Category: Service

Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 18, 2017
No Comments on Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

I reposted this simply as I have a good friend who works at Blue Apron.

I have a huge amount of respect for Amazon and what it does. From a retailer of on line books that once advertised it had 1m titles to a retailer that seems to cover almost all areas of commerce through to a cloud computing company and now a fresh food store, Amazon does it and seemingly does it well. All with amazing customer service.

Most businesses will admit to prioritising certain aspects of their business based on an argument that it is impossible to do and pay for everything that is needed. While I am sure Amazon prioritises aspects of its business it is fair to say that from a customers perspective you don’t tend to see the impact of this.

And that is a sign of a good business.

Blue Apron has an Amazon problem. Two weeks before the meal-kit company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, Amazon inked a deal to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. One week after the IPO, Amazon Technologies, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, registered a trademark in the US for the phrase, “We do the prep.…

via Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Tags Amazon, Blue Apron, Business, change, Communication, Leadership

People Service

Yes they’re free – of course you can’t have them…..Sir

Post author By The Burble....
Post date November 28, 2016
No Comments on Yes they’re free – of course you can’t have them…..Sir

Sometimes the way this country works leaves me baffled. While many things in the UK are clearly better than they used to be; Measles outbreaks, Cooking programs on TV (anyone for Fanny Cradock – a dry bird?) and Chelsea FC, many things have carried on exactly as before.

And anything that is free or involves a form simply hasn’t changed at all.

This week found me at my local Doctors surgery to obtain a repeat prescription. Apparently to stop my head falling off or something similar its important that I have some medicine. And since I left the UK the process has improved no end; now you can have a repeat prescription automatically filled by a pharmacist. Simple really. You get your prescription, log it at the chemist and the go along at the appropriate time and pick up the drugs. Its funny that even a sentence with the word drugs in it sounds naughty – I must be really getting old.

Anyhow as with all good systems it works by a combination of electronics and forms. Tghe pharmacy sends a request to the doctor and they authorise it. Simple. Except it isn’t.

Normally the pharmacy text me when they have the prescription but in this case having received nothing I went to the surgery and then onto the pharmacy. The surgery confirmed they had done what they needed to and I should go to the pharmacist. Which I did.

The pharmacy confirmed that the drugs (cue shiver again) had been approved but they didn’t have the ‘form’.

‘So that’s good its been approved’

‘yes’

‘So I can have the drugs?’

‘No – we haven’t got the form’

‘What form?’

‘The one the surgery printed off – they need to send it to us.’

‘But you have it approved on the system?’

‘yes but now the surgery have printed off a the form we actually need to see it – even though we can see its been approved on the system’

So we go round this a couple more times and of course I give up. There is nothing quite like a process in the UK for being both designed to withstand a nuclear war and completely useless if you need it to work. Which brings me back to biscuits.

My first run in with officialdom and processes that make no sense came in the early 80’s on a British Rail train. This was a time when a tea trolley still made its way up and down the train and it was from such a trolley that I ordered a cup of something warm and brown that claimed to be tea and asked for some bourbon creams.

‘Oh I am sorry sir you see their free so you can’t have them’

‘pardon’

‘you see their free sir – so obviously I can’t give them to you’

‘if I paid for them would that make a difference?’

‘well no sir, as i said they’re free’

Which after a while I realised meant that they were free in business class but not for me. I can see why we British Rail never made any money. And so I sat back drank my tea and dreamed of free biscuits. I think it was this incident that led me to try that little bit harder to travel in business as much as I can. Eventually the tea trolley came back down the train and I saw that the bourbons remained unclaimed. Surely now they would be mine.

No apparently they were still free and thus not available, even if I wanted to pay for them.

You can be sure of something in the UK. You cannot beat either a form or a process. And some things never change…

And I know the picture has nothing to do with the blog but as its cold and dark you can never beat a picture form Koh Samui.

Tags biscuits, bourbon, bourbons, Business, forms, London, medicine, places, society, train, Travel

Buildings and Places Change Customers People Service

Back to the Future

In the film Back to the Future Marty McFly is blasted back to 1955 running the risk that whatever he does will affect his future. And of course this being Hollywood all works out in the end. So much so that 2 more films were made in the series. Its one of the most enjoyable trilogies I’ve watched.

In the film you can see linkages between the future and the past but a definite change between the two. The future is definitely ahead of the past. Which to be honest isn’t the way I’ve found coming back to the UK. The country seems to have got stuck.

I should probably provide some support for my conjecture. Well firstly the transport system really hasn’t changed that much at all. The trains are overcrowded and still have no air-conditioning. And people don’t talk to each other (indeed go out of their way not to talk to anyone at all) so the whole process is one of the least enjoyable features of being back in the UK.

Now lets talk about 4G. The mobile phone network of choice for most countries around the world. In the UK the phone network is simply bad. And I have heard many different excuses. Apparently London has too many high buildings which is actually doesn’t. And in any event I give you Hong Kong. A country and a city that has nothing other than tall buildings and a 4G network that works – works so well in fact that almost everyone is watching video on their phone, continuously. It also has its own Tardis

So if it isn’t about the size of the buildings the second excuse is that the network is simply too busy. Which implies that the people who build the networks simply have no idea how many people want to use their phones. I can’t quite believe that as the people who run the networks seem perfectly able to produce adverts to sign up new users. Thus presumably slowing down their networks even further.

Well at least the UK now has a number of Polish builders so hiring a builder must have got better. Well I am sure it has got better if your landlord uses a Polish builder. If they don’t well believe me nothing has changed in the 7 years I’ve been out of the UK. Appointment times are randomly adhered to, work is fudged, covered over or simply not done. So nothing changes there.

And despite all the excuses I can only assume that the leaders of businesses big and small simply don’t care to much. And being British we don’t complain or do anything about it.Which is what being British is all about. Don’t take too much care, and don’t complain.

I always knew it would take time to settle in and I am pretty sure there are things that have moved forward. The internet for example, if you don’t want to use your phone too much, is quick and works well. The council services in Greenwich have been excellent, and I mean excellent, which I wouldn’t have thought possible and food is definitely a better proposition here than in the US and Hong Kong.

I’ll get past the angst about the UK at some point. Probably the sooner the better…

Tags Back to the Future, Builder, Business, Greenwich, People, Travel, UK

Change People Risk Service

Why should you be talking about Driverless Cars?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date September 19, 2015
No Comments on Why should you be talking about Driverless Cars?

Back to a theme of mine that I have blogged about before – Self Driving Cars. I am fascinated by the fact that people can see a time when you won’t need a steering wheel in a car and you’ll be able to get into a car and sit back and do anything you want. I can see a revolution coming in how people get around, work and interact with each other. With society relying so much on the car any change in how it works is going to have a profound affect.

In a small way Hanoi represents the future of the car. Last weekend found me and my family in a taxi trying to get from the airport to the hotel in the French Quarter of Hanoi. My son cheerfully described Hanoi as like Milton Keynes until we got into the center of the town which he then described as mayhem. In two years Hanoi has gone from a city that is all motorbikes to one that is being overrun with cars. And unlike bikes cars in Hanoi don’t swerve around you. And the point here is that cars being driven by computer, or robot depending on your view point, are much more likely to stop or steer round you than crash making towns and cities a much better place in the future.

Autonomous cars are coming and while there will be a long period of time before they come into their own there is one question we need to ask. Will they work?

Tags auto, autonomous, Business, car, change, Daimler, driverless car, future, Google, Google Maps, Hanoi, society, Tesla, vehicles

Customers Service

My passport? O que?

I have mentioned in a few postings how much I value speed of service and how some organizations put so much effort into making things simple and efficient. So it came as somewhat of a surprise to me to be writing this blog as a result of being refused entry to a country and being put on a boat back to Hong Kong; oh and at the same time abandoning my children to their fates.

Tags Business, Customers, Hong Kong, Macau, service, Travel