A day trip to the Kruger with a private tour operator would set the couple back R1,500 per person for the day, which many ordinary South Africans would consider highway robbery. Well, we certainly did, considering that they were not going to be the only ones on the tour.

It begs the question, are tourists taken advantage of in SA, particualrly the Euro-, Dollar- and Pound-carrying ones? It seems to be the case.

R1,500 per person for a day trip to the Kruger is 100x more than the regular entrance fee to thePpark for foreigners and, even if you factor in car rental for the day and petrol, you’re still going to be way under that ridiculous amount by a long shot.

Tourism is an industry that is flourishing in South Africa and the growing number of tourists that come to the country means that a lot of people working in this industry are going to do very well for themselves – if they build a good repuation for the industry and contribute to its sustainability.

The 2010 Fifa World Cup finals, to be held here in SA in a few years time, will proably attract even more people to the tourism industry in the hopes of cashing in on unsuspecting foreigners that have many Euros to spend on the possibility of experinceing African culture or seeing the Big Five.

People need to make a living, yes, and before I ignite a flurry of comments from tourism workers who see nothing wrong with this picture, it’s everyone’s right to ask an amount of money for a service rendered. It also costs money to run a business, I concede that.

But ethics play a big part in it too. And quite frankly, this level of exploitation leaves a bad taste in the mouths of everyone involved. It’s just not ethical.

(Ed’s note: Welcome to the world of captalism!)

It could do the industry more harm than good in the long run – overcharging for services. And
the key to developing a sustainable tourism industry here in SA is not milking the rich foreigners of their money while the industry is booming, it’s about making the beauty of our country as accessible to as many people as possible.

Which leads to the next question, which has to be asked: how are the millions spent in the tourism industry used to benefit the very thing that makes the industry so appealing and successful (i.e. the people, the attractions, the parks and the wildlife)?

I don’t have an answer to that, but until somebody gives me the facts, I’d hazard a guess and say not much.

The best advice tourists to South Africa can have is SHOP AROUND. You don’t have to be ripped off to have a very good trip to South Africa.

And the more tourists shop around and demand better deals, the less likely it is that tour operators will get away with asking ludicrous amounts for simple pleasures like trips to the Kruger Park.

The state of customer service in SA…SHOCKING!

The standard of customer service in South Africa has dropped significantly in recent years.

We can all speculate as to the reasons why but my opinion is that the levels of service are directly linked to a combination of incompetence, laziness and a total lack of respect for existing customers.

What ever happened to “the customer is king”? And, if the customer IS king, why does nobody listen to them?

Case in point:

My wife traded her Kia Sportage in on a Peugeot 307 last November to help save some money on insurance and the cost of fuel.

(Ed’s note: The identity of the particular dealership and people we dealt with will be hidden, for now…)

Imagine our surprise when we received a speeding fine in the post in January for the same Kia we traded in, over a month before. R500 for doing 132km/h in a 100km/h zone…in COLESBERG!

Turns out that a company bought the vehicle but the change of ownership was not registered properly and the car was still registered in my wife’s name – making her legally liable for any fines incurred.

We approached the particular Peugeot dealership on the 7^th of January with a request that the used car manager sort this problem out as a matter of urgency.

After nearly three weeks of being pushed from pillar to post and not so much as even receiving a phone call or e-mail updating us on the situation, we literally had to escalate the issue to the dealership’s top management before anything was done.

At this stage we had two days to get the fine paid; or face being issued with a summons to appear in court and additional fines.

It’s paid, apparently. We have a copy of a deposit slip but I’m not holding my breath until we’ve re-faxed it to the traffic department ourselves..

I have lost count how many times I’ve lost my temper with a number of organisations in the last couple of years because of a lack of respect for proper customer service.

Banks, insurance companies, cellphone companies, auto dealerships, home appliance vendors and the infamous state departments all deserve to be sent straight back to first grade in “customer service school”.

All too often, it’s the irresistible need to sign up new customers or push sales to reach targets that result in customers being left dead and bloodied along the way in their mission to get any form of customer service.

The cellphone service providers are a prime example of where the sheer number of “new” customers is overwhelming these organisations’ ability to deliver acceptable levels of customer service.

You’re just a number to them, nothing else. And even after eight or ten years of loyalty, you’re still just a number to them. You still wait ten to thirty minutes to have your call answered and you experience an increase in the number of dropped calls.

But they’re all meeting customer number targets and earning their millions in bonuses.

I always thought that if you look after your current customers, you’re securing your business’s future and the new customers will come.

Maybe I missed something here

Corporate South Africa puts far too much greed-driven pressure on people to deliver results on unrealistic targets and it is these companies who are guilty of cutting costs in their customer service departments when this is where they really should be spending most of their money.

Cost cutting = incompetent staff = irritated customers. It’s THAT simple.

I just think it’s sad that you continually have to lose your temper and threaten all sorts of legal action and bad media coverage before anything gets done.

There’s nothing I disrespect more than a company that’s all willing to take my money for a product or service and then leave me in the dark when I need support.

South Africans also to blame

I also blame South Africans for being too soft and just accepting mediocre service. We don’t complain enough, which has resulted in us being forced to accept bad service by corporate South Africa.

We are at the mercy of service organisations, but this can quickly be turned around as and when people begin to put their feet down.

In an ideal world maybe. But change has to start somewhere.

A new breed of Afro-pessimists…

There is a very strong possibilty that the events of this week in South Africa could produce a whole new generation of Afro-pessimists and possibly lead to an increase in the emmigration rate over the next ten years if things don’t get better.

Afro-pessimists are people who, as the name suggests, are pessimistic about Africa in every way. Afro-pessimists are generally the first to pack up their bags and leave the country for supposed “greener pastures” in the UK, New Zealand or Australia, or are the people who begrudgingly stay in the country because they are making too much money to leave.

South Africa is falling apart

From the alleged racist shooting in Skielik, to the eight straight days of power cuts by state-owned power utility, Eskom, and mounting septisism about the country’s leaders’ ability to make decisions and lead the country effectively, it’s easy to see how the population can become disillusioned very quickly.

We have our defence minister arrested for exceeding the speed limit of 120km/h on the highway – doing 189km/h, the national police commisioner arrested for alleged corruption, and the almost-certain future president of the country up on charges of corruption.

Add rising fuel prices, sharp growth in interest rates, ever-increasing inflation rates, shortages of everyday items like petrol, milk, headache tablets, beer, carbinated drinks and an economy that’s not showing the same levels of growth as a few years ago – it’s recipe for growing negative sentiment.

It’s sad because there are many people doing a lot of good things in this country and, despite their best efforts, there are a handful of people and institutions that managed to mess things up on a grand scale for the rest of us.

And I, for one, am one of those people who chooses to be positive about SA. But this cocktail of challenges makes it difficult to maintain a positive opinion and it wears your tolerance down after a while.

There’s no quick solution to this problem that we have in SA. Like any “new” democracy, we’re going to have teething problems but how much are people willing to put up with? How much is it going to take before people begin leaving the country or, even worse, taking things into their own hands.

Many people will choose to remain positive, but there will be an increase in the global Afro-pessimist population and there will be further justification to those people who left over the last thirteen years as to why they left in the first place.

Load-shedding explained….

I’ve spent days trying to figure out the meaning of the various “Brown stages” on Eskom’s website. I think I have figured it out and it may help you to determine if and when your area will be left in the dark.

When you log onto Eskom’s website there will be a Load Shedding warning on the front page telling you what “Stage” we are in. Today, for example, there was a 1500Mw shortage so we’re in Stage 1. When the shortfall goes higher, we move up stages from Stage 1 to Stage 2 and then Stage 3, where 3 is the worst shortage and will affect the highest number of areas.

When you do a search for your area on Eskom’s site, you’ll see various “Stages” listed for your area (for e.g.: Brown Stage 1A or 1B, Stage 2A or 2B or Stage 3A or 3B.)

(Ed’s note: Make sure you use Internet Explorer because the Eskom site is not support other browsers like Firefox or Netscape)

Depending on how they classify the consumption of your area, you may fall into one, two or all three of these stages. So, depending on the alert status of the day “Stage 1, Stage 2 or Stage 3”), you can tell if your area will be hit with load-shedding by matching up the alert stage of the day and your area’s stage number.

Complicated, I know, but here’s an example to illustrate it:

Today’s Alert is Stage 1 (i.e. 1500Mw of shortfall). So, any area that is listed with Brown Stage 1A or 1B will be hit with load-shedding today. 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B need not worry because the shortage does not affect these areas yet.

If the shortage goes higher and the stage is increased to 2, then areas that are listed as 2A and 2B will be hit. And the same goes if we’re on alert stage 3 and all those 3A and 3B areas are going to be down.

Roodepoort, for example, is only on stage 2A and 2B so it will only be hit as and when the shortfall goes higher than 2000Mw.

But Rivonia, for example, is listed under 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B, which means that the area is almost guaranteed of having a power failure at least once a day, no matter how low the shortage may be.

From what I can see, Eskom classifies the areas as follows:

• 1A & 1B – High electricity consumption, first to be disconnected
• 2A & 2B – Medium consumption
• 3A & 3B – Low consumption – last to be disconnected

The higher the shortfall, the more people suffer and the more likely small “dorpies” (or stage 3 areas) will be hit in addition to major (stage 1) centres.