As MTN is one of the largest mobile networks, with a high market share, it is reassuring to know that it is still working hard to improve its customer service. From the compliment given by Val Waldeck, it is clear that MTN and its staff still goes that extra mile when assisting their customers. She had the following to share:

Sharline at the Service Dept. went the extra mile and showed superb customer relations skill when I experienced problems with my new handset. Kept in touch and let me know when the replacement was ready. Excellent service.

Would you like to sing the praises of a company that you received great service from? Well you can do so, by submitting a compliment and we will post it on our website.

This week the Carte Blanche Consumer team will pinpoint ways for small businesses to survive in this tough economic climate. They will also show a follow up story on the exposure and liquidation of Planet Wheels from earlier this year.

Small business

Big business and corporations are slowly recovering from the recession, but spare a thought for smaller companies, where it takes much longer to bounce back. Many of them simply don’t recover because their customers aren’t able to pay them. Carte Blanche Consumer visits some struggling businesses and gets a few tips from those who have survived through tough times. Presenter: Annika Larsen; Producer: Kim Cloete.

Planet Wheels III

Five months ago we exposed wheeling and dealing at a used car dealership in Johannesburg. Complaints about Planet Wheels indicated that owner Lynne Schreiber was rolling over payments. Reports were that she was leading a quality lifestyle, but seldom reimbursing her clients. Shortly after our first story, the business was liquidated, leaving many out of pocket and with no wheels. What’s happened since? Carte Blanche Consumer catches up with still car-less clients, finds out what Lynne’s been up to and locates her former partner John Griffin, who hangs out in Durban. Presenter: Derek Watts; Producer: Este de Klerk; Journalist: Tshediso Sesioana.

Catch the show at 7pm on M-Net tonight.

Sources: CarteBlancheConsumer; Image Source: asobec.com

With technology moving and changing at the rapid pace that it has been for the past couple years, many questions have arisen as to whether traditional print media is still necessary or not. One question that is up for debate is whether there is a market for new reference books to be printed, or if they should only be available in an ebook format.

There are pros and cons for both printed books and ebooks, so to say that one is better than the other or to say that only one version should be used would not be a fair statement to make.

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Printed books offer many advantages such as being easily obtainable by a book store or public library. They do not cause significant eye strain and they are easily portable. The biggest pro to using a printed reference book is that you do not need power to use it. However, printed books can become more of a hindrance than a help when you need to carry many around, such as a student who has to have a number of textbooks with them. To read a printed book you also need a significant source of light which can prove to be difficult in certain situations.

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Ebooks are portable and it is possible to store many books on one device, eliminating the weight factor of printed books. They are environmentally friendly and notes made can easily be found by means of a search function. Lighting is not a contributing factor. There are however some drawbacks to ebooks. To view an ebook you need an ebook reader if the electronic version is not available online, which can be costly,. Eyestrain problems are similar to that of working on a computer for long hours and you need a power supply if you plan on working with your ebook for a few hours.

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Some well-known reference books have been turned into ebooks to give people the option of using the version that suits them best. There are even talks suggesting  that the full version of the next Oxford English Dictionary will be an online version only and a condensed version will be available in the printed format.

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The bottom line is that whichever format you choose you will be getting out what you need. The information remains the same regardless of the format. How we access that information is becoming less and less significant.

Sources: Hubpages.com; Ebscohost.com; Mashable.com

Image source: Jpsblog.org

The Consumer Protection Act is due to come in to effect on 24 October 2010, however South African consumers may have to wait a little longer than expected to benefit from this new legislation. According to an article on Fin24.com, all indications suggest Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies will extend the date of implementation by another six months.

Applications for the positions of commissioner and deputy commissioner of the National Consumer Commission only close today, 31 August 2010, indicating that the commission is a long way away from being ready to take on its first complaint.

Another possible set back is that the draft regulations with guidelines on how the new legislation is to be applied have not been published yet. They are likely to come out at the beginning of September, when opportunity for comment will be given for at least a month. Rosalind Lake, an associate at law firm Deneys Reitz Inc, argues that one month is not sufficient for public comment given the act’s vast scope: “Even if all comments are received in time, there is scant time for changes or incorporating comments into the regulations ahead of the scheduled implementation date and for businesses to adapt their business practices accordingly.”

Watch this space for updates over the next few weeks. In the meantime, read our CPA series to find out how the act will affect you once it does come in to effect.

Sources: Fin24.com/PersonalFinance; Fin24.com/Business; Image source: confonet.nic.in

Google has just launched a phone call application within Google Chat and Gmail, enabling Gmail users make free voice calls in the US and Canada. Calls to other countries start at $0.02 per minute.

This move puts Google in direct competition with Skype, another popular platform that allows free internet calls between users via the internet. Both platforms are great for people who don’t have land lines and/ or spend a lot of time on either personal or business-related international calls.

How it works:

• You will need Google’s Voice and Video plug-in. Within Gmail’s “Chat” window, a “Call phone” option will appear.
• A number pad will appear on which you can dial the phone number.
• If you have a Google Voice number it will appear as the outbound caller ID, and can be used to receive calls within Gmail.

According to a tweet from Google, users seem to love it, as more than one million calls were made in the first 24 hours after the feature went live. Let us know what you think, and whether you prefer it to skype.

Sources: mashable.com; pcworld.com; www.ft.com; Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

As one of the fast growing chain restaurants in South Africa, Nando’s has maintained a great relationship with their customers by giving them consistently great food and good customer service. The manager at the Attrigeville branch made a great impression on one of their customers recently, and the service she received was definitely worth the money she spent. She had this to share:

“Twice I have been here, both occasions, I have been spoil with great service. Manager makes it a point to be hands on plus go table to table to ask how the meal was. Well done. Keep up the good service.” – Jane Naicker

If you have also been impressed by great customer service from a South African supplier please let us know by submitting a compliment here.

Having Home Insurance doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fully covered. To avoid finding this out the hard way, watch Carte Blanche Consumer this evening and find out how to ensure that you are properly protected. Other stories cover overdraft facilities, home affairs issues, spot checks at supermarkets and handy hints for keeping kettles clean.

Handy Hints: Kettle

Another in Carte Blanche Consumer’s series of hints for the not-so-handy – be it dealing with oil on one’s paving, burns on the carpet, a scratched DVD, or a scale-encrusted kettle. Producer: Petri Kleynhans.

Home Insurance

Faye and Fuzzy Abdullah were proud home owners until they discovered leaks and concealed cracks caused by bad workmanship. Things got worse when they realised they weren’t covered by their home owner’s insurance. Carte Blanche Consumer finds out how to properly protect one’s home when the roof starts caving in. Presenter: Devi Sankaree Govender; Producer: Nguni Productions.

Just Checking: Fluids

Carte Blanche Consumer does spot checks on liquids at supermarkets and finds out if we’re getting what we pay for. The bottle says you’re getting one litre – but, are you really? Presenter: Devi Sankaree Govender; Producer: Eugene Botha.

Overdrafts

An overdraft facility is a formal arrangement with a bank, allowing the account holder to draw funds that aren’t in the account. That’s all good and well, but why on earth do we get charged if we don’t use it? Carte Blanche Consumer goes into the red. Producer: Backyard Products.

Home Affairs

In this week’s Service Check, Dorothy Dearheart complains to Home Affairs about services unrendered. Producer: Backyard Productions.

Source: Carte Blanche Consumer. Image sources: cookingtime.co.uk; squidoo.com

The City of Johannesburg (COJ) is taking active steps to improve the lives of its citizens by introducing several initiatives including a unified call centre, which has been named “One City, One Number”. From October 2010 Joburg based consumers will  have one central point of contact for all their municipal queries and complaints.

According to executive mayor Amos Masondo, by implementing this new system, “the areas of focus will be on call centres, customer relations, revenue management, and billing services”. Consumers will no longer need to call various call centres when enquiring about their water and electricity bills, everything will now be done under one roof and for consumers convenience will be open 24/7.

The call centre promises to be a self–service portal for both citizens and COJ staff to reduce the number of callers in a queue: “This service will enable customers to promptly retrieve their account-related information, for example, account balances and recorded meter readings, by furnishing their account numbers and by following interactive voice prompts” says Masondo. The call centre will also be accepting enquires that are sent via email and fax.

But how efficient will this call centre really be? If you cast your mind back a few months to the launch of the Presidency Hotline, you will recall that it was inundated with thousands of calls that the hotline staff were unable to respond to due to a lack of capacity. Do you think this new unified call centre will actually be any different?

The call centre functionality consists of calling, emailing and faxing, but what about online complaints? As more and more people are using the internet to communicate and air their frustrations, would it not be more appropriate to use an online complaints management platform in conjunction with the call centre?

As the ultimate aim of the COJ is to improve service delivery and decrease the number of complaints received, it would make sense to use the full range of communication channels to achieve this objective.

Source: itweb.co.za; Image source: joburg.org.za

The Department of Home Affairs is currently working on an online ID verification system which is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2010. This will have a positive impact on both consumers and retailers and will be crucial in the fight against ID fraud in South Africa.

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What is HANIS?
The system will be called HANIS (Home Affairs National Identification System) and will store all South African citizens’ ID numbers, fingerprints and photographs. The SA Social Security Agency, banks, insurers and retailers will have access to HANIS. This will enable retailers to verify the identities of their current clients as well as any prospective clients.

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How does HANIS work?
Organisations that have access to the HANIS system will be able to conduct on-the-spot verification checks of their client’s fingerprints and check them against the information stored in HANIS, which is provided by the Department of Home Affairs. Both the banks which have tested the system in its development stages and the Department of Home Affairs believe that this will drastically reduce the amount of ID fraud within South Africa.

How will HANIS affect consumers?
As a consumer, you can be asked to do an on-the–spot fingerprint verification. Your fingerprints will then be compared to the one stored on HANIS. This will make it difficult for people who have fraudulent IDs to use them, and hopefully the knock on effect will be a decrease in identity theft.

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A concern which has been raised, which consumers should be aware of, is that organisations with permission to use HANIS will have access to personal information that is linked to your fingerprint.   There will need to be strict security measures in place to ensure that this information is not misused in any way.

Sources: sagoodnews.co.za; buanews.gov.za; itweb.co.za. Image Source: identityfort.com

Following on from the success of location based services such as Foursquare, Facebook has decided to launch their own version to allow its virtual world to take one step closer to each user’s offline existence.

Facebook Places, due to be rolled out over the next few weeks, will enable you to “check in” from your smart phone and broadcast your location to your Facebook friends. You will also be able to tag friends at the same location as you and look up the locations of friends who are similarly “checked in”, either via status updates or on a separate web page.

The launch of this application has resulted in privacy issues bubbling to the surface once again. The good news is that Facebook will allow users to block Places functions in their privacy settings if they want to. The real question is, how many consumers actually know how to change these settings?

Here are a few simple steps to tighten up your security settings on Facebook:

• There are a couple of things that you can never hide on Facebook, including name, profile picture, location, connections and hobbies. Make sure that you are comfortable with the information that you have included in each of these sections. You also have the option to leave some of them blank.
• To edit your privacy settings, click on “Account” in the top right of the page. Then select “Privacy settings” from the drop down list and select “Custom” from the left side of the page. Click on “Customize settings” to view and change your privacy options. One of these options is “Places I check in to” which is relevant to the location based application mentioned above.
• To select the level of privacy you want for each section, choose one of the drop down options on the right hand side:

• Although “Friends of Friends” sounds harmless, it refers to everyone that your friends have added as friends, and all it takes is one careless friend to give a dodgy person access to all your information and photos.
• You can control what information applications can access and remove all unwanted applications. To do this, go to Privacy Settings –> Applications, Games and Websites.
• Decide whether you are comfortable to have your Facebook profile appear when people enter your name in to search engines. You can also edit this setting from the Applications, Games and Websites section of your Privacy Settings.

Sources: news24.com; Connect Magazine. Image sources: facebook.com