Virgin UK -- Fwd: Please see my blog post about why Virgin Mobile South Africa is losing my business

Hiya Simon and Jo...

I've just blogged about some intensely shoddy service I received from Virgin Mobile in South Africa. Someone commenting on the blog post found your details on the UK site. So I thought it would be appropriate for you to know what's being done to your brand here in South Africa.

It mystifies me that the people I've been dealing with have been unable, unwilling, or unmotivated to escalate my trouble up to a level of competence, where it could have been dealt with.

This started out with my girlfriend switching to Virgin thanks to me. We both went in-store to purchase new Nokia N95 handsets. She was able to get one there and then. I was told I had to do the deal with Virgin Mobile Telesales, since I was already a customer. The rule, as it was explained to me, was that I could only buy a phone instore if I were willing to take a new contract, with a new phone number.

Strike one against Virgin Mobile South Africa.

Then I went through the exciting process of ordering a phone via telesales. Creason assured me the phone was on its way. A week later, and I was told that Creason didn't submit the order.

Strike two against Virgin Mobile South Africa.

Yesterday, I had a phone conversation with Mark Jackson, apparently the head of customer complaints. I asked for my phone to be delivered yesterday afternoon by close of play. He promised to get back to me with confirmation of that. And didn't.

Strike three against Virgin Mobile South Africa.

The final straw came with this morning's incompetence with one of the call centre supervisors -- Jacob Lesufi. He steadfastly refused to contact Mark Jackson at my request. And has effectively lost Virgin my business.

The interesting thing about all of this is not the loss of my business. I'm sure I'm a VERY small cog in a very big wheel. My business is surely trivial in the scheme of things. What's interesting is that I have shared my experience on Twitter and Facebook and my blog. And it appears as though Virgin Mobile in South Africa is now finding itself in the centre of a feeding frenzy.

The trouble with characters like Jacob Lesufi and Mark Jackson is that they really have no idea how potentially damaging an interaction can be. In today's networked, connected, instant-chat world, the sphere of influence of one individual is a lot more widespread than one might imagine.

I'm hoping that contacting you will do two things:

1. Prevent Virgin Mobile South Africa from losing my business (though that's VERY doubtful; my mind is pretty much made up -- the treatment I've received is shoddy, to say the very least, and actually infuriating).

2. Give you some insight into what's happening with the Virgin brand here in South Africa. I'm sure you'll want to take steps to prevent this kind of debacle from happening again.

It's telling to me that your names, email addresses and mobile numbers are freely available on your website. Whereas the South African website simply offers a fax number, a generic email address, and the call centre number. Not a good sign.

Thanks for reading this. And I wish you a happy weekend.

(By the way... if this situation is to be resolved, it really has to be done today (Saturday), or tomorrow. I'm not available on Monday, as we're shooting a promo for a weekly continent-wide business television show that I'm co-anchoring as of October 4. The show is called Kaleidoscope, and it's on CNBC AFRICA.)

Blue skies
love
Roy

PS: I haven't even received an automated confirmation email from 'notthathappy@virginmobile.co.za. Shoddy? Yeah. I reckon.

PPS: Enclosed is a screen shot of some of the responses I've received on Twitter.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roy Blumenthal <royblumenthal@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Subject: Please see my blog post about why Virgin is losing my business
To: notthathappy@virginmobile.co.za

Hiya Folks...

Please see my blog post about why Virgin is losing my business.

http://schmucknews.blogspot.com/2008/09/virgin-mobile-south-africa-incompetence.html

Three people are primarily responsible for this mess:

• Mark Jackson for not keeping his promises.
• Jacob Lesufi for refusing to call Mark.
• Creason for not placing my original order.

The blog post names and shames your people. And outlines the chronology.

I've had THE most shocking lack of customer service from you guys. It mystifies me. Completely.

I will be ending my relationship with Virgin as soon as I've sorted out a deal with another provider.

Blue skies
love
Roy
--
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ROY BLUMENTHAL
Visual Facilitator, Illustrator, Writer, Director

Professional member of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa: http://snipurl.com/psasa-profile

Mobile: +27 74 104 6386
Fax: 086 512 2580 (South African calls only)

Email: royblumenthal@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/royblumenthal
Blog: http://schmucknews.blogspot.com

Visual Facilitation: http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation
Illustrations: http://snipurl.com/SchmuckGallery
------------------------------------------------

--
------------------------------------------------
ROY BLUMENTHAL
Visual Facilitator, Illustrator, Writer, Director

Professional member of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa: http://snipurl.com/psasa-profile

Mobile: +27 74 104 6386
Fax: 086 512 2580 (South African calls only)

Email: royblumenthal@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/royblumenthal
Blog: http://schmucknews.blogspot.com

Visual Facilitation: http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation
Illustrations: http://snipurl.com/SchmuckGallery
------------------------------------------------

Virgin Mobile South Africa -- incompetence exemplified

1. I've been a Virgin Mobile customer for two years. (Was with Vodacom for 12 years prior.)

2. I want a new phone. A Nokia N95, to be precise.

3. Virgin REQUIRES me to purchase my new handset through their call centre, if I want to retain my phone number.

4. So, I order one. From Creason. I go through the whole process, and he says it'll be with me in 5 working days.

5. The days pass. I call to find out where my phone is.

6. Whoops. Creason didn't PLACE the order for some reason.

7. Noone can help me. They can't explain why it happened. They refuse to escalate my problem.

8. Eventually, I'm told that the head of Customer Complaints, Mark Jackson will call me at 8am the next morning (Thursday September 11).

9. Mark Jackson calls me mid-morning of Thursday, while I'm doing a visual facilitation. So I can't take his call.

10. I call back at 1pm, but he's at a function. So I speak to Na'eem.

11. Na'eem apologises for the mess-up, and asks me to speak to Eugene, a sales rep. I tell Na'eem that I want the phone the next day. He says he'll sort it out with the courier company they use, and that they'll expedite the delivery.

12. Eugene processes my NEW order, and tells me that it'll take 5 working days to get the phone to me.

13. I say that Na'eem is arranging to have it expedited. Eugene says that he'll just confirm that, and will get back to me within two minutes.

14. Thirty minutes later, I call back. I ask to speak to Eugene. He's on lunch. I ask to speak to Na'eem.

15. Na'eem apologises, confirms that the order has been placed, confirms that the delivery will be expedited, and assures me that he will call me first thing in the morning on Friday morning to confirm that delivery will take place that day.

16. At 11:30 on Friday 12 Sept, I call Na'eem. Whooops. He's waiting for confirmation from the courier company and will get back to me within half an hour.

17. Na'eem doesn't get back to me within half an hour. I call back. He's not there.

18. I speak to Mark Jackson. Mark tells me that Na'eem has gone on a team building exercise. He apologises for the fact that Na'eem has dropped the ball, and promises to deal with the situation.

19. I tell Mark that I would like to have the phone by close of play that day, as promised. He tells me that it's in the hands of the courier company, and that he'll follow up with them, and come back to me before close of play on Friday with confirmation from them that I'll have my phone. He promises to follow it up on Monday if he can't get it sorted on Friday.

20. I say that Monday is too late, and that I'll be terminating my dealings with Virgin if he can't sort something out. He understands, and reiterates that he'll call me back on Friday afternoon with an answer.

21. Mark Jackson doesn't call me back. He's dropped the ball.

22. Saturday morning, 8:50am, I phone the call centre. I speak to Zizi. She's not authorised to make a decision. So she puts me through to Jacob Lesufi, her supervisor at the call centre.

23. I ask Jacob if he's in a position to make a decision about how to retain me as a customer. He asks me for details of my question before he can answer. Good call on his part. I explain the situation to him. I say this: 'Jacob, the only way Virgin can retain my business is for me to have a Nokia N95 in my hands by 12 noon today. I don't mind going to the Sandton store to pick it up. Can you make a decision to make this happen?'

24. Jacob loses the plot completely. He starts explaining to me that the courier has the phone, that he can't do anything about it, that I'll have to wait till Monday.

25. I tell him that he doesn't need to explain anything to me. That he just needs to put me through to someone who CAN make it happen.

26. He tells me that there's noone in the office today, that it's a Saturday, that he's the most senior person there, that I'll have to wait till Monday.

27. I ask him who his boss is. It's Mark Jackson. I ask him to put me on hold, phone Mark Jackson, and patch me through to Mark.

28. He tells me it's impossible to do. I ask him why. He tells me it's because I refuse to listen to him. And I eventually give him a count of ten to put me on hold. Which he doesn't do. I end the call.

29. I phone the call centre again. And I speak to a call centre operative with a garbled name. I say, 'Please can you call Mark Jackson on his cellphone, and ask him to call me back within ten minutes.' She says, 'Who is Mark Jackson? Does he work here?' I say, 'He's your boss.' She says, 'Oh. Mark Jackson.' She agrees to give him my message. I say, 'It's now 9:11. Please ask Mark to call me back by 9:21.'

30. At 9:30, I call the call centre. My call is dropped three times in a row.

31. I get through on the fourth attempt. It's Zizi on the other end of the line. I ask her if Mark Jackson has been given my message. 'No,' she says, 'Jacob decided not to phone him.' I say, 'Well then Jacob is responsible for Virgin losing my business if I don't get my phone in my hands by 12 noon today.' She says, 'No, he's not responsible--' I say, 'That's fine. I'm blogging about this as we speak. And it's all going online. Please do the following... put me on hold, and have a discussion amongst yourselves... and all you have to do is decide whether or not you will phone Mark Jackson and let him have my message. That's all you have to do. So... put me on hold, have your discussion, make your decision, and come back to me with your answer. I'll wait.'

32. I'm on hold for ten minutes.

33. Zizi comes back to me. 'Thank you for your patience. Mark says he will be phoning you back.'

34. I say, 'When will Mark phone me back?'

35. Zizi says, 'I can't give you a time frame.' I say, 'It's now 9:40am. Please ask Mark to phone me back by 10.' She says, 'I can't give you a timeframe.' I say, 'Zizi, you don't have to give me a timeframe. I'm asking you to give Mark MY timeframe. Please ask Mark to call me back by 10.' She says, 'Okay. I'll give him that message.'

36. It's now 10am. No word from Mark Jackson. I wonder if he thought I meant 10 tonight?

VIDEO: Keith Wilmot Coca-Cola -- Roy Testimonial

VIDEO: Keith Wilmot Coca-Cola -- Roy Testimonial
Originally uploaded by royblumenthal

Yesterday I did a second visual facilitation session for Coca-Cola.

Hosting the sessions was Keith Wilmot, the Global Director: Insights, Ideas, & Creativity, The Coca-Cola Company.

He and his team (John and Enzo) were impressed with what I contributed to the sessions.

And Keith gave me an audio testimonial which I recorded on my cellphone.

I made a sketch of him. Coloured it in ArtRage. Popped it into CrazyTalk. And with a whole bunch of intermediary programmes, I got the audio from my phone into the animation tool.

I exported the animation with a green-screen background.

This allowed me to create captions in Photoshop CS3, and pull them into my editing package...

Adobe Premiere Pro was the tool I used to pull everything together.

Creating this little 20-second testimonial video took about a day's worth of work.

Work that I believe is fully justified. Cos it's given me the workflow to be able to make animated video testimonials of all of my visual facilitations.

I hope you enjoy it.

2008-09-11 Zuma Assumes the Position

2008-09-11 Zuma Assumes the Position, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Sometime during the course of Friday the 12th of September 2008, Jacob Zuma will learn his fate.

Along with him, South Africa will also learn its fate.

If Zuma has his corruption charges dropped (like his trousers), he will become the next South African president, and the next African despot.

If he faces trial, South Africa gets a brief reprieve from certain calamity. It's brief because the man might still somehow evade justice on some or other technicalities.

This cartoon is based on an idea tweeted to me by Gustav, a Twitter bud. I'm not mentioning his surname, cos his version was a lot less inflammatory. And I simply don't want HIM getting killed by mad Zuma supporters thanks to MY crazy over-the-topness.

The other influence for this cartoon comes from the recent Zapiro editorial cartoon in the Sunday Times in which he shows Zuma getting ready to rape Justice as she is held down by four of his cronies in the ANC and SACP.

Zapiro took some serious heat for that cartoon. I'll take almost no heat, cos I simply don't have the same viewership as he does. Still... I hope this causes at least a slight tremor.

This pic started off as a sketch in my Moleskine notebook, after I interpreted Gustav's Tweeted suggestion. I then scanned it, and brought it into ArtRage 2.5. I coloured and manipulated the pic slightly. All on my overheating Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.

We Have to Walk Our Talk to be Unleashed

Unleashed, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Boniface showed us a Covey video from THE EIGHTH HABIT. In it, there's a dude called Max. And a dog called Max. The video concludes by showing the parallels between Max the dog and Max the dude.

Made in realtime during a workshop on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc using ArtRage 2.5.

How to Go About Getting into Visual Facilitation

An ArtRage forum member sent me a message asking me how she could get into doing visual facilitation for a living. I figure my answer to her might be worth sharing. And maybe we can have some dialogue about my thoughts that might open it up and make it a bigger topic for us all.

Here's the main part of my letter to her (with pleasantries removed)...

---------------------------------------

Good to hear that there's another person interested in doing this! It's an absolutely awesome rush to do!

Okay... Fundamentals...

1. Are you well-read, well-versed in non-fiction, specifically business stuff, psychology, marketing? You'll need to pump up your knowledge in these fields.

2. Are you able to concentrate fiercely well for long stretches, listening ardently to new information, synthesising patterns from it, picking out fascinating details pertinent to the greater whole?

3. Can you multi-task? REALLY multi-task? When you're doing a visual facilitation, you're doing lots of things at once. I've described it to someone as 'flying a helicopter while holding two simultaneous, in-depth conversations'. I think I might revise that description and add a second helicopter to the mix.

4. How do you prefer to work -- traditional media or digital? This is a far-reaching fundamental choice. Sounds from your skill-set that you're digitally comfortable.

You haven't mentioned whether you use a tablet pc (or Wacom Cintiq), or if you're using a Wacom tablet?

Tablet PC is my preferred route. There are currently three machines in South Africa that I can recommend... Toshiba Portege M700, Asus R1E, Fujitsu T5010.

Portability of your setup is of paramount importance. Heading out to some remote conference centre should not induce muscle strain or back pain.

Working on traditional media limits what you can offer to your client. Most of the visual facilitators around the world use traditional media. I so so so don't recommend it. No edge. No instant distribution. However, if you MUST do it that way, go for it.

5. Are you willing to expose yourself to a roomful of people by making art live, before their very eyes?

I assure you, you are totally naked when your stuff is appearing live, in real time, on a huge screen next to the speaker's screen. They're watching your every move.

If you have ANY fear of public humiliation, you're going to find visual facilitation pretty hardcore.

If you're comfortable to do some really nice work on the odd occasion, with mostly clodhopper ATTEMPTS at brilliance most of the time, with people watching you frown as you hit the eraser button on ArtRage, then you'll thrive. It helps if you're an exhibitionistic showoff with immense amounts of self-confidence.

6. Are you happy to spend a lot of time doing free gigs for high profile audiences in order to establish a name for yourself? Do you have the chutzpah to inveigle yourself into events as 'the visual facilitator', even though you weren't invited, they've never heard of you, and you don't wanna pay the entrance fee? Do you have the ability to earn an income elsewhere to allow you to take a year to build this up into a business? Are you willing to learn and adapt what you're offering based on the gigs you do?

7. Do you have a winning, magnetic, persuasive personality?

8. Do you have the ability to look someone in the eye and say without shame or embarrassment or hesitation, 'I charge R12 500 per day for what I do.'? If you're blushing at the thought, convert that blush into a warm, fuzzy, delicious feeling of anticipated joy and liberation.

9. Are you comfortable with technology as a means of disseminating information about yourself? I use Twitter as my main communication tool in the world. I've been a blogger for about 6 years. I've had a website since the internet came to South Africa. I use Flickr as my primary portfolio tool. And so on.

Regarding the actual 'How' of your question, I recommend just sitting in on some event or other, and pushing yourself into doing a live visual facilitation without screening your work or standing out from the crowd in any way. Just draw what you hear. Get a feeling for how much work you need to do to be on top of things. Do more of these.

---------------------------------------

Do you have anything to add? Disagree with anything? Can you enhance anything?

I'm a visual facilitator. You can see some of my work online at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation. And my profile as a professional member of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa is at http://snipurl.com/psasa-profile.

Animated Roy Talking About Visual Facilitation

Wow on two counts!

1. CrazyTalk 5.1 allowed me to make this animation from a drawing. And it took less than 5 minutes to do. I'm blown away by that!

2. YouTube has introduced a new feature -- video annotations. The little speech bubble containing the link to my visual facilitation portfolio -- http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation -- is one of those. Astounding.

'I believe I can fly!' -- starring Jacob 'Laduma' Zuma

Here's my latest little bit of messing around in CrazyTalk 5.1. This is a pic I made of Jacob 'Laduma' Zuma back when controversy hit him really hard. (Please don't confuse him with Zu-Ma Se Poes. Different politician.)

I'm experimenting with some ideas that Conrad Koch and I have been discussing. This is one of those experiments.

2008-08-13 Randburg Court 22 -- I am the law

2008-08-13 Randburg Court 22 -- I am the law, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Oh yes. The magistrate in yesterday's court is INDEED 'the law'. What he says, goes.

When he said to Bill's lawyer, 'I'll make the decisions here,' he meant it.

And what he probably meant was, 'Don't come in here with your juvenile attempts at bullying me or your ex-wife or anyone else. I've been hearing cases of abuse in the Domestic Violence Court 22 for longer than I care to think about. And I know EVERY trick. And you guys are amateurs. Bill -- the FACT that you're a lawyer, the FACT that you BROUGHT a lawyer with you, the FACT that you act all obsequious in my court while your ex-wife stands proud and states the facts -- THESE facts mean YOU are NOT the LAW.'

He served the protection order with no revisions. And also pre-issued a ready-signed warrant for the arrest of Bill Morris for any transgressions of the many clauses in the protection order.

Neat, huh?

This pic was drawn in court in my Moleskine while Jennifer was at the stand. I then scanned the pic, brought it into Photoshop CS3, where I added captions and colour. On my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.

Randburg Court 22 -- Magistrate says, 'You're protected.'

Randburg Court 22 -- Magistrate says, 'You're protected.', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Thanks, Magistrate!

Jennifer and I went to the Randburg Magistrate's Court yesterday. Court 22, to be precise. The court dealing with domestic violence.

Our buddy, Big Bad Ed, joined us. He knows the inside of a courtroom. 'I hate these places,' he said. 'I've been in them way too often.'

Ed tells us an anecdote about a judge who once said to him, 'You're a one-man crime-wave.'

Ed replied, 'Thanks, your honour.'

And the judge responded, 'It wasn't a compliment.'

Ed was with us because we decided to manage the situation. Her ex-husband, Bill Morris, was expected to turn up to contest the protection order Jennifer was having finalised by the court.

According to the affidavits on public record in the court yesterday, William 'Bill' Morris was a wife beater who pressed his wife against the wall, then hacked the wall with an axe just inches next to her head. Amongst other things.

The magistrate heard Bill's smarmy and incompetent lawyer, Bradley Brazington saying things like, 'If it pleases the court, your worship, my client would like to set aside this order.'

To which the magistrate replied, 'Does your client need to come to the complainant's residence or place of work for any reason?'

To which Bradley Brazington Esq said, 'Uh... no... uh... your worship.'

And so, the protection order was finalised. With Bill Morris turning a deep red at the incompetence of his lawyer, and the idiocy of his own game plan ringing in his ears.

For godsake... the bloke arrived with his lawyer's satchel! Bill, not his lawyer... Bill himself brought the satchel.

What was he thinking? 'I'm a lawyer! If I bring my lawyer's satchel, it'll impress the magistrate, and he'll let me off! I'm a member of the legal profession! We stick together!' Is that what he thought???

Sheesh. What a misguided loser.

Anyway.

The protection order was served. And we now have a pre-issued warrant for William Morris's arrest, should he dare break any of the terms of the order.

And of course, Big Bad Ed is always waiting in the wings.