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We’d Love To Hear Your Feedback

Six words.

Just six words that have an unnerving affect on me.

They are just words, I know. Maybe I shouldn’t let them bother me quite as much as they do, but ugh! They really bother me.

I can’t seem to do anything without getting one of these letters or emails or text messages or phone calls nowadays. Oh, how I long for the days when I can just go to the shop and buy something, and as soon as I leave the experience ends there. Or use a service and when it’s done, it’s done.

‘They’ say they want the feedback so they can improve their services. ‘They’ say it is for customer satisfaction. ‘They’ say it is for marketing purposes. ‘They’ always seem to ask for this, yet wherever you go everything is always as it has been.

‘They’ say it takes five minutes to complete their ‘customer satisfaction surveys’. It probably does, per survey, but when you get asked for feedback for every bloomin’ thing you do those five minutes can add up to an hour or two.

I had one manager of a mobile phone store once tell me to give the store a mark of 9 or 10 on how well they did, when I received their survey, otherwise it would trigger an investigation within their internal review team. Unfortunately, the manager lied to me regarding the wording of a contract, after I had to wait for over an hour to be seen in the first place, so they didn’t even get a score of zero from me. I never responded. I’d already lost an hour waiting to be told how to answer the question.

I made a phone call earlier today to an energy company, and as I was trying to give a little more detail regarding my enquiry, the advisor simply cut me off mid-sentence and asked me a totally different question. I then, shortly afterwards, received a phone call from their internal review team asking how well they did. Well, I say phone call – it was from a robot. Same as with the mobile phone store, they didn’t get any feedback. (Phone calls nowadays ore recorded ‘for training purposes’, so they may hear that call, should their internal review team get round to listening to it.)

The dentists want to know how they’ve done. The computer shop want to know how they’ve done. The Bathroom-fitting people want to know how they’ve done. The petrol station want to know how they’ve done.  Even places where there is no alternative to go to want to know if I would recommend their services.

Aaaarghhhhhh!!!!!

Companies! Please!!!

If you do not know how you are operating yourselves, then it is rather a poor show, don’t you think? Instead of investing in these tactics, why don’t you just provide a good service, or, if you want to show off, a really good service, and have done with it. If you mess it up, and you will, no worries there, just have your customer services team on standby ready to handle the complaint.

Sigh.

Maybe I’m getting old now, and this is the start of the onset of grumpiness. Mind you, I must have started getting old when I was a teenager, because I have been somewhat grumpy (in certain circumstances!) since then.

So… does this question cause you to feel the same way? I’d love to know. Please leave your feedback in the comments below…

(A grumpy Six Word Saturday post)

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Reading Time

As an avid comic book fan, I have quite a collection of comics spanning the last five decades just waiting to be read again. Here’s a couple of stacks that are just waiting for their time.

It’s a good job they are very patient!!!

Posted for Becky’s #timesquare blogging challenge. Link below.

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All Year Horror

Hello my darlings,
How are you?
I have a message; maybe two
Listen carefully to what I say…
When I call and your telephone rings
Let me speak, let me sing,
Hear my voice and then allow me
Access to your own PC
There’s a problem on the line that I must fix,
This is no scam, I have no tricks.
You must provide me with your password and pin
You know, just so that I can get in
To check your accounts are all fine, above board
We don’t want to disconnect your internet, I’m sure.
It’s to check it’s all OK and, oh yes,
I have a parcel for you today
We can deliver it tomorrow if you’re in
Please confirm your address again
Hello? Are you there,
My name is Pam
I know I sound just like a man
But no, its your line you see…
I’m from your phone company, you can trust me

Not all scammers are foul-mouthed and rude individuals, although most are if their call doesn’t go their way. They are nowadays trying other tricks to gain access to homes, computers, money… anything they can get their hands on, really.

Be very careful and alert when answering calls from numbers you don’t know – landline, mobile, out of area, international or withheld. They will try anything. Even under threat of massive fines, they are still at it. If anything sounds too good to be true, it more than likely is – do not be conned. Do not fall victim to this diabolical and evil section of society who will most certainly burn in hell for their actions.

Mwahaha!

Normal, light-hearted Hallowe’en posts will resume shortly, I just wanted to attempt to bring home a modern day horror story that occurs day in day out all year long. Reminders are always useful, I find.

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Battle Cries

JUN GUL DRUMS
BEAT A RITH UM
CHAN TING VOY SES
LOUD AND CLEAR

HUFFS AND GRUNTS
AND FEAR SOME
STAN SES
WAR TRIBE MAR CHEZ
EVER NEAR

RARRR

RARRR

ROAR RING FROM
THE  LIVE LEA CROWD
THUN DRUSS ECK OH
ALL A ROUND

JUN GUL DRUMS
BEAT A RITH UM
CHAN TING VOY SES
LOUD AND CLEAR

SCREAMS OF BAT TULL
DREAMS OF PEACE
SCA TERRED SY LENSE
SO IT SEAMS

RARRR

RARRR

WHIST ULBLOWS
GAME SPEG INNING
CHEER RING FROM
THE ROW DEE CROWD

UP AND DOWN TWO
SIDE SCOMP EAT TING
THUN DRUSS ECK OH
ALL A ROUND

GOALS AND MISSES
KICKS AND PASSES
FROM THE START POINT
TO THE END

JUN GUL DRUMS
BEAT A RITH UM
CHAN TING VOY SES
LOUD AND CLEAR

HUFFS AND GRUNTS
AND FLUSS STIRRED ANT TICKS

AND VIC TORY DAN SAYS
DRAW RING NEAR

RARRR

RARRR

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Magpie Magic

Nature is amazing, isn’t she?

In the corner of the Garden is a little grave where Simba lies sleeping, since she took her soul up to the Great Cattery Heaven.

When she first departed, we marked where she lay with a simple but artificial red rose. We always say ‘hello’ to her, when we see her little place, but over time the rose became weathered and battered. It was replaced by another rose, but in time the same happened to that, and they vanished from the plot.

Recently, the corner of the Garden has just been bare, lawn-covered and bathed only in glorious sunshine.

Earlier today, two magpies were in the Garden, a mother and her baby. The baby was  lying on the grass, watching her mother busying herself doing what magpie mothers do. She hopped in the sunshine, and walked in the shade. Back and to to the dry tub where we normally leave water for the birds and other creatures to drink.

I went out to fill the tub, and the magpies flew just a little further away to a safe distance. I watched them for a while, as they watched me, and then I returned back inside.

A short time later, I looked out of the window, and saw the baby magpie lying on the lawn in the corner, seemingly pecking on something on the ground above where Simba lay. What the baby was pecking at was red.

I waited for the birds to fly away again before I went out to investigate what was going on.

Can you imagine my surprise when I saw a red rose on the place where Simba is sleeping? It was one of the red artificial ones, which have been misled for quite a while. But for it to be in the very spot where it lay originally, apparently placed there by a baby magpie – well, that makes you think.

I don’t know if you remember Simba, there are a few photos of her dotted about throughout the blog… she was a gorgeous black and white cat with the friendliest of personalities. Black and white. The colour of magpies.

Like I say… Nature is amazing isn’t she? Full of Fabulous surprises.

(The picture that accompanies this post is a quick and wobbly digital doodah of a magpie. Or that’s what it’s meant to be anyway! I can’t recreate the beauty of the real thing.)