Monday, December 8, 2008

Telco wars

Those who follow me on Twitter will have seen a berating of Optus and who am I not to explain?

Optus sent me a bill for $1500 and whilst I was expecting a slightly larger phone bill for my new iPhone... this bill missed the mark by a long shot.

This resulted in the desperately avoided call to 'customer service'... Now a telephone company should not drop the customer's call 3 times... Sensing some KPI Management, I changed my tact by showing a seemingly new operator that their system could possibly be wrong... I did this by demonstrating that the $900 charge was actually meant to be $0... After another long stint on hold, the 'customer care assistant' offered a $400 discount on the amount, she even sounded convinced that it was a good offer...

When I explained that the offer was the equivalent of fining me $500, she placed me back on hold.

At this point I could imagine the flashing red lights of KPI failure...  when the new offer was made at less than a tenth of the original bill. But accepting this wasn't ever going to be the end of the saga... was it?

Dishonour fees (for not paying $1500), calls from their finance section (asking why I haven't paid the $1500) and 2 weeks later... Still not resolved.

So a communications company, maybe not getting the billing right is understandable but not being able to transfer the metadata of the customer from one person to another (let alone the computer that captures it at the beginning of the call) is really going to struggle in their bid.

Rugby Trip

Indeed what memories from this place...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A mudblood by any other name

I saw Australia today and I am not afraid to say that I found it to be much better than I was told to expect. 

Ok, it was a little long at 3h but there was a great undercurrent about the importance of storytelling in identity and culture. Nullah, a 'half-caste' whose plight holds the plot together is torn between the two worlds of his origin, trying to find his story... I will stop before completely spoiling the film, just go and see it!

To finish though, 2008 is unmistakably a great first step toward conciliation. Whilst other films have brought some of the issues to light previously, it is heartening to see a film that comes closer to honesty about the tragic policies and actions committed against the Aborigines that will be seen in the mainstream. The importance of Australia is that it can at least cite a government apology...