Mr Feedback

Service Central
I have known about Service Central for some time now, but have not had the need to use them. The idea is novel, and works. I need some help installing my home theatre system, and we are planning to renovate the kitchen. I decided to try it out yesterday.

Response time
Service Central state response times are within 24 hours. In my case, the home theatre system guy responded within 30 minutes. I am not kidding. The kitchen renovation guy responded the next afternoon.

Ease of use
The website is incredibly easy to use. I signed up last night. Posting jobs is easy enough, took me < 2minutes.

Cost
For service providers, there is a registration fee of approximately $300 (they do have specials from time to time). I believe this is a once off fee (not entirely sure). Not sure why it is so expensive. The operating cost of the site can’t be terribly high.

Gripes
It is annoying not being able to contact the service providers internally within the site. It should be easy enough to have a messaging interface (similar to eBay where you can message any other user) within Service Central. This will reduce cost for the providers, not having to call the customer. They can even integrate Skype, and/or text message system easily.

Suggestions
What would really be cool and very good for customers is to have a reverse auction system once all providers have given the quote. That way the customer can choose the cheapest provider. This needs a great deal of thought but will work well once implemented. They can extend the site to allow online appointment bookings for quotes, and provider specials.

Summary
I have been calling up a few people for quotes for the jobs I posted on Service Central. If this works out well (and so far it has), I hope to be using Service Central for all my renovations. Highly recommend this to friends and family.

After 2 months of waiting, I finally received my HD Bonus from Panasonic the other day. Excited. I haven’t opened it yet, just haven’t had the time to see how the things work. My bonus gift was the Blu Ray Home Theatre System. I was one of the lucky ones who scrapped through for the gifts and got it reserved on back order.

If you don’t know what I am rambling on about, check this out. Panasonic HD Bonus Promotion.

I am pretty impressed with Panasonic so far. They said it will take 8 weeks, and spot on they were right. Their website is also very useful, and had up to date information. I know some others may differ with their views, but in my experience it has been a pleasant one.

Panasonic initially had the Wii promotion, and then brought out this promotion. Pretty tough to beat! I believe both promotions have now ended.

I would be interested to hear how everyone else’s HD bonus gift is working and what they got, and what their experiences have been. Comment below.

Thanks to the flip flop by the Victorian Government some years ago on tolls for Eastlink, I was forced to get a Breeze account which operates East Link in Melbourne. It is definitely cheaper than City Link, but once I signed up I have been posted a package full of information which I already knew from the sign up process. Which begs the question, why the hell does East Link waste so much money giving me (and thousands of other Victorians) the same information in hard copy form which is already available on their very informative website.

Upon sign up, I was emailed a confirmation and then my credit card as promptly deducted the base charge of $40 in tolls. One of the best things about East Link is, you do not need to wait for your tag before using the roads and if you have a tag account you will not pay the image processing fee. I thought this was quite good.

But on day 4 of customer hood, I got a package with the tag, and on day 5 I got another package with my account information along with colourful booklets about East Link. These were titled:
* EastLink Guide with toll prices (gigantic map of highways in Melbourne) – like Google maps didn’t have this info!
* Breeze Account Guide (18 pages)
* Customer service ageement (17 pages)

My question is why? All of this information (that too in colour), and more is available from EastLink and Breeze websites. Yeah sure today’s business is all about customer service and keeping the customer informed but this is just an utter waste of money. Make it paperless, save tress, and pass on the savings to customers!

Store
Optus Yes Shop
Shop 113, Forest Hill Shopping Centre
270 Canterbury Rd
Forest Hill, VIC 3131
Tel: (03) 8804 6900

When you visit this store (which is a franchise) be sure to ask for Matt. I recently went there to get the Optus Broadband + Home bundle package. Matt was extremely helpful in these ways:
* Very clear about the pricing
* Knew the answers to all of my questions (I also tested his knowledge because some answers I knew as well)
* Knew the product really well
* Was not pushy to sign me up

However this is what I expect from any customer service consultant. Here is how Matt excelled:
* He said it may take 2 weeks to get the broadband cable installed, but rang within 1 hr to confirm installation within 2 days
* He struck a deal with Optus (without me asking) to waive the land line connection fee of $55
* He obtained a tel number for me straight away

So far I have had my dealings with Optus, a large part of them negative. You can read about my Optus rant here! There were rare moments of surprise. Almost all of my dealings with Optus was via the phone with some dude sitting on the side of the planet. This just annoys me.

I was quite surprised to received such great service from Optus. Maybe the franchise issue has something to do with it, but I hope Matt and Optus Forest Hill keep up their customer service.

I am getting my broadband installed tomorrow, and hopefully things go smoothly.

With all the fuss about interest rates and how much banks make per year, I was astounded to find there is a cancellation fee of $20 for Home/Contents insurance with CommInsure. Having only signed up some 6 months ago, I was not told about this fee. I found a cheaper quote from another insurance provider and took the offer.

It’s interesting how Commonwealth Bank deals with customers who no longer want their products. I have so far saved about $45 per month on insurance products with AAMI when compared to CommInsure.

Considering how much money these bank executives make, to charge a cancellation fee for insurance products is deplorable to say the least.

Have a beef with a bank, comment below.

I don’t usually review latest technology products, as this blog is not designed for such occurrences. However with the latest announcement of the Apple iPad, I thought I will make a few salient points.

Point to note: I have not reviewed it, I have not used it, I have not seen it. My post is based on other people’s written/video reviews, and experiences. Other people who have a little bit more knowledge about technology than me, however I hope to provide a consumer aspect to this by relating to how I would use it (if I had one).

2009: Having been an avid fan of Windows operating system and PC rather than Apple’s equivalent I decided to give way and but an Apple iPhone 3GS. It transformed by day to day life. The phone feature is pretty mundane, and there is nothing special about it. However, the rest of the iPhone is simply brilliant. I use it every day, keep in touch with News, Stock, Facebook, Videos, Photos and much more more. I cannot stress how much I enjoy using it, and I take my hat off to Apple and Steve Jobs who were responsible for such a wonderful creation.

Having said this, I still think Windows is a more practical operating system and PCs are better than an Mac book pro, or Air or whatever else Apple calls it.

Unfortunately for Apple, my love for their product stops there. Their new iPad is not a super tablet as Steve Jobs made it out to be in his much hyped announcement a few days ago. Here are my problems with it from a consumer point of view, and why it won’t be as useful as my iPhone even (In his announcement, Steve claims the iPad is better are many things when compared to a smart phone, or Notebook so I will be phrasing my opinion surrounding this statement)!

1. The name: There has been much fun poked at the name, and I suspect a lot of women find those comments offensive (even though some women think it’s a great name!). Why is it OK to say “notepad”, but not “iPad”? But there were better options out there such as: “iSlate” or “iTablet”. A slate is a small blackboard used in many developing countries, so “iSlate” would have complemented the huge advances we have made in technology when compared to 30 years ago. Steve is wrong!
2. No camera: This is just stupid. No camera means you cannot take photos, or use internet video calling software such as Skype. I use Skype every day on my notebook/laptop, so why would I buy a tablet computer if I cannot do that. Steve is wrong!
3. No multi-tasking: This is a no-brainer. Right now, I am checking news and stocks while I am typing this post. I can’t do that on the iPad. This is also an annoyance on the iPhone and I hate that aspect of it. Steve is wrong!
4. No USB or HDMI: My laptop/notebook has both of these connectors. I use it every single day. I connect my laptop to my TV and share photos with visitors when I hold a party. It’s the best way to share. I also display all movies I watch onto my TV. These cannot be done on the iPad. What’s the point of watching high definition video on a 9 inch screen? Steve is wrong!
5. No GPS support: The iPad has Google Maps, but no GPS. What’s the point? Yet again, I am perplexed to find that even the basic feature of the iPhone is not included in the iPad.
6. iBooks only US based: Why treat other countries as pariahs? Don’t we also deserve to use the iPad as an e-reader. After all, isn’t that what Steve is using to sell the so called “cool” product.
7. Restricted to iTunes: Apple has a business concept tied to the iPhone, and iPad. The App store, iTunes and now iBooks. Restricting consumers to these features just annoys people. I think Apple has to set the tone by allowing people to add third party applications from other online stores, and eventually other companies will follow.
8. No 3G support: Do you expect me to only use the iPad within the house. Defeats the purpose! Sure,this is one thing I cannot do on my laptop/notebook but nor can the iPad.

Reading online reviews about the iPad, there are plenty more reason “why the iPad sucks?” as one article put it, but a lot of the other reasons don’t really apply to me. For now, I will be sticking to my laptop however I think Apple will hit back with the next generation iPad with all these features. By then, people will find something else to complain about.

One of the things I find hard to grasp is, the iPad doesn’t even have some of the basic features we take for granted in a laptop/notebook. If Steve wants to promote the iPad saying “it can do things better than a laptop”, he better have a better product to put forward next time he takes centre stage because a lot of what he was showing off during the announcement I already have my beloved iPhone 3GS!

Baby Bunting – East Bentleigh
669 Warrigal Road
East Bentleigh, VIC 3165
Tel: (03) 9575 4444
Fax: (03) 9563 7511

Baby Bunting is probably one of the best stores out there for all things baby. Surprisly, all things baby means all things expensive. How can smaller clothes, small plastic toys, and baby related bedding be so expensive. It’s simple, they play on parents emotions which is why I got sucked into buying an enormous amount from Baby Bunting. The shopping experience was pleasant, however there are a few things I find very annoying.

The service
We have been to several baby stores in and around SE Melbourne, and found Baby Bunting (Bentleigh) to have all the products under the one roof. They also have a 3 month layby service which is useful if you are buying plenty of items and racking up the bill. We took pretty much a whole day to do our shopping, which demanded a personalised shopping assistant. Baby Bunting is one of the few stores that offers this service. A customer service lady accompanied us the whole day explaining each and every product, and dissecting out our questions. It seems she knew most things, however did slip up on a few occasions. We didn’t expect her to know everything, but overall the service was admirable.

It started to get a bit annoying when I sensed she was starting to feed on our paranoia and baby ignorance by recommending products we didn’t need, such as the specific nappy disposal unit. Sure it might be useful, but certainly not a necessity by any means. I caught onto this and stayed stern towards the end of the day. We did blow our budget significantly, but hey – its for the baby, so it’s worth it.

The price
Don’t expect Baby Bunting to be the cheapest place out there because it is NOT. We found prices for most products were competitively priced, however there are price exaggerations around. We found cheaper play toys, gyms, clothes, bedding, and cots at other places such as: Babies R Us, Baby Co, Babies Galore however because Baby Bunting sold all things under the 1 roof we stuck with our choice and paid that little bit extra. Also the 3 month laybe helped us in terms of meeting our costs in time.

The annoying things I mentioned earlier…

* Admirable that they have a 3 month interest free laybe system, however you can only take the products you have paid for. They really should have a 12 or 24 month interest free terms for purchase prices above a certain range similar to electronics stores. This allows for people to budget for the products, and also buy a lot more at once which will benefit Baby Bunting anyway.

* Each time you pay for your layby you are given a receipt with outstanding amounts due, but not given a receipt for items you have taken home. This puts the onus on the buyer to keep track of what they have taken home, and what is still left at the store. When you buy a few items, this task is easy but when you buy several items (like in our situation) it became a bit of a nightmare. It is is really annoying for the customer. Perhaps an online, or even an email system will help customer’s keep track relatively easily.

* The delivery service is subcontracted out to King’s who further subcontracts to an private individual who delivers using a van. The buyer must help during the delivery process. Now, they deliver mostly on weekdays, and customers are usually working with their pregnant wives at work or at home (so they can’t help, i.e.: they’re pregnant, they are buying baby products – hint hint!!). It’s really annoying how they charge for the delivery but yet ask for the customer’s physical help to unload the van. This is my view is very poor practice!!

* The phone number for the East Bentleigh store rings out after only a few rings, and often cuts out with an “unreachable” message. This is super annoying when you ring after 10am which is their busiest or even on weekends. Their phone system needs an upgrade.

The delivery
Despite clearly booking the delivery on a certain date, it was delivered to our home almost 2 weeks early. The guy rang me to ask me where I was, and I told him I wasn’t expecting the delivery today. This was a bit annoying because he asked if he could leave it outside the house. WHAT? I was a few hundred km away, so was in no way prepared to have expensive items left outside the house (in the rain too!). Silly question from his part!

The botched bassinet
It turned out the bassinnet which I assembled and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why it was slanted, did in fact have a manufacturing defect. I promptly returned it for a brand new bassinnet (these aren’t easy to assemble either).

Summary - 7 / 10 (service as impressive, but annoyances are a major downside to the experience!)
I would recommend Baby Bunting you want those small products, or want to buy everything in 1 shop. I would certainly recommend if you want variety because Baby Bunting has it all, but don’t go there if you want a bargain because you WILL be disappointed.

Store
Khatti’s Curry Lounge
245 York Street
Sale, VIC 3860
Tel: (03) 5144 6422

Having recently moved to Sale for work purposes, I can’t get enough of this restaurant in the town of Sale. The food is explosive, and very reasonably priced. I have been addicted to it since I moved here, and will sadly miss it when I head back to Melbourne next year.

The food
Having been there a number of times, and ordering take aways several other times I can honestly say the quality is excellent. This restaurant competes very well with some of the best Indian restaurants in Melbourne. I can’t believe such a gem is hidden in Central Gippsland. If you are a Melbournian and are around Sale, its definitely worth a try.

My favourite is definitely the Paneer Makhani. The tangy taste which hits you a few seconds after you ingest it is incredible. It’s a taste party! Similar the tandoori chicken is a favourite among non-vegatarians.

The service
Nothing to complain about here. The ambience is also pretty average but who cares when you have such great tasting food. I have been to various Indian restaurants in Melbourne which have much better ambience, decore’ but have absolutely cr-p food!

The price
Their takeaway packages are a real hit, and very affordable. I don’t know how they manage to turn a profit. For $35 you get a vegatarian meal for 2, which will last you two separate meals each. Their eat in prices are also very affordable, and appropriately priced. 10 people can eat there heartily for around $250 dollars all up, which comes to $25 per person which is great.

Summary – Hidden gem in the heart of Central Gippsland (9.5/10)
I highly recommend this restaurant to all those in Sale, and tourists in the area. A hidden gem indeed!

Clive Peeters are hosting their VIP customer invitational only sale in December. You need to ring up your local Clive Peeters dealer and register your interest to attend this night.

It is a one night only event where they are guaranteeing all products at cost price + 5% across their range. It’s a good saving if the product you want is not already heavily discounted.

I got my invitation recently, however I have already secured a great deal at Clive Peeters for some electronics but if you are looking for a bargain then it’s a great opportunity. Snacks and beverages will be provided on the night.

Note: there is not much out there about this sale on the internet.

On a random visit to Kmart, I noticed lights, camera, action at their Cranbourne store. Not sure exactly what was happening, but there were twice as many customer service staff with yellow pads roaming around the store. The TV crew interview a few staff members, and some customers as well. Not sure what it was about, perhaps a Kmart commercial or some public relation affairs.

I don’t usually shop at Kmart, but they do have some good deals occasionally. For cheap stuff I usually go to Big W. Target seems to be the most expensive out of the middle class mart stores.

I wonder if similar sights were witnessed at other Victorian Kmart stores? Leave your comments.