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Wake up Telkom! April 16, 2007

Posted by Angus in Things I Noticed.
1 comment so far

Dear Mr/Ms Telkom Customer Service Manager,

This letter hereby serves to inform you that you really know how to make it difficult for me to be a customer – and that someone there is clueless.

As a potential business customer for landlines – I require a Business Line Transfer Application form (as I am taking transfer of a few lines from my landlord). Herewith, the steps I have been through this morning:

  1. After a 15-20 minute wait and pressing the option that sounded most logical – I get through to the wrong department.
    1. Thankfully they were kind enough to transfer me to the correct department without me having to listen to that blasted Telkom message-on-hold theme tune, again.
  2. Your Call Centre tells me to go to the closest Telkom branch to get the forms.
    1. ‘Ok – where is the closest branch?’ I ask.
    2. ‘Now that’s a question’ she says. ‘I’m in Durban, so don’t really know’.
    3. ‘I’m in Sandton’ I say.
    4. ‘You can try Fourways, um, um, or Rosebank, or how about Randfontein’ she offers. Randfontein? – No thanks, that’s only a 130km round trip.
    5. ‘Um, no thanks – I’ll go to Rosebank’.
  3. I then ask if I can get the form off the Telkom website. ‘Yes’ is the response. ‘What URL’ I say.
    1. After the next 5 minutes of trying to get a coherent response from the phone jockey (you can imagine the URL versions I was told to try – nothing even close to the actual one), I give up and say – ‘Don’t worry, please email it to me’ – knowing that I’ll just have to find it on the Telkom site myself.
    2. I gave her my email address – carefully.
  4. I eventually find the forms thanks to Google. This is where the fun really begins.
    1. After numerous (like 12) attempts I eventually get the form.
      1. I tried IE after thinking that the site didn’t like Firefox (which I’d expect).
      2. I restarted my browser thinking it had frozen.
      3. Picture this – I went outside with my laptop (holding it above my head) to get better Vodacom HSDPA signal.
      4. I swore.
      5. You get the picture.
    2. The reason that the form was so stubborn – its a 7.35MB file! For a 4 page application form!

Now read carefully please – instead of scanning an existing form and saving it as a crappy looking PDF – how about putting a properly created (in Acrobat) PDF version of the form online. 100kb max = happy potential customer.

Oh – and by the way, I’m still waiting for the emailed version of the form. But, I suspect that your mail server does not allow 7.35MB files to be sent out, does it.

Yours in waiting,
Frustrated (already)

PS – To top it all off, the Application Form is ‘broken’ – ie illegible on pages 3 and 4 where it has not scanned/saved correctly.

PPS – Change your on hold message to – “Please hold while we try and frustrate the crap out of you, again.”

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The perfect phone April 1, 2007

Posted by Angus in Mobile.
2 comments

Ok – I’ll do one post on phone hardware in contravention of my previous post.

I’m using a couple of phones at the moment (one for each network) – and the experience is vastly different to say the least.

They are:

This has got me thinking. Each of them has great features, but equally, each is hamstrung by something. So what would I want in the ultimate phone – the perfect phone for me.

I use my phone all day, need real email capabilities, want super-fast connectivity. So, phone manufacturers – here’s my wishlist:

The Form

  • The thinness and feel of the D900 – the sound of the slider snapping closed is fantastic
  • Usability of the widely acclaimed QWERTY keyboard of the Blackberry – but, that slides sideways like the HTC P4350, iMate JASJAM, and Samsung F700
  • Large clear screen with the resolution and sophistication of the Apple iPhone’s 320 x 480 pixel, 3.5 inch, 16m colour touchscreen marvel
  • The legendary battery life of the Nokia 6680 – like 10 days standby
  • HSDPA (up to 3.6 or 7.2 Mbps), Wifi g+n and the range of GSM data ranges (GPRS & EDGE) + Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 (and eventually when Wireless USB is available – that too please)
  • 8GB on board solid-state memory/capacity – like the Apple iPhone
  • I’m in two minds about a camera. A 2-3MP is probably all you need for happy snaps.
  • Card slot for expandable memory
  • Decent speakerphone
  • Some sort of clickwheel – like SonyEricsson’s one on the P Series

The Features

  • An OS that is super quick (meaning that it also needs a decent processor), that actually responds when you press a button like the D900 does – the delay is one of the main gripes that many people have with many of the new phones. Especially Nokia’s original phones in the N-Series.
  • The option of both full web browsing that Opera Mobile offers, and typical dumbed down mobile browsing that Opera Mini or even a WAP 2.0 browser offers.
  • Full feature, push email like Blackberry does – that integrates with Exchange, Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, etc) without major server-side installation requirements.
  • Viewer and basic editor for Word, Excel, PPT and PDF Reader
  • Decent iPod-like music and video player
  • Widget enabled – like Opera Mobile allows
  • The predictive text of the Motorola MPx220
  • Ability to have permanently connected IM – ie its always on in the background, even during calls.
  • All this – and it must still fit into your pocket and not be a brick.

Phones that come close:

That’s enough for now. Apple is close – remains to be seen how OS X handles on a phone. Samsung, Nokia, HTC and iMate all seem to be moving in the right direction.

What have I missed – and what would you want?

* Update – The number keypad/QWERTY keyboard conflict has been solved. You really do need a traditional keypad to make it function like a phone. So – phone designers…what we need is a two-directional sliding mechanism – where the screen slides up like a Samsung D900 to reveal the number keypad. To reveal the QWERTY keyboard, a thin layer slides slideways like the Samsung F700. Obviously, only one keyboard can be revealed at once. And – here it is.

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