PATRICIA VAN ROOYEN - CEO IN A MILLION

Dear Consumers,

Patricia van Rooyen

          Have you ever had much joy trying to lodge a complaint directly with a Chief Executive Officer of a large company? Well in my limited experience even if you are able to get their direct email address the chances are they won’t answer you.

          Your inquiry will tumble down the line to some lesser minion.

          That’s exactly what happened when I emailed Maria Ramos (Absa's Star), the CEO of the giant Barclays Africa Group that includes Absa Bank, about a problem I was having getting a refund when my credit card was scammed.

          Perhaps you think I’m being unreasonable but my feeling is that as Maria made her personal email address (maria.ramos@absa.co.za) available to the likes of me she should have answered my emails personally. Either that or she should have ensured that her personal email address was not available to ordinary bank clients like me.

          Patricia van Rooyen on the other hand is a very different, special CEO when it comes to customer service. She heads the M-net pay television’s Sub-Sahara region.

I accept that the M-net is a good bit smaller than the banking empire that Maria heads even if M-net does stretch across Africa, but I don’t think that invalidates my point.

          As an M-net subscriber I have raised several matters with Patricia in the past and she has always replied to my emails almost instantly and my problems have been sorted out quickly.

          So when I saw a disturbing report in The Times by that ace consumer journalist Wendy Knowler I sent this email to Patricia.   

      “I was appalled to read in Wendy Knowler’s column in The Times today that Multichoice (part of M-net) is doing its best to force subscribers to buy new decoders by not repairing or replacing old ones. Talk about an unscrupulous business practice. Loyal subscribers like myself, who have been with Multichoice for something like 20 years could find themselves forced to buy a new decoder by this deplorable business practice. How many people would buy something that might need to be repaired in the future if they were told this might not happen? How long will it be before this make money at all costs firm decides that it’s time to drum up more business by not repairing the decoders that people are being forced to buy now? Just because M-net/Multichoice have got a virtual monopoly it’s no excuse for treating customers like dirt to be milked and then discarded, just to try and make more and more money. It’s customer relations at its worst.”

          This was Patricia’s reply: “Allow me to put some perspective on the matter. All hardware and software technology changes and improves over time. This applies to cellphones, laptops, PCs etc. A decoder is no different. It is very unlikely that if I have a Nokia cellphone that is 10 years old, and I take it in for repairs that anyone will be able to repair it – as the parts will probably not be available. They will tell me to rather buy a new phone; it will be cheaper to buy a new phone anyway. So – in a nutshell – there are simply some very old models of decoders that we can no longer support. They have a lifespan, and at some point they become redundant.

          “When Microsoft tells their customers it is time for an upgrade of software no-one complains. Yet, if you had a PC that was 10 years old you would not be able to upgrade your Microsoft. The software and the hardware must both be upgraded for the software to work. The new decoder software will simply not work on old decoders. We really don’t have any intention of treating our customers badly – on the contrary we want them to have great viewing experience, hence upgrades in both software and hardware are necessary so our viewers can have great features like Box Office, catch up, remote record and, and, and.

          “Maybe our problem is that we don’t explain ourselves well. Maybe we should tell our customers that the life span of a decoder is approximately 6 years and then it will need to be replaced. We make no money on the sale of decoders. In fact we subsidise the price to try and make them more affordable. So every single decoder we sell costs us money.”

          “Not sure if I make sense, but that really is the situation.”

          I replied thanking her for the explanation and getting another of her executives to clarify some other questions I had.

          BUT THE REAL POINT OF THIS POST IS THIS. MY INITIAL EMAIL TO HER WAS SENT ON TUESDAY AUGUST 25 AT 12:14 AM.

          SHE REPLIED AT 10.18 PM ON THE SAME DAY SAYING “SORRY I AM ONLY GETTING BACK TO YOU NOW.”

          YOU KNOW WHERE PATRICIA, WHO IS BASED IN JOHANNESBURG, WAS – IN LAGOS, WEST AFRICA.

          NOW THAT’S SERVICE FOR YOU.

          Regards,

          Jon, the Consumer Watchdog who believes in praising the good as well as taking the bad to task.

P.S. In my final email to her I added: “I am sure this will never be necessary as I will be gone long before you, but if it happens the other way round your efficiency is such that if I sent you an email you would answer it from heaven.”