The Cups weighs in Kilos: A critical review.

I was intrigued to write this after a stream of entries by fellow bloggers that talked about their customer-experience with certain companies and establishments in Jordan.

I’ve spotted the coffee house “Cups & Kilos” during my summer holiday, but only tried it during my last trip to Jordan; I went there a couple of times, the last of which was with my fiancée with a minor related incident!

Here's my humble analatical self's two fils take on the venue with a bit of scruitny: The place definitely fails in terms of location-location-location, but then again, many ventures have opened in remote areas miles away from their targeted customers (e.g. Books@) yet they managed luring & locking them in! Still, the place is not in the route of any typical journey, and punters have to purposely u-turn from 3rd circle or navigate the maze of the undefined area between Abdali, Weibdih & Jabal-Amman to arrive to their location!

Sticking up to a single –I assume so- coffee beans and flavors supplier meant that their offering would be almost consistent, and utilizing the variety of syrups their supplier offer stimulates a gourmet variety and specialty, nice trick.

Another nice trick is how everything was smartly branded at minimal cost, cheap sticker tags holding the logo was tagged to almost everything, it works just fine!

I find it an extreme turn-off when a coffee place uses a typical takeaway cup that is not branded and used by every other place; they however got their hands over blank takeaway cups that seem to be readily available, got the branded sticker tags, and gave their cups this distinctive & professional feel.

The layout of the shop is also neat, the decoration and the excessive use of wood gave it a warm feeling, I particularly liked the neat back-office with glass partition! I also noticed the ceremonial over-the-counter serving technique that starts by laying a napkin along with a mixing stick & stashes of sugar servings while the drink is being prepared… good stuff until now, but here comes the buts…

But their coffee is cold! Really all their espresso-based drinks are served warm, possibly due to wrong thermostat setting in the coffee-maker or this is the best it can do! I like my coffee warm by the way, but I like it served boiling hot and then warm-out while I’m flirting with it!

But their customer service is inflexible, dry & lack product & servicing knowledge! if you happen to be a regular or “experienced” with their menu offering, then you’ll feel welcomed, but if you happen to be a new punter with undecided or coffee-ignorant attitude, then expect only to be either pushed to ordering something obvious that you don’t like or stay mystified gazing at the menu & the flavor list and walk away muttering your dismay without a purchase!

Then comes the issue of unconventional customer requests, which my fiancée is good at, she orders Turkish coffee; such a small serving typically requires a small cup, but my fiancée rightously wanted her coffee in a larger cup, so its easier for her to hold it from the lid, the lady waiter did not know how to deal with this request, simply because she was only taught how to make coffee and go through the serving ceremony in an impassionate & autonomous manner.

My fiancée was sticking with her request and the waiter kept repeating her objection in a very artificially must-be-friendly fashion, and as the situation stagnated, a more experienced waiter who seem to have self-enforced intuition recognized the situation, apologized to my fiancée, elaborated that because of the small serving of Turkish coffee, its content will mix when poured into a larger cup and hence the taste will not be as good. He then took the cup, emptied the content into the new larger cup carefully and served the drink again…

The place have allot of credentials to become successful, but they should look into the tiniest of details, as well as orienting their people to be more customer-centric, genuinely friendly and more knowledgeable with what they’re selling…

Jordanian English “Life Style” Magazines: Elitism manifested, deluded & superimposed!

When I sample through such magazines, I immediately imagine an English single mother dating a Frenchman with a troubled sex life and a financial leverage to drink tea at the Dorchester hotel in London, in contrast with the profile of their potential readers from Jordan’s upper spheres!

First of all, why are they in English? I feel the big “I am Hypocrite” superscript floating on top of me right now since I am blogging in English, yet I still don’t get it, many magazines around the world are specialty magazines with limited readership that targets a limited specifically-interested niche willing to pay a premium for a magazine that wobbles about the bizarre interest they may have, and I know for sure that there’re business that exploits such interests whom are willing to pay a premium to advertise on these specialty magazines…. Nothing wrong with that (in terms of business)

But this is not the case with “life style” magazines; by definition they should be generic, variant and diverse in essence, as the sum of its material and editorials should have the widest circulation and appeal possible! So how could this be the case when the first thing such magazines do is minimizing their readership circle to the English-speaking niche only!

Perhaps they publish in English in order to "reach out" to the assumed-to-exist like-minded mindsets? and I ask; since when does mentalities can be profiled based on language?

They might be profitable for some awkward reason that mostly has to do with the conjured dynamics of the Jordanian marketplace… but definitely they have no clue who are they selling their magazines for and who's reading it.

I still feel mystified whenever I have the opportunity to vigilantly read through these magazines (frankly to avoid obscene imagery) as I am not sure who are they targeting? Just for once, I would like to plot a pattern of potential readers that fit a certain trend in our Jordanian society that can be identified by the publishers as a potential customer?

I feel disgusted every time I quote glimpse of the disgraceful publication “Layalina”, though I applaud the way they have conceptualized the magazine and how it gained steady foot in the market, the people behind it obviously did their homework, they identified a paying niche that would like to see people and be seen with people around town, and envisaged a magazine that fits their level of intelligence and involvement; minimum reading and maximum visual stimulus at a rather small premium with lots of potential advertisers! Later on, the poor "Layalina" punters are now paying to get their pictures floated on it while the magazine itself is being franchised around the region… a fine entrepreneurship example... alas in the wrong direction.

But the case of “Layalina” is solid even in the face of a fundamentalist like myself, I can confront its editors and ask them “Who reads your magazine?” and they’ll have an answer ready for me; I’ll give away my new car for anyone who can concisely outline the profile of the potential, say “Luxury” or “living well” magazines readers without referring to the fact that they have money to fork around on pointless publications!

Then comes the issue of content: The etiquettes of eating deserts? How to dump your boyfriend painlessly? 10 ways to enhance your sex life? 54 ways to know that he was cheating? Things to consider before buying a Yacht? How to get over an affair? Choosing the perfect Cigar to go with your cocktail party?… Oh’please… where do they think we're living at, my stomach is aching!

Thier professoinal look and feel, and the high caliber writing they may sport is not in question here, it just doesn’t make sense, which part of our culture do these magazines represent? What background do they come from? Do they reflect our reality as a whole society or just samples of unique individuals or phenomenas from it, or perhaps a mere imaginary society that is assumed to exist in the superb of Amman?

Why can’t they address serious issues rather than mimicking editorials and superimposing them upon the helpless niche that barely understand proper English yet alone to comprehend what it means to have a genuine “life style” in the first place?

Why can’t they tackle issues that are truly crippling the niche society they are targeting and the society as a whole: issues like the social inequality we live in, the surge in divorce rates, premarital sex, teenage pregnancies, insect sex, and tragic stories of gambling & alcohol poisoning… mind the cant-see-but-pure-evil rhetoric here

This might be too much to ask from a revenue seeking magazine, a publication full of such gibberish won’t sell for sure, but at least, when these magazines decide to get serious with their editorials, then at least they can pick issues and stories from our local environment!

At the end of this indiscriminate bash on a whole industry, I find myself obliged to credit “Jo” Magazine for they truly stand apart from its peers, despite the fact that they suffer from the same confused image they reflect, in general however; they exhibit sincerity, objectiveness and a professional editorial feel throughout the magazine, as they mostly seem focused on whom they’re targeting… I wish they do away with the semi/naked imagery and pointless articles!

A Speculation: MobileCom’s shy “Orange” rebranding!

I am a loyal MobileCom customer, though I do find myself skeptical of how they ran their business ever since they entered the market 5 years ago with a favorable duopoly that could have been better utilized to rapidly capture market share and block the polarization of the market to avoid creating a mammoth out of the first operator Fastlink!

Beside that, it seems they have finally understood the dynamics of the market despite their years of shameful financial performance and ridicule market penetration, a bit latent perhaps; but in no contrast to Fastlink's practice, who only realized the true potential of the market when it felt the nearing of competition, which proved to be impotent at the time!

It is no secret, MobileCom is JT’s baby, and JT is France telecom adopted baby, the latter have many operations around the world, and most of it’s mobile networks are branded as “Orange”, a brand that originated in the UK.

For the past two years, I was aware that MobileCom was enjoying a degree of technical backing from France Telecom through its Mobile arm “Orange”, especially with the entrance of XPress as a new player in the local market with incomparable set of technological credentials, as they tried to patch up a service similar to the latter’s push-to-talk offering...

But only recently did it become apparent that Orange is now influencing MobileCom in terms of marketing and branding!

MobileCom website had a recent facelift, and not surprisingly, it used the exact template used by most Orange websites around the world (there are 15+ of them). And despite the different tone of the color orange that is used in the coloring scheme, everything else is almost identical…

Enter their running ad campaigns, they have standardized the use of black background and a certain font and layout that are also consistent with Orange branding throughout their operations around the world. My speculation would be that MobileCom are in the middle of a shy rebranding, perhaps in the coming months they’ll boost the tone of the orange color to match Orange’s distinct level, and later use the same packaging style, price-plans structures dictated by Orange until the switchover becomes a matter of a mere overnight logo swap -almost.

The benefits will be that MobileCom will enjoy the powerful synergy stemming from the utilization of an international brand (perhaps mobile content blah blah), and enhance their market penetration and segmentation capabilities.

On the down side, it’ll definitely loose its local feel as a Jordanian operator, as well as the perpetuating benefit for being the first to dedicate a portion of its resources to offer tailored packages to the service men and women of the Armed forces. A major backlash can also be expected if it was associated with Orange's Israeli operation, as the brand "Orange" in general is widely recognized as an Israeli brand here in Jordan, this is not the case for sure, yet such misconception would require heavy campaigning in order ot be addressed, without anticipating it to be cleansed any time soon.

Yet another twist in the Jordanian mobile communication sector that will only enforce its utter uniqueness!