Today has been a pretty fantastic week, especially in the area of customer service. No, I haven’t been working to my very best providing a fantastic experience for customers, thankfully I am free of dealing with that horrid rabble. Instead I have had two exceptionally pleasant customer service experiences this week.
First off, I had positive dealings with Cross Country Trains. Anyone unfamiliar with them should know that they’re a train company that operates primarily out of major cities and I travel with them whenever I visit Viv in Guildford. Their website is better than most as it doesn’t give stupid connection options. For example, when travelling from Birmingham to Guildford, you should just have to change once at Reading, but Virgin Trains and many other sites insist on only giving you routes through London, involving three or four changes. Not the case with Xcountry. So, in preparation for valentines day, I purchase my tickets plenty in advance. So imagine my face when, a week after collecting them, I glance at the details and realise that rather than holding an open return for the 10th of February, the ticket says 18th of January, a date 3 days in the past. I have no idea how I managed this, but this pretty much sums it up;
I had to hold back the rage against my self for what I feared was a waste of over £25, but I resolved not to give up. On my lunch break that day, I rang their customer service line and the following conversation, paraphrased somewhat, took place;
Me – Hi, I was hoping you could rectify a mistake, that in all likelihood, was made by myself, but I obviously have no desire to pay for it.
Customer Service Rep – Sure, what’s the problem?
Me – Well, you see, I’m a ragging idiot and booked my tickets for the wrong date. Not only have I already collected them, but the train their for has gone, so the reserved seats were never used.
Rep - Well okay then, send us the tickets and we’ll refund you in full.
Me - ………….huh……….okay……awesome……..
That quite succinctly covers the exchange, the moral being that Xcountry trains provides a great service.
My second customer service wonder tale regards T-Mobile, my mobile phone providers. In the next few months, I would be looking at a phone upgrade as my contract was up for renewal. As I have mentioned, I have an interest in upgrading to the HTC Desire Z, the keyboard equipped phone. But resigned to the fact T-Mobile would never stock it, I was quite happy with the idea of the Desire HD. Imagine my surprise when T-Mobile called me to offer me an early upgrade! I told the representative that I wanted the Desire HD for free and asked if he could help me. Not only did he offer me the HD for free, he then offered me either a £5 discount on my current contract, or a down grade to the next tier, saving me £10 and also meaning less wasted allowance. I jumped at the chance as it was an amazing offer. A £400+ phone plus a yearly saving of £120! Then he said that would get the phone sent out to me for Saturday, three days later! How’s that for service?
My new baby!
I was so happy with both of these experiences and I now have a fabulously shiny new phone!
Pay day rolled up on Friday, the first of my weekly pay cheques. I was miffed to discover that I was still on tax code BR. What this means is that I’m not getting my tax free allowance, an amount of income you can earn before you start paying tax. I’m going to chase this up as it is costing me something the region of £60 a month in excess tax, but I believe it will be resolved soon enough.
I also got my letter from the passport office asking me to attend an interview. It seems nowadays everyone getting their first passport must prove they are themselves and not a terrorist. I’m very happy about this as it confirms that my application has gone through all fine and I’m in the last stretch.
This Saturday I decided to visit Birmingham, primarily to do some valentines day shopping, but also to catch up with all the lovely brummy people that I love! And it was a great weekend!
It started with me meeting Vivs cousin Wessie and browsing a few shops in the Bullring. We then met up with Emma, who I used to work with, and her flatmate James. We hit a few more shops then decided to go grab some food (Nandos, naturally) and then saw the Green Hornet (in the 3D). It was a surprisingly good film that I thoroughly enjoyed watching, although it suffered from the usual tacked on 3D.
After the film, we headed back to Selly Oak to catch with another former colleague, Steve. We all headed over the road to the Gun Barrels, where me, Steve and Emma had first met, and got our drink on.
From left to right; Emma (obviously), Steve and James
After setting the world to rights in the slightest of tipsy fashions, we all retired for the night around 3am.
The following day, I rose up around 9am and made my way in to Birmingham to get the train back, but not before picking up some more valentines day presents. I can disclose what I bought, as I suspect Viv may actually read this blog!
Looking back, it’s been an amazing week that I totally enjoyed. The only thing I regret is that I can’t spend more time with the great people in Birmingham.
On another topic, you may wonder how I am progressing on my goals? Well let us tally them off, shall we?
1) Blog once a week, minimum - Well, yes, so far I am blogging once a week. (7% completion)
2) Get a job in Birmingham or Wolverhampton by April - I’m holding off job hunting in Brum/Wolvo until after April when I get back from Hong Kong, which leads to my next goal….(0% completion)
3) Get Money for Hong Kong - I most certainly have the money for Hong Kong and am definitely going, So excited! (100% completion)
4) Reach a Gamerscore of 25,000 - I haven’t bought or played any new games recently, the next one most likely being Dead Space 2. GTA IV isn’t really sucking me in, so it’s probably going to rest on Dead Space 2, Portal 2, Mortal Kombat, Mass Effect 3 and possibly Bulletstorm. (0.4% completion)
5) Complete an Entire Dungeons and Dragons Campaign – This one is currently a huge failure as I haven’t even started a campaign yet, they’re all notes and sketches. Bad dungon master! (0% completion)
6) Play more Risk and Magic: The Gathering – Unfortunately I don’t have my Risk game with me (I’m hoping to buy another version so, 2210 AD) and no one I know likes playing MtG, so this one is a bit hard to achieve, but we still have the rest of the year. (0% completion)
7) Work on a Video Game Project – I got off to a great start with this, but I’ve stalled somewhat in the sketching phase, I need to get back to work and knuckle down. (~5% completion)
8) Learn Cantonese – Not a sausage. Nothing. Nada. I have made no progress. Moving on (0% completion)
9) Improve my Blog Design – Well it’s no longer offensive red. I need to consult with my graphic design friends, but it looks a little better (15% completion)
10) Buy more Books – I haven’t bought any new books yet, not for myself at least. But with more pay cheques coming in, this should all change. (0% completion)
Overall progress.
As a little side note, I have a few short term goals I want to complete:
- Finish my minecraft cosplay. I’ve ordered the ink to print the design out, so hopefully this week.
- Post a review of Transformers Risk and MtG on my DnD blog
- Post a review on this blog of my new phone.
- Record an HD video tour of my minecraft world.
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