Case to be answered
Jan 11th, 2008 by Bert
First things first, and the diet’s going ok - 18st3 this morning. I’ve had a headache but nothing worse than that - I still haven’t worked out how I intend to do it, but the one thing I know I must do is break my sugar habit permanently. Thanks all for the encouraging comments.
I’m having a fairly quiet patch with the horses. I have one coming out soon called Hope Road - he isn’t in the list and I have a fairly small piece. He’s a hurdler trained by Tom Dascombe. The big feature coming up could be the Tote Gold Trophy for Mon Michel - it’ll be a big day out if he gets in and we need 30 or so to come out for that to happen.
I’ve done a ring around this week to see if there’s any news on the flat horses. There’s nothing major to report. Winker seems to have done well. Bouguereau has grown a lot more and he was a big horse anyway. Shawhill hasn’t grown as much as we would have liked. Max One Two Three has had a kick but she seems to be ok. All the 2yos are fine.
I tried to sell Baldovina in the December sale but she failed to sell - she was one of the last lots on the last day so not that surprising. I’ve decided to keep her and put her in foal - she has a decent page (by Tale of the Cat, Dam a group winner in France from a strong family) and although a little small she is a decent looker. Her career started ok but faded - I think she has ability but has lost the will. No reason why she shouldn’t be a producer.
I enjoyed reading the interview with Peter Jones in today’s RP. I met him a number of times over the years - he’s a good man and an intelligent man, and these signing off type interviews where senior industry figures can finally speak freely are generally good value. He was mildly critical of the racing industry (leaders generally too old or not commercial enough) and he had a pop at Peter Savill (abuses data to support his own arguments). He gave himself 7 out of 10 for his performance at the Tote. I think he did a decent enough job - if he had a fault it may be that he was too much of a nice guy, but there are worse faults to have than that.
I was rather less amused with the strangely lopsided Netprophet survey yesterday. Betfair fared poorly picking up both of the negative awards - undoubtedly commercially damaging and very upsetting for some executives in the company. I couldn’t help wondering if my negative piece on Alex Hankin had something to do with it - his survey suddenly appeared the week after my blog article. Was Al looking for a bit of revenge? If he was he has abused his journalistic privileges (not for the first time IMO) and there is a case to be answered.
Then again perhaps I’m imagining things - where are my pills nurse?
8 Responses to “Case to be answered”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Andrew, not the place here to discuss Betfair matters, as you have rightly said before, but as you have mentioned the netprophet survey, here’s a quick point.
As a customer, therefore independant, and may I add one who gives a balanced view, the customer service award is sadly justified. The basics of customer service can’t even be achieved lately. Queries remain unresolved, emails unanswered for days or even not acknowledged despite them being ’serious’/genuine enquiries. There is no ownership of a ‘problem’ or the old fashioned desire/pride to resolve issues. I have given up raising enquires, sad to say.
Its not rocket science providing the customer with quality customer services, but seems to be a thing of the past and whilst I can see why people voted to get Betfair top of the pile in that cateogory, they are not alone. However the others are poor benchmarks to be compared to.
Perhaps the award will have a positive effect, fingers crossed.
Customer service over the phone, excellent.
Customer service via email, non existent.
Hope this clarifies.
A tantalizing reference to Winker Watson telling us the horse “seems to have done well…” As a great fan of the horse and holder of several ante post vouchers from 25-1 down I take this as a shred of good news. He is going to have to be an exceptional horse to win the Guineas with New Approach, Ravens Pass, Myboycharlie and the rest making this a vintage year. I remember you saying last year, Bert, that one worry was whether Winker had the scope to improve as a three-year-old because he was such a well developed juvenile.
Will his curtailed two-year-old career help insofar as the enforced lay-off meanshe did not peak too early? Looking forward to more news from the gallops as the big spring trials approach!
HQO, you wouldnt be a firend of Hankin by any chance would you?? no thought not!
your awards are a pile of crap. about as relevant to the racign industry as harold shipman was to the medical industry.
i can count on one hand the ammount fo time sive had to call betfair customer services (which is a testiment in itself) and when i have, im asked to press 1 to place a bet & two to speak to helpdesk. whether i press 1 or 2, im speaking to a human within seconds. what more do you want?????
Lets all forget all this bu*****t about betfair any company succesful or not gets negative vibes—more important is Nick (gifford) going to get a double up at Kempton tomorrow—any inside news Bert????
Steve
Agree with the Betfair comments, expecially the new release just before/over Christmas. Certainly designed by analysts or consultants as opposed to real punters using the system.
I haven’t seen the Net Prophet piece but regarding Betfair I am appalled at how upgrades are managed from a customer support point of view. The number of calls to the helpdesk must be considerably higher than it need be, because the mentality of the helpdesk is reactive rather than a proactive.
What it needs is for someone to keep a “troubleshooting” page in the service sections of fixes/workarounds for known problems. This should be done not days after the event but as they happen. Currently users are left searching around the forum for answers to problems that we see posted in there repeatedly because they aren’t forthcoming from Betfair.
Prior to any upgrade the service section should inform customers of what is in the upgrade and suggest they keep an eye on the troubleshooting page if they have problems.
HQO and others - I’m currently taking a break from Betfair and in any case I wouldn’t seek to represent them on my private blog. Rest assured though that all comments are noted and in some instances passed on.
Michael - I don’t have a lot to report about Winker as it’s such early days but I will keep the blog updated with any news I have.