This week I was lucky enough to be able to pop down to Herne Bay and see an old friend of mine Katy, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl only two weeks ago and my wife and I went down to say hello and welcome her to the world.
It was a beautiful sunny day and the drive down was pleasant if a tad long so we arrived in good spirits, ok I had to ring for directions once or twice but at least we got there.
Baby Abigail is lovely and her mum Katy looks like she hasn’t even had a baby, M was quite jealous of her figure, we sat and had tea and as it was lunchtime we went to eat at a small restaurant in the town.
Greensteds Family Restaurant in William St served us all a very pleasant luncheon and the service was excellent, owned by a Turkish Cypriot family they were attentive without being overbearing and I could tell from the state of business that this was not unusual, isn’t it funny that businesses that give good customer service always seem to be busy?
Businesses that give good customer service always seem to be busy.
We chatted over lunch and then decided to go for a walk down to the beach, as we passed the car I noticed a ticket on the windscreen, now you can imagine I was a little surprised, when I had parked I looked hard for any restrictions and having received a ticket you can bet I looked even harder.
I’m here to tell you that there were no warning signs or restrictions posted anywhere in the road, eventually I found a sign at a crossroads 50 yards away!
The 5 other cars parked in the bay, oh yes I parked in a bay, had no tickets on their windscreens and I have no idea why I was singled out.
Now I could write to the council and complain about it but I’m not going to bother for two very good reasons.
1. It wouldn’t do any good
2. It wouldn’t do any good
I’ll pay the £30 fine and never go there again.
Every week in the Croydon Guardian you see examples of Croydon Council’s obsession with parking fines and I can’t help feeling that the short term gains are not offsetting the long term damage done, you see, like me, anyone who has had an unfair parking ticket will take their business elsewhere.
I will not be spending any of my hard earned money in Herne Bay again, the next time I go to see Katy we’ll drive elsewhere for lunch, and I have to ask myself how many potential Croydon customers are driving elsewhere?
On a brighter note I popped into ASDAs on Friday for my weekly shop, I had some pictures of Abigail to print off so I popped over to their camera shop to sample the service.
I stuck my memory card in the reader and selected the images I wanted printing off, the machine printed out a receipt and I wandered over to the till to pay the bill.
I duly paid and was handed a standard picture type receipt and went off to do my shopping.
M and I got everything we wanted and popped into McDonalds for a coffee, I remembered my pictures and went next door to pick them up, well all I can say is wow, the quality was outstanding, delivered in the usual wallet they were larger than I expected and looked as good as any I’ve ever got back from developing.
Ok so it’s not earth shattering but it is a good example of the icing on the cake principal I talked about in an earlier blog, I got more than I expected and of a better quality, am I going to use their services again?
Well what do you think?
Take care till next time,
John
ffriar.com
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