Gelupo describe themselves as ‘the finest
artisan gelato experience this side of the alps’ and I definitely agree. I love Gelupo! Since it open last June I’ve been through at least 9 loyalty cards and I go there so often that my friends describe it as my local pub.
The ice cream is delicious and the sorbets are so good that you can just count them as part of the normal ice cream selection (rather than the boring low calorie relatives) but it’s not just the ice cream that is good. The whole experience of eating at Gelupo is great.
Continue reading "Sticky fingers" »
I visited my local Argos at the weekend, when collecting my product there was a customer feedback terminal positioned on the collection counter (see image). There were five questions on the terminal, each were quite wordy questions, with 5 ratings per question. I was only at the counter for 6 secs just to pick my product up; I didn't even have time to read the first question before I was on my way out the door (although I did have time to take a quick snap!). I was curious to see if other customers would have the time and interest to use the customer feedback terminal, so I waited and watched 8 customers go to the counter and collect their products. Not one person even took a second glance at the terminal.
Continue reading "'The customer is always right' - but are they bothered?" »
When you walk in to my doctor’s office in Tooting, you are greeted with an overwhelming number of signs – what not to touch, when and where and how to exercise, what to eat, what not to drink – but the one that irks me is in CAPITALS:
“PLEASE SEE YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ONE ISSUE ONLY.”
This sign harms the ability of the doctor to treat the “door handle complaint.”
Continue reading "Patient journeys - the importance of the door handle complaint..." »
For me a hospital environment isn't usually a happy place. I imagine dreary walls, a quiet, dull, sterile environment, strange smells, boredom of waiting, and more waiting, pain... or is that just me?
However, I recently visited the nicest hospital I've ever been to and for someone like me, who's often waiting whilst another person has treatment, I found enough to do to keep me occupied and remove my worries!
Continue reading "Smoke signals" »
I recently visited Portsmouth and parked at Gun Wharf – the large
outlet shopping centre there. Now, I don’t think I’m going to shatter anyone’s
preconceptions if I say that parking is not normally an activity that causes
people to bubble with excitement and happiness. It’s a frustrating experience
of tediously driving around, trying to spot that elusive space. Car parks are
typically designed to make this harder by arranging cars in rows, so that you
drive past these rows and have to look down them to try to find a space – at which
point we realise that the laws of perspective are not on our side, and more
often than not that tiny Mini fools you into thinking there’s a space when
there isn’t, or the gargantuan 4x4 is hiding a perfectly good space.
Continue reading "Improving the car parking experience" »

Although, for the British, queuing seems to be one of our national sports, I hate waiting in lines at stations, bus stops, shops,
Post Offices … the list goes on. In particular, I have always dreaded visits to
the Post Office. Cue flashbacks of endless waits in very slow moving queues.
This was, until last week…
Continue reading "Post Office no-queue system - is it ‘just the ticket’ or ‘too good to be true’?" »
Timetable signs in airports and train stations started a new and unfortunate trend a few years ago, about the time they took down the old CRTs and replaced them with thin displays.
Instead of showing a single screen of information of the most imminent departures and arrivals, they began to show two or three screens in rotation. Their hearts were in the right place. They wanted to show more trains and planes. But the effect is not what was intended.
The main effect is that these signs often now cause pedestrian traffic jams underneath them while people wait for the sign to change, often in already chaotic environments full of people all in a rush.
Continue reading "Waiting for the sign to change" »