A lot of tweets and Facebook status updates started pouring in this morning when locals in Clifton spotted a large ship that had beached itself. I’m not surprised after the dense mist that we’ve experience last night and this morning in Cape Town.
News24 reports:
A 50m fishing trawler has run aground at First Beach in Clifton, Cape Town on Saturday morning, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said.
“All people on board at the stage are safe, but with an incoming tide that may change,” spokesperson Craig Lambinon said.
The Japanese trawler was about 20 metres off-shore in the wave-line and rescue efforts were in progress.
Cheers to Dylan and Mark for supplying the photographs!
It’s been a while since I did a weather report here, so I decided to do one for this weekend because by the sounds of things people have had a hard week and are looking forward to a weekend of peace and quiet, or hustle and bustle!
Sooo, no rain, but it looks like it’ll be a good weekend to be on the couch.
Some pals and I often buy our lunch at the intersection of Belvedere and Landsdown roads, there’s a Debonairs, St Elmo’s, Jewel of East, Coimbra and others, so it’s a decent area for variety. Anyway, on Friday we decided to go to St Elmo’s because on FourSquare they have a special – yes, I’m not kidding, finally a local brand having a special on FourSquare, you can imagine how excited us geeks got ;)
We raced down to St Elmo’s, ordered some pizza’s, checked in and showed the manager the check in – “Sorry, they did something like that at head office perhaps, but we don’t know about it so you can’t have the free pita” said the manager.. uhm, say what?!
Let’s not comment on the spelling.
This really was disappointing, not so much the fact that we didn’t get a free pita, but the fact that a brand as established as St Elmo’s couldn’t get something as simple as this correct, this post would have been the complete opposite if they’d got it right! *smh*
So, which digital agency handles the St Elmo’s account?
You know that from time to time I love jumping onto my blog and shouting at restaurants that have awful service and such, but it’s not always a bad story that I have, in fact, tonight I’ve got a great example of an eatery that’s doing things right in the digital world.
Eat Out The Box, run by Marius, Deon and Nicol, is effectively a take-away joint, but there’s a little twist, their kitchen is a “no fry” zone and they aim to offer healthy, tasty and balanced meals aposed to the usual oil dripping stuff that we all order. Pizzas, burgers, pasta’s and more, there’s something for everyone. Eat Out The Box has a fantastic website, it’s creative, it’s easy to use and the shopping cart integration is done really well – I used my iPad to go through the menu and build my meal – no hassles at all.
Twitter
This is where things get exciting – So, my fiance and I placed an order for 2 burgers as they have a 2 burgers for R99 special going (this includes the fancy burgers btw) and I decided to send out a cheeky tweet:
Just ordered the 2 burgers for R99 from @eatoutthebox – I shld get discount for this tweet to 6500 people :P
A couple people jumped in and someone who follows me actually ordered the burger special right after my tweet. After a few tweets, @EatOutTheBox jumped in with the following tweet:
@ChristopherM Thank you, we have loaded a 20%Disc on your next order, please tell us if you enjoyed yr Hangover and Chicky Chicky #Burgers
Tell me that that isn’t absolutely awesome? Not only did they reply timelessly, they engaged, knew my order and even gave me a discount on my next order! #brandplus to Eat Out The Box, you’ve set the bar incredibly high for other take-away joints, I’ve got your number on speed dial now.
Krit.com is a local startup that lets customers reach business managers directly and privately from their phones. Feedback is instantly delivered to on-duty managers via email and SMS with an opportunity to respond before patrons leave the premises.
Everyone love great service, but no one likes throwing a scene when service goes sideways. Most customers would prefer to resolve issues offline rather than write a scathing online review that will never be answered, in all likelihood.
Krit makes it easy for customers to reach a decision-maker without spoiling their quiet family dinner. Business managers can save face by responding to their customers in minutes, not hours. Additionally, both parties’ contact details remain private.
What about venues that are not yet registered? Krit employees will track down the person in-charge and do their best to get you a response.
Does Krit work in every situation? No, some issues are better handled in-person, but there exists a whole category of problems that would otherwise go unaddressed.
You know, the little things. And they add up.
Customers don’t have time to page through a phone tree or find an email address on your website. They want to talk with you now. Existing solutions charge customers to SMS or use complex phone numbers. Why pay to complain? Krit is completely free for customers and there is nothing to install. Simply visit krit.com on your mobile phone and rate your experience at a nearby venue.
Krit is primarily aimed at restaurants, retailers, guest houses and hotels, but works for any service-based business that wants to know how customers are feeling, including night clubs, clinics, hospitals and waiting rooms. Franchises can gather valuable business intelligence by analysing customer sentiment across branches.
Visit krit.com today to start your free 60-day trial and delight your customers with Krit :).
Have you heard of Zinio? Zinio is like your favourite magazine shop but in digital form, and on steroids. If you’re a magazine junkie but dislike having your house cluttered with piles of them, you may want to check this out.
Zinio calls itself “the world’s largest newsstand and bookstore”. It sells thousands of magazines in digital format (and I’ve found, often at a significantly reduced rate compared with the hard copy alternative). You can read your mags on your tablet or your PC, online or downloaded to read at your leisure. Each magazine has a set of formats it’s available in, so check this before you click the “buy” button. If you prefer to read your content offline, Zinio has its own digital reader you can download. The reader works as a library, much as iTunes or Windows Media Player does with your music. It stores your content and “plays” (opens) it for reading.
Here’s a screenshot of the site:
Zinio’s selection of magazines is impressive, to say the least. One drawback is that some international titles are not available in South Africa (the site tells you this when you try to check out).
This is to confirm that George Kiewietz of New Metro has kindly agreed to a co-operative effort between New Metro and the communities of Harfield Village and Kenilworth in order to collect and clean up all the rubbish on the railway line, between Kenilworth Station and Bell Road on 22 April from 11am to 2pm.
We are asking New Metro to provide at least 2 security personal to patrol the lines to ensure that volunteers keep a safe distance from the tracks and that they provide black refuse bags – we estimate about 150-200 bags and that they provide an area where the bags might be deposited so that they can then dispose of them.
We are asking community leaders and the media to get the word out and rally up as many volunteers as they can and to be there themselves if at all possible, everyone to come dressed in sensible closed shoes, a bright orange/yellow/white vest or Tshirt and armed with rubber gloves, hats, sunscreen/rainjacket and a cheerful face as well as some water for drinking. We are asking anyone with petrol weedeaters to bring them along please with security goggles. The meeting place will be at the corner of the parking lot on the Harfield side of Kenilworth Station.
Will all community leaders and the body corporates of the complexes along the line please contact Gail Brown to advise on how they will be able to assist and if they have been able to raise a small confirmed bunch of voluteers and a wider bunch of maybes. Assisting will be in the form of handing out black bags – showing people where the dump area is, assisting with keeping people off the tracks and cheerfully encouraging everyone. For the flat complexes we will be very keen to have brooms and broom handlers to sweep up along the outside of the fence once the weedeaters have finished.
We will meet at 11am, black bags will be distributed and you will be told where to put them once they are full. We will be asking that the line be cleared in sections starting from Kenilworth station and moving down. Will anyone with weedeaters then move in once the rubbish collectors have cleared a section and trim where needed.
We are hoping the weather will hold and will contiune with the event even in the face of light drizzel. However if the rain is pounding down we will postpone for another day.
My house in Harfield Village has a very tricky driveway to get into and this has caused a few bumps and bangs on my precious car, along with a few dings that have come from goodness knows who/what. I decided that I would give Dent Magic a go and see if they could fix up my car as I had previously been quoted around R12,000 from JCF Motors in Kenilworth and I felt that was a complete rip off.
It was a Saturday morning when I called Dent Magic, a gentleman answered the phone, gave me some information and told me he’d like me to go through so he could see the damage. I arrived 45 minutes later, he greeted me, looked at my car and turned around a quote in about 15 minutes. The quote was just over R2,000 and he assured me that I wouldn’t be able to see a single problem afterwards and further assured me that because the dings were so minor that it wouldn’t take them more than a few hours. I happily accepted and hurried off to have a haircut and some lunch.
Sure enough, a few hours later I received a text message from Dent Magic telling me my car was finished. I walked around my car with a huge smile on my face as I saw every single ding completely gone. The gentleman then asked if I wanted a voucher for a car wash or whether I’d prefer to have my parking costs covered – bonus!
From this day onwards, every single time I get a small ding on my car I will be the first in the queue at Dent Magic – excellent service!
I’ve procrastinated over writing this post, but when I received a call early this morning (Easter Day!) I decided that I would because I don’t want anyone else to go through the hassle that I’ve gone through when hiring a suit in Cape Town.
A few weeks ago I was invited to a Casino party for a friends Birthday and the whole idea was to dress up as James Bond. This meant I needed a suit, so whilst I was out at Canal Walk I decided to pop into Euro Suit. I went in and after some time I was attended to, they didn’t have many suits as apparently this particular weekend was a busy one, but we managed to find a suit that fitted well and looked good. I was told to return the next day to pick up the suit.
I arrived at the exact time (I’m awfully punctual by nature) I was asked to arrive and was told to sit on the couch and wait – 40 minutes later I decided that I’d waited long enough and I approached a scruffy looking employee who was more interested in dressing mannequins so he could go home than help potential customers. He was incredibly rude to me and spoke down to me as if I was nothing. At this point I called the manager over and was told that there was no suit assigned to my name, nobody had written down any details and to be honest, it felt like they were accusing me of lying. Finally, I was told that they would help me find a suit, but now they didn’t have any more of the style I chose so I had to go with another style, which was so matric-dance boring and costed more than the one I had initially booked! Nevertheless, I needed a suit, I was running out of time and I just went with the flow and booked a new one, again, I was told to come back the next day for fitting.
I returned the next day to get fitted and take the suit, but the seamstress was not there so I just had to take the suit as is. Fortunately it looked decent and I just took it as enough was enough.
This morning, 3 weeks later, I received a voicemail asking if I ever returned the suit? WTF!
I will never use Euro Suit again, never in a million years and would urge you to rather use a place like Remmingtons, who I have previously had great service from.
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