Thursday, November 17, 2016

Bus Stop Notice


At Tsawwassen ferry terminal there are notices that say fares must be purchased before boarding the bus.



However, the notices are not properly placed; I always see people confused and have to be told by the driver they have buy a ticket from a vending machine before they are boarding. The problem is the notices are not at the eye level but low, close to the ground, so people don't see them. 





One of the notices should be hanged to the pole with the bus number and schedule as this is the first place, someone who has not taken the bus before would go to for information.  



The answer I received from Translink when I told them about this: Thank you for your recent feedback, we have registered your comments with Translink.

Will they do something? Let's see.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Grocery Stores Receipts (Thrifty Foods vs. Whole Foods vs. Superstore)


Thrifty Foods got it right, a very small receipt that economically uses both sides.
I was very disappointed with Whole Foods', the back side was blank, such a waste. I'd bought identical products so instead having each one printed out I'd have thought they'd be shown only once with 2 X in front (i.e two of them), but now I am not so sure whether anyone does this, but food for thought (pun intended).
Superstore's was slightly better, at least they had on the back of the receipt some information.



Friday, November 11, 2016

McDonald's Survey vs. Tangerine Survey

McDonald's



Free medium fries and a drink for a 10 minutes survey, of course I did it.


Anyway in the end I was left with a bitter taste. This what the coupon said: 


The free medium fries and drink was free only if you bought a sandwich.

Should I complain that they should have mentioned this on the receipt? Nah, too much complaining. 
I won't bother with any McDonald's surveys in the future.

Tangerine


15-20 minutes to complete the survey, and no reward whatsoever! I did not bother.

I still remember when I got a survey in the mail from RBC with a $2 coin in the envelope. Of course I filled out the survey and mailed it (postage was paid as well).

And this is how it should be done:


Monday, November 7, 2016

"Weology is the guidebook for the modern CEO"

“At turns humble and brilliant, practical and inspirational, Weology is the guidebook for the modern CEO. I’m going to send one to each of my CEO clients—and urge them to buy copies for the entire staff!” (Ted CoinĂ©, co-author of A World Gone Social and CMO of Meddle.it)

“Peter Aceto is an unusual CEO. Employees don’t work for him, they work with him. He’s also an unusual leader. His team members don’t follow him, they join him. . . . We need more like him.” (David Chilton, author of The Wealthy Barber and former Dragon on CBC’s Dragons’ Den)


I very much enjoyed the book. However, I am still puzzled by the difference between practice and theory.

Employees
Employees are an important part of any company (more important than its' customers some say) and as expected this subject is treated at length in the book. Based on what I’d read I would have thought Tangerine is among the best places to work in Canada. But it isn’t .

'Canada’s Top 100 Employers' doesn’t list Tangerine. However, the other banks like RBC, TD, CIBC are in the list!
Also Glasdoor ratings show:
RBC - 3.7
TD - 3.7
Tangerine - 3.5
BMO - 3.5.

IT
I’d have expected for a bank that “lives” online not to have so many bugs (mortgage and my main banking accounts are with Tangerine). I kept pointing them out to the Customer Service - I have been doing software QA most of my professional life so I keep seeing bugs everywhere :) - but I’d lost my interest after my inquiry a few months later after my “reporting”, whether they’d be be fixed and I was told something along the lines that there are other priorities and this makes sense, I mean the bugs I’ve noticed weren’t so important. After all I still managed to open a business account with Tangerine despite some issues I'd encountered, many people would have given up, but these kind of people wouldn’t have tried to open a business account in the first place, they’d have chosen a traditional bank.


So how come what Peter Aceto preaches, and not only, but practices also (i.e. he writes about real things, what’s been doing and implementing as CEO at ING Direct/Tangerine) doesn’t seem to yield different results to the competition? I don’t know, otherwise I’d be a management consultant and write at least one best seller.


And an interesting fact I'd learned from the book; Peter Aceto’s father needed to take his BMW series 7 to the garage so he went with him. While waiting they struck up a conversation with a man who talked about his vision of a new, different kind of bank, a bank that would change banking forever. This man was Arkadi Kuhlmann, the founder of ING Direct (currently Tangerine). Peter Aceto later contacted him, and offered his services as he wanted to part of the vision. He got hired, and as they say the rest is history.

This made me think; I should have bought a Tesla instead of a Honda Fit. With a Honda I’ll never find myself in a similar situation.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

BMO InvestorLine - respond within 2 business days



It seemed very "courageous" for BMO to state they'll respond within 2 business days. And they didn't. However, I'd expected to get an automated reply along the line: "Due to the high volume ... ". But I didn't get this either, so I suggested BMO implement an automated reply.

And they thanked me for the feedback. I was very surprised BMO (one of the big 5 Canadian banks) doesn't already have this system.

I would also like to thank you for your feedback on receiving an automated message when there is a delay in response time, and also apologize for the delay. Your feedback will definitely be provided to senior management for consideration. 

Let's see what the senior management will decide :). I should follow up with them next year.