World class service alive and well here in SA.I had one of the most pleasant service experiences in a long time this morning when re-engaging my internet connection. A young business I'd never heard of before took my breath away. It's worth sharing..Leaving your employer has unexpected downsides. Like last night when our house's internet connection died. Two weeks ago I spent 45 minutes queuing at Telkom – and another half hour with the consultant – switching our landline and ADSL account from Moneyweb's to my name. Standing in line, I'd been informed, was the only way this could be done. One might surmise from the long line that midweek morning that Telkom is doing OK..Then again, maybe not. The share price is still on the slide. And in those areas where competition has been allowed, Telkom is up against it.Moneyweb had connected me through a business called Afrihost, an ISP* I'd never before heard of. So I called them last night to see what had happened to the line. Sure enough, they confirmed that the company had disconnected the service. Although a call would have been nice, guess you have to admire the efficiency of the Caxton bean counters.The young Afrihost voice suggested going online and registering as a new subscriber. This morning I followed his advice and was bowled over.Talk about slick service. Minutes after sending through my credit card details an email asked me to for a copy of my ID. We're used to being asked for things. But what really worked for me was the way Afrihost went a step further to explain why this step was necessary (some miscreants abuse the system). Good to be treated like an adult.A few minutes after sending through the scanned ID document another email arrived confirming I was connected. The next steps were getting into the modem itself, the only frustrating part of the exercise because the first guy who helped me at Afrihost misdiagnosed a problem; but his colleague quickly worked through the issues, advising a re-setting of the modem which worked a treat.Nobody's perfect, but Afrihost came pretty close to this morning. The whole process, including the slight wild goose chasing, took a little over an hour. Admittedly, to switch to a world class ISP like this, the Telkom landline and ADSL first need to be installed. But the access is quick, the cost extremely competitive (R200 a month for uncapped broadband) and team a pleasure to deal with.Experiencing what happens where the tackie hits the tar tells us more than thousands of pages of official policy documents. The Afrihost experience emphasises the value of competition unleashed by freeing up the marketplace.In the bad old days of Telkom's tight monopoly, getting Internet access was a mission akin visiting the bank at month-end. The easing of some In areas like telecommunication regulation dropped costs and sent customer service skywards. A lesson, surely, for those misguided politicians who still think they know better than the invisible hand Adam Smith wrote about in 1776. Time, sirely, for them to wise up. And they might do it more rapidly by handling the day-to-day challenges themselves rather than delegating it to the secretary/wife/lover.*Internet Service Provider.
