The Triumph of the Call Centre

It is my lot to have to deal, because in some ways I live a complex life, with a number of banking institutions on a regular basis. In short, I have four banks. I know, I know, it's just worked out that way and there's nothing to be done about it. Two of them, UK based, are highly competent organisations that do the stuff you need, when you need it.

I was arguing this morning with a certain local bank from the smallest emirate, who had set out to destroy my life and otherwise poke me with sharp sticks until I explode. The manager, to resolve the frustrating situation entirely of their making, called the call centre.

This is the third occasion in recent times that someone from a bank who is facing me across a desk has called the call centre to actually, you know do something. Although this act in itself presages the disintermediation of the carbon-based life form in front of me (quite satisfying really, a little like being able to gesture at them with an imperious wave and have them disappear in a puff of smoke with a sort of poofff sound), it is something of a worry.

Call centres are the modern equivalent of Roman Triremes, enormous ships packed with slaves tethered to oars and made to work by the application of copious lashes and a kettle drum. They are staffed by interns and other marginalised segments of society (out of work actors, former travel agents and record company executives), utterly disempowered and driven only by the need to recite the scripts they have been provided with. 'Is there anything else I can help you with today?' invariably ending the call where they haven't been able to help you.

They are where customers are sent to be ignored and frustrated. They are the dregs, the bowels of the earth. They are the people we shout at when we're angry with a company (usually, but not always, a bank or a telco), who take the abuse so that their management and witless marketing teams can go on behaving as if the company is at least nodding at the idea of behaving decently and with the slightest of intentions towards fulfilling some degree of what is laughingly described by corporates as 'customer service'.

So what if these IVRs, drones, bots and under-rated call handlers become the only interface to the customer? If there's no such thing as an empowered human being you can deal with? And what, then, of the 'promise of AI' in customer service?

What if we have reduced the customer experience so much that it's not really about technology developing and reaching up to equal great customer service, but customer expectations and experience being downgraded to the point where semi-evolved technology is good enough?

What then?

Book Review: Beyond Dubai: Seeking Lost Cities In The Emirates

"Dubai has nothing. No culture, no history, no character. It has no heart, no spirit, no traditions... It's not a real city, it's just a mirage, all spin and no substance, a city built on sand."

This book starts on that statement and then sets out to prove it wrong. Its triumph is that it does just that and it's a read anyone setting out to explore the Emirates will enjoy.

David Millar lived and worked in the UAE and decided to write a book about the place. He's by no means the only one, we have a small but growing coterie of books left behind by expats like animal spoor, from Desperate Dubai Diaries through to Glittering City Wonders.

I usually avoid these books on the grounds they will almost invariably irritate me. I've spent the past 26-odd years travelling to and living in the Emirates and I've seen enough of it with my own eyes to know I'm not particularly interested in seeing it through someone else's. Having said which, Jim Krane's Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City is the Dubai book.

David's taken a different tack, however. Unlike so many commentators on the Emirates, he's decided that below the surface - the half inch of champagne - is a more interesting place to be. Employing the charming little conceit that his visiting girlfriend, Freya, is mulling whether to come to the UAE to join him but won't live somewhere without history, David looks beneath the vavavoom and wawawoo of Dubai and explores the history of the place in a series of road trips. We go up to the East Coast, taking in Fujeirah, Kalba, Northern Oman and the Wadi Bih track; we snake around the fjords of Kasab and the concrete-crushing sprawl of Ras Al Khaimah and we generally do Al Ain, the Rub Al Khali, the Liwa crescent and, finally, Sir Bani Yas.

Each of the book's destinations is treated as a trip to the modern location but the object of the excursion is to unearth its history, the lost cities of the UAE. And David, clearly relishing his subject, mixes observations of the modern and ancient aplenty.

Let me be honest. I fully expected to hate the whole thing. There were times when I felt the discomfort of someone else's view of the place I live in. Having yourself discovered a thing, it's hard to feel a vicarious thrill on behalf of someone else discovering a thing. This is why running up to me and babbling excitedly that whales have belly buttons cutteth not the mustard. Reading Beyond Dubai, I had to fight quite a bit to stop being a dog in the manger all the time and yet - once I'd settled down - I found myself enjoying the journey. Given I have lived here for donkey's, spent quite a lot of time working as a features writer (and so been paid to unearth stuff and write about it) and generally made something of a habit of travelling around and poking things to see if they squeak, there was much in the book I already knew or had experienced myself. Having said that, I've taken a damn sight longer to do it than it takes to read a book: David's efforts have by no means been in vain.

This is a book that will appeal hugely to expats in the UAE or holiday makers interested in going beyond the beaches and taking a look at the rich heritage and culture the country has to offer. If you think that very statement sounds odd, then you need to buy this book. Beyond Dubai is a well written book, a light read that makes its subject accessible and enjoyable. It's sort of Bill Bryson meets Leonard Woolley.

From Jumeirah to Umm Al Qawain's millenia-old city of Tell Abraq, from RAK's lost Julphar and Ibn Majid the famous navigator (whose art eclipsed that of the Europeans whose navies were only then beginning to explore the world systematically while the Arabs had long mastered the arts of astronomy and navigation), Beyond Dubai takes us to the Emirates behind the new roads and skyscrapers and often does so with wit and charm. Brio, even.

Don't get me wrong - I has my quibbles, I does. For a start the big plane parked up in Umm Al Qawain's airstrip isn't a 'bomber', it's an IL76 - a commercial freighter. It hasn't been there since the fifties, either - it was landed in the nineties. I didn't like the reference to the Jumeirah Mosque as the only one in Dubai that welcomes 'infidels', but then that's just me. Jazirat Al Hamra was not abandoned because its inhabitants were lured to Abu Dhabi's oil industry, they fell out with the ruler of RAK and Sheikh Zayed offered them resettlement. Wahhabis are Sunnis, so you can't be 'Wahhabi rather than Sunni'. The drive through Wadi Bih is glorious, majestic and great fun, I'm not sure quite why he makes such a fuss about how hard and precipitous a mission it was. It was always a pleasant day trip and a doddle of a drive (it's closed now, tragically). Strangely, for a couple so interested in finding the history of the place, David and Freya don't visit the many museums strewn around the Emirates. There's no mention of the megalithic tomb or fort at Bitnah, a vital ancient trade route through the mountains to the East Coast (originally the only passage through the mountains) and, indeed, a number of other sites. And so on.

But you get the point here - I'm caviling because I Think I Know Better and that sucks as an attitude when reading a book like this. And yes, I accept that Mr ITIKB is likely just fooling himself much of, if not all of, the time. The point is, anyone with less 'I was here when it was all sand' issues and an interest in the wider UAE will enjoy this book and I reckon will profit greatly from it. And yes, I learned things from this book, so I'm not quite as omniscient as I'd like to think.

If you've just arrived in the Emirates, want to live or holiday there or want to scratch around below the surface a little, Beyond Dubai will give you much pleasure.

I was provided a copy of the book by the author (whom I do not know personally and who approached me seeking a review). You can buy your own copy right here and if you've got a Kindle, you'll only be parting with £2.95!

Emirates Airline Festival Of Literature Fun

(Photo credit: IsaacMao)

Saturday the 8th March will see me once again pretending to be an author at the LitFest. As well as my usual moderatin' and likely some radio stuff as well, I'm on a panel, "Of Spies, Conspiracy and Censorship", which promises to be a fascinating experience.

There are three inky-fingered teasers of prose in all - myself, Rewa Zeinati and Ibrahim Nasrallah. And we are being joined by Juma Alleem, who is director of media content at the National Media Council. It is he wot is responsible for the people responsible for reading my books and passing them 'suitable for printing' in the United Arab Emirates.

This is going to be particularly interesting for me as I have now faced two instances of censorship in regard to my participation in the festival - both utterly trivial, but then all the more perplexing for it. I have never had any of my writing knocked back in the UAE for moral, social or cultural reasons before. So I'm going to enjoy exploring the nature and purpose of censorship with my fellow panellists. You never know, we might even get around to some spies and conspiracy too!

Here's the session blurb:

Are there specific challenges associated with the context in which an author lives? As writers, are we guilty of self-censorship or are there real obstacles to writing about certain topics and people? What responsibilities do writers have and what role might central guidelines play?

I must confess to being particularly fascinated at the idea writers have responsibilities in regard to censorship. Is a 'responsible' writer merely subservient and compliant? I'm minded of Bulgakov's wicked, hilarious revenge on the fat cats of the Moscow writers' union.

The session's linked here if you want to sign up for it. The LitFest will relieve you of Dhs65, but that's the price of a scrambled egg on toast and coffee at The Archive, so you'll just have to skip breakfast one day this week.

I'm also moderating the session with Simon Kernick & Deon Meyer, 'Criminally thrilling' which looks at techniques for keeping readers glued to the page as your novel flashes around the world like a careening, mad and out of control juggernauty thing. That one's linked here.

The UAE Mobile Market. Some Numbers

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority is set to end its 'My number, my identity' campaign tomorrow. The campaign saw all mobile users in the Emirates being sent texts to go into their telcos offices and register their SIM cards against their passports or national IDs.

It's unclear whether this is something we'll have to repeat every two years as we renew visas, but the campaign's drawing to a close certainly means a weeding out of the 'dead' SIMs in the market. Operators tend not to count unused SIMs when they publish claims of network size and penetration, often giving exaggerated market size numbers as a result. The UAE, for instance, is a market of 14.1 million mobile subscribers, a penetration of 171%.

Gulf News reports today that Du will suspend unregistered lines from January 17th with a 90-day period in which subscribers will be able to re-register before the line is deleted. Presumably Etisalat will follow suit. And an awful lot of people who haven't moved to re-register their lines are going to go into a last minute tailspin and dash to get the job done when they find their mobiles stop working.

So what has been the impact of the campaign so far? According to GN, TRA director general Mohammed Al Ghanem has said 3.82 million SIMs were cut off and 1.35 million suspended after the fifth phase - we don't know if that's a total for the whole campaign and, if not, about the first four phases or, indeed, how many SIMs remain unregistered, but that figure would mean something like 26% of the market was wiped out in the campaign so far.

Which is quite a chunk of any market, I'm sure you'd agree...

Why Narrative Matters

Melchite Hirmologion written in Syriac Sertâ book script (11th century, St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's, for rather obvious reasons, quite a booky week this week. I started it by attending the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature moderators' training session last weekend at the rather wonderful 'Dar Al Adab' (house of literature). It was good fun and we all learned stuff, which is as good a combination you'd want in return for an investment of your time!

The week's obviously ending with the launch of the Middle East edition of Beirut - An Explosive Thriller. I've been hearing snippets of the performers' plans and I think we're in for some treats. The nice people at Apres are throwing in a welcome glass of bubbly to get the after party started, too.

I've been doing the day job as well, but I'm taking tomorrow afternoon out to travel up to Ras Al Khaimah, where I'm giving a talky/workshoppy thing at the Al Qasimi Foundation Reading Roadshow, which is backed by the LitFest, British Council and all sorts of other good people.

I'll be taking a room of a couple hundred teachers on a journey of discovery. I'll be exploring my theory that the importance of narrative in maintaining and communicating cultural identity is under-estimated in the Middle East. That the region has allowed itself to be defined by voices other than its own. I'll be asking them if that's right - and if so, why? And if we agree that it matters, I'll be trying to find out what they think we can all do about it.

I think it's going to be fascinating. It'll either be a train crash or a triumph - my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon. And, who knows, if we all have good fun and learn stuff, we'll have all invested our time wisely!

More information and registration for the roadshow is linked here.

The Emirates ID Card Moves Online

Image via Wikipedia

The Emirates ID Card was launched in 2008. Now, in 2012, we are to see the application process for the card implemented as an online form. Launched initially for UAE nationals only, the online application will be rolled out to UAE residents and GCC nationals in the 'next two months'.

This latest in a long line of announcements, many of which have been followed by clarifications, is potentially the most welcome (and useful) of all.

Gulf News, reporting on the move, focuses on the cost saving to applicants (you save the Dhs30 typing centre fee, so the card will cost you a mere Dhs240 instead of Dhs270) rather than the saving in travel, waiting, queuing, shuffling around from counter to counter with a pile of papers and general messing about involved.

Although, as is so often the case, there's a whiff of sulphur invading the clear air of paradise - Gulf News' story (linked here for your viewing pleasure) contains the line, "Online applicants can print out their receipt which will mention the appointment to visit an Emirates ID registration centre."

Of course, an online application process would involve filling in a form, uploading copies of any documents required, paying any fees online with a credit card and then having the card mailed to you, wouldn't it? It would be insanity to have people filling in the forms online and then having to make an appointment to physically travel to an Emirates ID registration centre and queue to have the application reviewed and the card issued to them in person. Nobody in their right minds would implement an online process like that, would they?

I should perhaps remind you that this announcement comes from the people that gave us the application application, an online application that allowed you to fill out and print the application form required to make an application for an appointment to make your application.

We can only await the usual clarification...

Re-intermediation

Image by Daniel Wilder via Flickr
I often speak at conferences, workshops and things and rarely miss the opportunity to laud Emirates Airline, typically using it as an example of advocacy (the fourth step in communication, wake up at the back). I advocate Emirates passionately - it has long been my airline of strong preference.

Perhaps interestingly, EK has my loyalty despite its customer loyalty scheme, Skywards, rather than because of it. For some reason Skywards always manages to make me feel like a beggar. I will never forget my first attempt to redeem airmiles, which resulted in me being thrown out of the business class queue at QAIA in Jordan and told to queue in economy (the upgrade they had confirmed to me wasn't on the system), turning to find one of my clients standing behind me and witness to my seeming pathetic attempt to scab an upgrade I wasn't entitled to. And I will never forgive them for the fact that we should have been checking into Emirates' rather lavish and wonderful Al Maha desert resort this afternoon for Sarah's birthday, but will be going out to dinner instead.

Skywards ticks all the right boxes - it's got a funky website, has lots of 'rewards' and is pleasingly automated - to the point where it's not really a hassle and can even provide the occasional pleasant surprise.Similarly, it can also let you down totally and really screw things up. The latter is a shame, but it's made even worse by the high levels of automation that Skywards employs. When the going gets tough, you get re-intermediated.

I have often wittered on about dis-intermediation, the phenomenon whereby technology removes the middle man and gives us direct access to the stuff we want. It's something I have come to think of as an empowering process - I can research and book my own holiday online, for instance, rather than depending on a travel agent. Similarly, you can buy music online rather than have to go to a shop and buy a CD.

Dis-intermediation is not only empowering for the end user, it also cuts out 'gatekeepers' - the people who sit in the middle and make choices for us - it's the threat hanging over the heads of record companies, publishers and newspaper proprietors. The democratisation of consumer choice, Internet advocates will queue up to tell you, is a positive benefit of technology.

But technology has introduced a new class of intermediary: the call centre. The thinking goes something like this: "Our staff are beings of pure energy who have jobs to do and can't be constantly interrupted by base, carbon based life-forms. Let's outsource talking to our customers and then our people can get on with doing useful things that make us money."

This is why you can't actually speak to anyone who works in your bank's branch anymore, why a call to your London telco routes you to Bangalore and why someone sitting in front of a terminal in Cairo is looking through your credit card statement 'to try and help you resolve this, sir'. These are the re-intermediators, the new middlemen.

So when Skywards fails to make the booking at its Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa despite the failure being clearly and wholly on their part, the people responsible for the booking suddenly fail to respond to emails. Your only recourse is to the call centre, which is staffed by people that can't actually do anything, they can only route requests over the system. They can tell you that they're sorry (how awful, to have to be constantly sorry for others' mistakes) but they can't actually let you talk to anyone responsible. They're the new front line troops, the poor saps that have to sit in a soulless room filled with other operators, being abused by irate people while the incompetent buffoons who are screwing things up never even hear the howls of agony from frustrated, unhappy customers and obviously feel completely free to totally ignore any other form of communication.

The technology that is empowering us is also disempowering us, taking away our choices and our right to expect people executing transactions on our behalf to respond to us and for them to take some sort of responsibility for their actions. And while automating customer service is no bad thing 98% of the time, there surely has to be a better way of dealing with the 2% of instances where rote, scripts and process will not do the job. It's one of the reasons why companies using Twitter as a customer service tool are finding they are met with an initial wave of frustrated customers and then a collective sigh of relief followed by cheering. We just need someone to take some sort of responsibility and fix the mess that's making us unhappy.

We're all missing a human to talk to.

Wonderful Life

Image via Wikipedia

Flying into Lalaland, it’s always nice to have the last few minutes of the film you’re watching chopped off by the playing of the compulsory Dubai promotional video. The old promo, which used to show scenes of people enjoying themselves in Dubai’s iconic resorts to the soundtrack of some bird breathlessly delivering adjectives like ‘delicious, delightful, exciting’ in a series of sexlessly orgasmic gasps has now been replaced by the same sort of footage but played over a backdrop of 1980s band Black’s, ‘Wonderful Life’. The adjectives are now displayed as subtitles, which at least dispenses with any danger of DTCM being accused of attempted subtlety.

I have to confess to finding this film mildly irritating. It’s not the content or even the fact that you are quite literally strapped to a chair and forced to watch it that gets my goat. It’s that someone over at DTCM thinks it’s clever to play a promotion for Dubai to a planeload of people that are already committed, in a most fundamental way, to going there.

It never fails to have me thinking about the wasted opportunity to actually communicate with people that this slice of barminess represents – the chance, for instance, to tell them a little more about Dubai and what they could actually do in their time here, perhaps even to communicate something of the moral and social environment they’re about to enter. You could even inform people and help them get more out of their Dubai experience - for instance on how to get around, some of the major sights to be seen, what’s going on in the city right now. They could be produced as a series of short films featuring a presenter, perhaps even as a monthly magazine programme which would, incidentally, avoid the irritation experienced by frequent flyers who have to watch the same thing again and again and again. It could even be made – you might want to sit down for this bit – watchable.

But alas, no. Strapped into your chair, personal electronic devices switched off for final approach, you have no choice but to watch Tiger Woods (who is still, apparently, A Good Thing in Dubai) and friends loving the 'wonderful life’.

Oh, by the way, here is an extract from the lyrics of Black’s happy little ditty, a song of guilty loneliness. It is, perhaps, an appropriate soundtrack...

Here I go out to sea again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
Gulls in the sky and in my blue eyes
You know it feels unfair
There's magic everywhere

Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide
It's a wonderful wonderful life
No need to laugh and cry
It's a wonderful wonderful life

The sun's in your eyes
The heat is in your hair
They seem to hate you because you're there
And I need a friend
Oh I need a friend to make me happy
Not stand here on my own

I need a friend
Oh I need a friend
To make me happy
Not so alone

Another BTW, BTW: the original video of Black's 1980s songette, shot in black and white, is here. I do find the first frame fascinating... And yes, thank you, it is good to be back.

Identity

I'd just like to say that the Emirates' Identity Card website thingy appears to be working and I've just used it to book two appointments for myself and Sarah. They're both at Rashidiya in April, because Sharjah is apparently booked all year, but I'm not complaining. They're both on different days, too, because there were no contiguous appointments, but I'm not complaining. And the system just wouldn't buy a family application for two people, but I'm not complaining.

Now we can go an use the new and enhanced application application.

It looks as if it might go right this time. The site's here. I even got a text from them confirming the appointment a few minutes after I'd completed the form.

Yayyy!!!

Jolly

A rather jolly little Facebook group has started to protest Emirates' smashing new policy of revoking business class lounge access for Skywards Silver and gold members travelling from its new, dedicated Terminal 3.

Why? Because the sparkly new lounges they bashed on so much about when they were launching the new terminal are 'too busy' apparently! So now all those nice, loyal Skywards frequent flyers are sent down to the old lounge in Terminal 1!!!

How potty is that? Thanks, Emirates! Join the Facebook group here.

Terminal

You saw it here first. This is Emirates' new Terminal 3 building, opening on October 14th and featuring lots of lights and steel and things. The Terminal includes Concourse 2, an area of lounges, spas and retail outlets that is equivalent to 120 football fields. How DO those pesky PRs do their football field calculations? It's always so many football fields of this or swimming pools of that!

At least it'll see an end to the misery and chaos that currently greets weary travellers at the over-packed and construction-riddled terminal one.

Be interested to see if this release from EK cuts through tomorrow's slew of iconic lifestyle enhancing dare to dream announcements... Any bets?

New

Emirates has got a new toy and this is a picture of it. I guarantee this will be the picture the papers run tomorrow for no better reason than the other one of the two they sent out with the press release was crap.

The new terminal will go operational on the 14th October, launching flights in a three-phase, staged cut-over from the existing terminal which is, as eny fule no, totally maxed to the max and beyond, with the morning busy period being my personal favourite hellish awful airport experience. Now that will all be (we hope!) a thing of the past.

Perhaps interestingly, EK has learned from its erstwhile friends over at BA/BAA and has gone for a cautious, carefully phased move to operations rather than lunge at it like an over-eager schoolboy discovering his first bra strap.

Phase one will be America and the GCC. Phase two the rest of MEA and then the third phase will see all EK flights cut over - some 269 flights a day.

The new terminal is something else: it'll feature 250 check-in counters, including 126 for cattle class, a set of outsize baggage check-ins located in the car park (neat, huh?) and a dedicated floor of 'themed lounges' that'll offer some 2,000 lucky little pampered pax a slice of pre-flight luxury.

I have to admire Emirates, and often do (I am, remember, a paid-up fanclub member) although humbly suggest that they haven't quite got the tone right in their media releases. The gushing hyperbole can come from the media - the releases don't have to claim things like 'a well-orchestrated move' and 'a well planned move'. That conclusion's for the media and public it serves to reach later on - with hindsight and success in hand. Alternatively, it's appropriate for that kind of endorsement of the company's work to come from a third party - for instance, a third-party analyst saying that Emirates' move has been well-orchestrated. Coming from the company itself, that kind of language can trip you up. It's that kind of 'we've got it right and we're great' language that contributed to the pasting BA got over T5.

The facts, with EK's T3, speak for themselves. You can see the care they're putting in, the planning and professionalism that's going into it. The releases don't actually have to make claims of excellence or performance. EK doesn't, IMHO, need (or want) to do that.

People will be more likely to let the occasional hiccup or teething problem go if they haven't been bombarded by how clever Emirates is. A little touch of humility often goes a long, long way. Even if you are announcing that sliced Hovis is, indeed, a thing of the past!

Wheeee!

I'm sorry, three posts in a day (even if two ARE very silly) is too much, but I just HAD to share this deliciously silly PR shot from the Emirates Airbus A380 launch in Hamburg. You can, of course, click on it to make it bigger. BTW - they're wearing the new uniform...

I wasn't going to say anything about it, honestly. What with some 200 journalists attending the launch, including ace broadcaster Malcolm Taylor, and the papers all going mad about it, I already thought it had overkill scrawled across it - although (and I would like to be clear about this) I'm very happy for Emirates, which I admire.

However, asking the crew to run along the tarmac making big propeller arms has resulted in my favourite photo of the month, without a doubt!

Fart

It’s a constant fight to avoid sounding like an old fart. You know: “I can remember when that was all sand!” and all that. You drive past the airport that you once flew into when it was a small white moulded concrete terminal building with a single (appalling) restaurant that used to offer ‘Foul Madams’ highlighted with magic-marker lettering on a dayglo green star hanging off the buffet and the duty free that was down the escalator left of the pink marble-topped information desk, staffed by Indian girls in grey uniforms fussing under portraits of Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid hung in incredibly heavy gilt frames. Back in the days when you had to fill in pink immigration cards: when men were men and women were interested.

And now it’s smoked glass and impersonal efficiency: all stainless steel, escalators, travelators and elevators, ubiquitous Dubai-beige and red. More on the way with new terminals springing up like springing up things.

And it’s so very boring.

Earthwards

I didn't see any announcements in the papers about this one. And I don't think Emirates announced it. Getting to the airport today, I notice a leaflet that says Silver Skywards members can no longer invite a colleague or other person to join them in the business lounge. The 'privilege' will be 'temporarily suspended'.

Why? Because "given the exceptional growth of Emirates Airline, our existing lounge facilities are not able to accommodate the current volume of visitors."

Well, it's nice to see EK confirming what most of us have known for months already - that the current lounge is totally unable to cope with the volume of users, particularly at busy times like the 7-8am rush - being confirmed. Wiser heads know to nip next door and use the DCA lounge.

But the answer, surely, is to expand the facility, by hook or by crook - not to simply fail to provide people with something that you have undertaken to give them. That's just reneging on the deal. That's really bad for the brand - particularly given a frequent flyer programme asks people to make a significant investment in their relationship to that brand.

And to first tell them at the check-in? That's just poor communications.

Flight

It’s such a typical Middle East story that I’m not going to bore you with the gory details. Suffice to say that I tried to book tickets for two relatives to come visit us over Easter using my abundant stock of Emirates Skywards airmiles and a few Dirhams more. It quickly turned into a 3-hour nightmare of pointless, long and frustrating conversations and music on hold that sounded like the Clangers playing Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To U through long reeds inserted into their anuses. Sideways.

The websites didn’t really work very well (Am I the only person who thinks that the new Emirates website sucks at a deep and fundamental level?), particularly the Skywards site, which required customers to reset their cookies, clear the cache and stick marzipan copies of the Venus de Milo into their nostrils (they’re quite insistent on the last point) before it will allow even the simplest transaction to be contemplated.

So then you’re on to the call centres, which give you unparalleled access to morons who believe that your role in the transaction is to be led to the stun gun of their incompetence like cattle to the abattoir.

I ended up with one of two people’s tickets booked on a flight using Skywards Miles and being told to go to Emirates’ call centre to book the other ticket paying cash because Skywards couldn't take cash. Of course then the other ticket wasn’t available for under £1,000 – three times the price of any budget airline and pretty much double the normal Emirates fare for any other flight on that day. And the Emirates call centre couldn’t change the Skywards booking. So I had a useless Skywards ticket and a no-go madly priced Emirates ticket – and a couple flying on different flights on the same day – all with a great deal of ping-ponging between the two call centres and frenzied research on the EK website as the flights during the busy Easter period filled up around me.

Three hours and a great deal of tooth gritting later I got my two flights from the UK to Dubai: one on my Skywards miles and one using good old fashioned cash. Which is what I wanted, simply, to begin with. The angel that managed this was called Nikita and she simply did what could and should have been done in the first place: she helped me and was intelligent.

What amazes me is not that Emirates managed to waste three hours of my life, but that they wasted three hours of their booking staff’s time to complete a straightforward transaction that should have been simplicity itself and enabled by the website.

There was nothing that I wanted that was unusual or complicated. Just two tickets on one flight – using any combination (I didn’t care which combination) of miles and cash.

If there are many more like me out there, Emirates are blowing millions of Dirhams a year on managing long, complex and ultimately pointless transactions with furiously unhappy customers that are simply unable to conduct relatively simple and straightforward transactions on the company’s website or with its call centres.

Or perhaps I’m just unlucky...

The Flight From Hell

The bloke in front is a serial recliner and has knocked the bottle on my food tray over twice. The bloke next to me is a hairy-armed expansionist and eats with his elbow waving in my face or hitting me constantly. The bloke behind me spends three hours cleaning his teeth with a sloppy sucking noise every 1-3 minutes, intervals nicely randomised to create a truly Chinese (although he might have been Korean) water torture effect. It sounds like the noises naughty children make in cinemas during love scenes. It's, literally, maddening. The bloke next to him is a serial talking bore with a honking, loud, nasal voice that cuts across every other sound and constantly interrupts your reading with banalities about life in the Middle East. At one stage he actually says 'You have to understand the Arab Mentality', which is a phrase that I loathe profoundly.

But at least they don't play a Modhesh video as we start our descent to Dubai...

* Rule One: Anyone who says 'You have to understand the Arab Mentality' invariably does so in tones that suggest they do. Rule Two: They don't. There isn't one. It's just dumb racism.

I Get My Kicks On Route 66

Route 66 in the UAE is the Dubai-Al Ain road. I'm not sure it's quite what Chuck Berry had in mind, but I guess you have to make do, no?

Just past junction 50 on the Emirates' version of the long desert highway is the chill-out delight that is the Emirates Al Maha Resort, the first desert eco-resort in the UAE and still the best desert-de-luxe experience of all. Process-driven fun-free hotel zone Jumeirah opened its 'Bab Al Shams' desert resort as a second player, but it's nowhere near the quality experience of Al Maha: we've been popping in to Maha for a day or two of expat long weekend bliss-out for many years now and it never fails to delight, although there's a certain amount of negative pocket movement to be taken into account.

The good news is that they do a half price summer offer for Skywards members and you can also swap those airmiles for a night there - I'd rather do 24 hours of luxury than an upgrade to Heathrow, to be honest. Literally, it's a 24 x 7 decision!

Their network was down, hence no posts for 48. Too busy wallowing in luxury. Sue me...

Emirates Issues Press Release

OK. In my humble view, this is a little slice of Press Release Brilliance. Emirates is now flying daily to Venice. So they've put out a press release announcing that the business and first class limo service they provide will now extend, in Venice, to the world's first airline water limo service. And you get this nice piccie of a smarmy suit, an Emirates Girl and... a water taxi in Venice!


I love it - good old fashioned PR stuff. You saw it here first!