Colin Seymour

Now This is What I Call Customer Service

2012-01-25T15:01:12+00:00

Last year 3½ year old Lily Robinson had a very important question about Sainsbury’s Tiger bread that needed sorting out and this one her mummy couldn't answer. So what did she do? Tweet about it? Nope... how many 3 year olds have a Twitter account? Blog about it? Nope. She wrote a letter directly to Sainsbury's…

Now normally, these kind of "silly" letters are sent straight to the bin after everyone in the office has had a little chortle. Not this one. Lily's letter was forwarded to a customer care manager who wrote this very impressive reply...

I think this is fantastic and I especially love that he signed off with his age just like Lily did. This is the kind of customer service I'd expect from Waitrose, not Sainsbury's. Nice one Sainsbury's, give this man a payrise, more than the £3 gift card though ;-) .

Sunset Outside Right Now

2012-01-12T16:54:58+00:00

This is what it looks like outside our bedroom window right now.

Wimpy Braille Burgers

2012-01-12T12:47:28+00:00

Wimpy is something of a South African "institution". Almost every major shopping centre has a Wimpy and it's almost considered an unwritten law that no road trip is complete without the obligatory Wimpy meal at one of the motorway service stops - hands up all those Saffers who stop at Harrismith for Wimpy on the way down to Durbs.

Well, did you know Wimpy even caters for the blind by having Braille menus at all of their restaurants? No? Me neither. What I missed last year when I was in SA was this great advert advertising the fact. Very cleverly, Wimpy allowed several blind people at three of the biggest centres for the blind around South Africa "see" their Wimpy burger for the first time. Check it out, it's quite a brilliant marketing idea...

And that ladies and gents, is how you advertise to the blind on TV. The sad irony of it all is that none of the burger recipients will be able to see this video.

Nationwide's New OFX Statements Need Work

2012-01-01T17:46:26+00:00

We have our joint account with Nationwide and I do all my financial management and budgeting in MoneyDance so being able to quickly and easily export and import my statements is something I'm always on the look out for.

Up until now, I've been downloading the statements from Nationwide in CSV format, running them through a custom script which customises the transactions to suit my needs and outputs a QIF format file for importing into MoneyDance. This morning I discovered Nationwide has started offering the option of downloading detailed statements/transactions in the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) format.

I got a little excited by this discovery as I thought my script could be severely simplified, but alas, this is not the case as the OFX file from Nationwide is nowhere near as informative or useful as the CSV file is.

Here are a few examples where the OFX transactions are simply useless on their own.

Foreign currency commission fees:

CSV:

"05 Nov 2011","Non-UK commission fee","","£2.11","","£###.##"

OFX:


    FEE
    20111105120000.000[+0]
    -2.11
    1305112011120000

The OFX tells me nothing other than it's a FEE. I need to look at the preceding transaction to workout that this is likely to pertain to it.

Suggested Fix: Add the MEMO tag and use that to detail what this charge is for, or even better, take advantage of the foreign currency tags in the OFX spec.

Foreign cash withdrawal charge:

CSV:

"09 Dec 2011","Non-UK cash wdl fee","","£1.00","","£###.##"

OFX:


    FEE
    20111209120000.000[+0]
    -1.00
    4309122011120000

Once again, the OFX transaction entry on its own tells me nothing and once again, I need to look at the preceding transactions.

Suggested fix: once again, add and use the MEMO tag to detail what the charge is for.

Standing Orders:

CSV:

"07 Nov 2011","Standing order","GLADRIDGE FLATS.","£75.00","","£###.##"

Here, "GLADRIDGE FLATS" is my own custom description I set when creating the standing order.

OFX:


    XFER
    20111107120000.000[+0]
    -75.00
    1607112011120000

If you don't recognise the value, you're on your own guessing what it's for without going to the Nationwide website or viewing the CSV file.

Suggested fix: Change the TRNTYPE to REPEATPMT (as this is what you should be using for standing orders) and use my own custom description for the NAME.

I'm sure there other completely useless transactions I've not encountered yet, but these are the ones I noticed today. The rest of the transactions are generally OK and you can easily tell what they're for, though some could do with some improvement...

Transfers to and from other Nationwide accounts:

CSV:

"28 Nov 2011","To mortgage a/c","61231622066.","£527.56","","£###.##"

The "To mortgage a/c" is my own custom string.

OFX:


    XFER
    20111128120000.000[+0]
    -527.56
    3128112011120000
    [NATIONWIDE ACC NO. HERE]

No indication who I've transferred the money to, just the destination account number (I've replaced it) is given which means nothing to me without the useful custom string I get to see in the CSV format.

Suggested fix: Don't use XFER for the TRNTYPE. It's not a transfer, it's a payment, so take your pick of the payment related tags to use and then use my custom string either in the NAME or add the MEMO tag and use it there with the NAME set to something like "Nationwide Mortgages".

So, thanks Nationwide for the new format, but please can you enhance your OFX format to be a bit more useful. The OFX spec has several other useful TRNTYPE values to better explain the transaction types (POS is not appropriate for ATM withdrawals) and the MEMO tag is very very handy. The CSV format is still way more useful and I'm going to have to continue using it until the OFX format is up to the same level in terms of information provided.

All is not bad with the recent changes made by Nationwide: I really like the new swish looking website. It's a million times better than the Web 1.0 look and feel of the old site.

Now if only Cahoot would do the same thing. Their website is looking very dated and they don't offer any methods of exporting data to file (I have a Greasemonkey script which scrapes the statement pages).

Welcome to 2012

2012-01-01T00:00:09+00:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR

... and welcome to ...

The 50 Greatest Viral Videos Of 2011

2011-12-29T14:26:01+00:00

2011 is nearly over and the "best of" lists are already starting to be put together.

Here are the top 50 viral videos of 2011, all neatly edited together for your viewing pleasure.

It’s a long one, but there are some real gems in there - you'll probably recognise quite a few of them, so start the video, pause it (to allow it to completely buffer), go and make yourself a cup of coffee, and then come back and watch this. Just be careful not to spray said coffee over your screen.

8-Bit Lego Christmas

2011-12-01T11:07:54+00:00

Some people have far too much time on their hands. A case in point is this stop-motion Christmas video featuring characters from old 8-bit video games made out of Lego...

Can I Be Your Friend?

2011-11-26T10:59:22+00:00

When was the last time you walked up to a complete stranger on the street and asked if you could "poke" or "follow" them? Never?. What about with someone you know of, but they may not necessarily know you, like your local MP, a top athlete or a really good programmer? No? Strange? Well we do it online all the time.

Here's a light-hearted and somewhat scary look at what happens when our "online" and "offline" activities meet...

Do this for a day or two and I think you might get yourself a free court order :-)

I'll Get the Ice-creams

2011-11-11T13:10:40+00:00

I picture this happens every time my brother-and-sister-in-law take Elizabeth and Matthew to the park...

I Wasn't The Only One

2011-10-31T12:16:16+00:00

Several years ago I had a bit of a run in with a certain online retailer by the name of "FooBar Pty Inc". Obviously this isn't the company's real name, but given I had an opinion about this company and it was a negative one, they decided my words were far too bad for business so threatened legal action if I didn't remove them. I obliged by removing their name and products from the posts and comments.

Well imagine my delight today when I discovered the following post on one of the forums I visit regularly...

An image is worth a 1000 words

It's dated 21 March 2009, which is about 8 months before my run in with them. I have no idea how I missed this post all this time as I regularly turn to the Jim's Beer Kit forums when I'm thinking about trying something new in brewing.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who they threatened. To this day, I have gone to more reputable companies, even if it means spending a little bit more. I think these legal threats, especially against a large community forum (which of course is a competitor to their own forums), have probably had more of a negative impact on their business than a few negative reviews would. Big spenders will always consider negative reviews and take them with a pinch of salt. It's hard to ignore threats of legal action.

Oh well, it's their business, not mine. They're free to run it how they like.

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