I don’t read the Guardian much but the last time I did, which was never, it was going on about the big ice cube in
And now that I’ve went and stupidly moved about 50 yards from the sea, I could be already dead according to the Guardian, time do to something about it.
TravelDigger.co.uk announces the soft launch of their social bookmark system for the travel industry. Designed for bloggers and businesses alike, TravelDigger.co.uk is a powerful toll which aggregates travel news and blogs and lets its user vote for the best news.
TravelDigger.co.uk realizes the unique requirements of the travel industry in today’s modern web 2.0 environment.
There’s a new bar/restaurant in Ayr that I’ve been going to since it opened. Arches just passed the train station towards Ayr Central shopping center is a little bit differant. For a start they have great coffee (in small cups, hint, hint), Staropramen on tap and a differant looking menu. The look of the bar is trendy west end style with a Spanish touch which is reflected on the Tapas menu, I’ve never had the Tapas but I did get the breakfast which was coffee and a bacon roll for less than £3, and it was cripsy and good.
But for those of us that spend our lives in front of a laptop and sometimes working from home Arches offer free WiFi when you buy a coffee or a beer. Last night I had a document to finish and Kim was wanting to go shopping, two in one, parked the car at the shopping center, Kim went off to spend and I went round to Arches to type. I also got talking to the barman Michael and the owner Graeme, nice guys.
It offers the ideal place for Ayrshire internet home workers to go and offers another option to sitting in the spare bedroom or into front of the TV. Before Arches had opened I used to go to Beanscene, the coffee and the nachos are good but they charge for WiFi. I’ll need to convince the guys at Arches to include nachos to the menu, serve coffee in mugs and it’ll be the better than an office.
Try it out!
With the current postal strikes damaging small businnesses everyone is looking for a resonablily priced alternative.
Could Tesco provide it?
This isn’t as pie in the sky as you may think.
Tesco have a store close to everyone that could be used as a collection point, they already have transportation between stores and hubs and the key to the operations, there home delivery service could double as a post delivery service.
It’s not as crazy as you may think, I’m sure Tesco would love to have a service where they could advertise directly into every home, maybe they could make people use Tesco envelopes, blue and white strips of course.
Any other thought are welcome.
As you will see in my previous post there is no alternative to the Royal Mail, although it’s not looking fit for a queen at the moment.
I’ve been back in Scotland (Ayrshire) for slightly over a year now and I must say that when I arrived back I never expected there to be as much SEO/Online Marketing activity as there is.
Firstly when I joined Equator in Glasgow around February I had the great pleasure of meeting the techie geek Michael Briggs, it was great to meet a code/server side SEO guy to compliment my sell, sell, sell style of SEO, even better news was that the two of us would be working together on most projects for Equators clients.
Michael persisted that I get a blog many times, but he always got the same answer “Blogs are crap, how do you sell stuff on them?” After a while he convinced me that it’s all about the community and meeting similar like minded people. The first step for me was to setup this wordpress blog and sit around thinking of something to write, now the idea’s are flowing for mini networks and niche social networks ( I’ll hopefully launch my first niche social network in January 2008) and for someone with a “Sell First” attitude to everything online it was easy for me to find way to monetize social networks in a non intrusive manner which many social networks have failed to do in the past.
The people you meet via blogs, linkedin and mybloglog are simply amazing. Who would have known that one of the best affiliate marketeers comes from Girvan in South Ayrshire and that there was another SEO guy from Kilwinning (where I’m originally from) I’m still surprised that they have broadband in Kilwinning.
Along the way I have also meet some interesting Scottish SEO people and learned new ways of doing things that I’d just never thought of before and would probably never have thought of.
It’s a growing community, maybe someone should build a social network for it. Opps! There’s another idea.
The BreakDown
On Saturday 4th August I had the unpleasent experiance of my car breaking down 20 miles from home on a motorway. As I sat in the broken down vehicle I didn’t looked stressed or nervous, why, because I’ve been paying for a rescue service that I got included in my latest car insurance deal from Churchill.
The super deal I got on rescue cover was provided by Greenflag and I recieved 10% off at the time of taking this rescue cover package which costs only £109 a year.
As I travel from Ayrshire to Glasgow everyday it was important for me to be covered. The last thing I want to happen is my car breaking down on the M74.
So, I phoned the “Breakdown in the UK” number provided to me and with my policy number in hand I wait on the automated messages to finish so I tell the nice person on the other end of the phone my problem and they’d have a tow truck sent out in a flash to rescue me.
Finally,
Greenflag “Hi, Have you broken down” echoed through the phone to my delight.
Me “Yes,Sir” I anwsered back. Great we’ll be on our way soon.
Then things started to turn a little pear shaped.
Greenflag “Sir, Can I have your postcode?” Postcode provided.
Greenflag “Sir, There’s no policy at that postcode” Eh!
Greenflag “Sir, What’s your vehicle registration?” Registration provided
Greenflag “Sir, There’s no policy for that vehicle” Eh!
Greenflag”Sir, What’s your full name, address and postcode?” Provided,
Ok now I’m panicking, it’s really raining as it does in Scotland and I don’t know the telephone number of any garages. That’s because I have piece of mind with my Greenflag rescue cover.
Greenflag “Sir, We have no details for your name, address, postcode or vehicle, did you get your cover from Churchill?” Yes, I did, why, wait, I have the policy number of the insurance and the rescue cover package. Provided,
Greenflag “Sir, We have no policy for that, Can I transfer you to Churchill they can sort this out for you?” Ok, After listening to about 10 minutes of automated messages about car insurance fraud I was then notified and mortified that,
Churchill “The chuchill offices are now closed please call back………” Now panick has set in.
A quick call to one of those 118 numbers and I was transfered to a local breakdown company, the phone the rung once, explained my problem, breakdown truck arrived prompty and £180 was withdrawn from my wallet to pay the nice man.
The Fraud
So now it’s Monday morning and time to call Churchill to find out why they’ve been withdrawning money from my bank account every month and not providing the service that I’m paying for. In most cases this would be a form of fraud, wouldn’t it?
Firstly, I got talking to Tim at Churchill, nice guy, understood my problem (which I thought was strange, getting many phone calls accusing you of fraud Tim?) details given, I was told I had cover but they’d pass the buck to Greenflag and off I was to Greenflag, I’d provide the name of the customer services agent but I wasn’t given one. My problem explained again, why have I been paying your company evey month and the one time I need to use it no one could find my account details. The anwser was short and sharp “Send us the reciept and we’ll reimburse you for the tow truck at £180, and look into paying you back for the 3 months cover that I wasn’t getting” Great I thought, pay £109 for a years cover and get £180 back, sounds like a good deal. The girl was nice and again understood my issues and would look into it, but my account is there alive and kicking and you won’t get that problem again.
After I came off the call something was still bothering me. The girl mentioned that there was far to many telephone numbers and she’d be unable to track who handled my call.
What if when I called the customer support number they could find my account and when I called the rescue number they couldn’t find my account, what a great scam that would be.
So, off out to the car and back in the house with the rescue number for Greenflag 0800 400 665.
Green Flag “Hi, Thanks for Calling Greenflag, how my I help you”
Me “Hi, My cars broken down”
Green Flag “What’s your postcode”
Me “KA* ***”
Green Flag “I’m sorry Sir but nothing is coming up” I’ve heard this before.
Me “Ok, I’m calling to confirm that you actually have my details as I called on Saturday and nothing was found and when I called customer support 5 minutes ago they said my account was there and setup ok, what’s going on”
Greenflag “Can I have your vehicle registration”
Me “Ok, *********”
Greenflag “Ah!, there’s your account, can you provided your name and address”
Me “Why, don’t you already have it, it should be in my account information”
Greenflag “We need to confirm it’s the correct account”
Me “Ok, Boydie, Ayrshire”
Greenflag “Sir, your account is here and setup ok, it appears that there’s a space in your postcode and that’s why it didn’t show up.” I thought all postcodes had a space in the middle, strange but by this stage the girl was sounding stressed and I really didn’t want to spend any more tim on it.
Me “OK, thanks, bye”
So, what do I make of this, are Greenflag finding my account when I call customer service but losing my details when it comes to actually attending my breakdown.
Has anyone else had similiar problems?
Blogged with Flock
Recent Comments