A Pleasant Trip to Palmy with Lots of Good Customer Service
Jordan Kelly • 1 December 2024

One Long-Distance Errands Trip & Four Great Customer Service Experiences

In this commentary, I want to talk about people who are good at their jobs. It's a very simple topic, but there's actually a LOT to say about it.


When someone likes being in a customer service frontline role, it usually shows. (The only time it doesn't - by my observation - is when they're in a miserable working environment . . . but even then, the best of them usually still manage to shine through).


So I had to take my little dog, Harry, to his vet in Feilding last week. I'd built up a list of errands to do in Palmerston North while I was in that neck of the woods. Five customer experiences, and four of them were really good.


Here they were:


Jason at Animates:   Animates is a chain of franchises (I think?) where the customer experience is extremely varied. Both within each store and between stores. My general rating of Animates across the board, therefore, would be below average. Some experiences have been very below average.


A shining light in the Animates store-scape, however, is a young bloke called Jason at the Palmerston North establishment. Management must consider him a keeper, because the first time I encountered him was when selecting a bed for Harry, about three years ago. Maybe more. I remembered him for his product knowledge (which was outstanding) and his patience in making sure I selected the right bed for the very specific purpose for which I wanted it.


On this current visit, I wanted a particular type of natural treat that they once stocked . . . but my attempt at describing it was confounding the assistant, who was trying very hard to find it or something like it. She decided to enlist Jason . . . who I recognised immediately. He also recognised me (and Harry) immediately, too. A conversation about Harry, and his dog, and several other directly related topics ensued . . . as did his utmost efforts to find a treat that ticked the boxes the no-longer-stocked product ticked for Harry and his tiny little mouth.


Having taken the time to understand some broader current needs relating to Harry and a health issue he's been experiencing, he proactively walked us around the store, suggesting some specific products that could prove useful. As it turned out, I didn't end up buying anything on that visit. But I know that won't deter him from his further best efforts to be of completely selfless, well-informed assistance the very next time I'm in that store.


Christine at Countdown:  Next stop, Countdown (the one across the intersection from Animates). A warm and friendly woman with a smile as natural as the sun welcomed me at her check-out, with a "Hi, how has your day been?" Or something similar . . . the key point being that it wasn't one of those "How are you?" robotic questions that compels the equally robotic "Fine, thanks." response. It was actually a genuine question, inviting a truthful answer.


Thankfully, I had a positive to reply with, "Great, thanks! My dog just got a good report from his vet . . . so any day that's a good one for him is a good one for me!"  Thereafter ensued a really nice exchange in which she showed genuine interest about my little dog as she cheerily packed my groceries together with me.


As I left the store, I pondered on whether the top brass (franchisee?) of that store knew, appreciated and encouraged "check-out chick" gems like Christine . . . and I hoped fervently that he or she did. Imagine a whole crew of smiling, high emotional intelligence ("EQ") service frontliners manning (or womanning) a supermarket's check-outs . . . and the consistency of that being a trademark of a particular outlet.


Wouldn't that be something.


Bevan at Mitre 10:   I like "value-added" service from floor staff. Such was my experience in Mitre 10, hunting for something to clean an oven with, minus any harsh chemicals (to which my constitution does not react well).


I approached a staffer who not only took me to the spot where his recommended scrubbing pads were stocked, but also recommended the best value pack of rubber gloves for that and some other jobs. He then volunteered some secret sauce ways of making the oven-cleaning-sans-product task a lot easier than it would otherwise have been. Bonus!


He also then walked me to another part of the store in my hunt for gardening gloves for another specific purpose - where again, his product knowledge was invaluable.


Turns out he was actually the store manager. I guess knowing how to look after customers is quite relevant to moving up the ladder in a store's hierarchy.


BP2Go Main Street:  Visiting this petrol station is always a bittersweet experience. I remember, several years ago, on my first-ever visit to this servo, being impressed with the service . . . primarily because of the happy chappy way they're happy to pump your gas if you ask them (again, I can't stand strong chemical smells and petrol is one of the worst).


I'd just started 'The Customer' and he'd just bought (if I'm remembering this correctly) the franchise of the station. We had had a long and impassioned conversation about the role of customer service in broader business success. We were in violent agreement with every aspect of the topic.


I'd intended to interview him for a feature article at some point. But I never got to do that. The next time I visited that station, there was a plaque from some sporting team on the front counter, commemorating what an awesome guy . . . he had been. Yes, sadly, he had passed away at some age still on the right side of 40, or thereabouts. I remember becoming aware that he likely had known even when we engaged in our cheery conversation that day, that he had a terminal diagnosis. 


What a role model. 


Here's the point, though, that I'm ultimately getting to. 


Albeit I don't go to Palmerston that often, but every time I've called into that station ever since, I have been comforted to find that the customer service has never slipped. Such was my experience last Wednesday when - as usual - I asked them to fill my tank. The response was a beaming, "Happy to." 


I don't remember that wonderful man's name now, but I really hope those that have succeeded him in this particular BP2Go keep his customer service standards legacy alive for many years to come. 


Other News, Reviews & Commentary

by Jordan Kelly 15 March 2026
Editor’s Conclusion : Unqualified. Unsupervised. Unaccountable. And Still Accredited.
by Jordan Kelly 10 March 2026
UPDATED: 10.3.26 Will This Badly Behaving Institution Finally Allow the Full Truth to Be Revealed?
by Jordan Kelly 8 March 2026
Hidden in Plain Sight: Unashamed Conflicts of Interest to Make Your Head Spin
by Jordan Kelly 4 March 2026
Time for Change : New Zealand's Pet Parents Say NO MORE to the Poor Standards, Compromised Care & Outright Contempt We Put Up With from the 'Products' of the Massey Veterinary Degree Factory
by Jordan Kelly 27 February 2026
Readers following the coverage of my attempts to get to the bottom of what happened to my beloved little papillon, Harry, with whom I was extraordinarily closely bonded, will know that: (A) The rot in Massey University’s Companion Animal “Hospital” (CAH) runs deep. (B) Honesty and transparency is not their policy. Denial, dismissal, stonewalling, legal threats and intimidation are. (C) Animals aren’t safe there, with cruelty embedded in “care”, and your property (as your pet legally is) not considered your property at all, as far as Massey, its CAH staff and management are concerned. Your pet is theirs ; to do with as they please, according to their mindset and their modus operandi. And if that involves catastrophic levels of unauthorised, contraindicated, convenience sedation to facilitate their use of your pet in monetised student video collections (including on private cell phones, and to which you will be given no access), this too, according to Massey, is its own God-given right and “best practice” Standard Operating Procedure. (D) “Informed Consent” has a very different meaning in the Massey playbook to that which is generally deemed its accepted definition. (E) “Accountability” is a foreign concept and not one with which they have any intention of becoming acquainted. (F) Laws – including those governing animal welfare, property conversion and more – are not only optional, in Massey’s case, they simply don’t apply. In fact, they appear blissfully ignorant of them according to my (and Harry's) experience. You know all that. You’ve read about it here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and in most of my other now 30+ articles covering the numerous different sub-atrocities within the overall atrocity that was the demise and disposal of my precious little Harry. Actually, "atrocious" doesn't come anywhere near to being an adequate adjective. Despite having been a professional writer since I was 16 and having upwards of 25 published books under my belt, I don't actually have an adjective that's adequate for the pure evil that was perpetrated upon Harry . . . and, by extension, me . There is not one word or one phrase that can sufficiently convey the depth and breadth of the sheer, unadulterated wickedness that festers without restraint within the walls of Massey University's Companion Animal "Hospital". What you, my readers (or those of you not on Massey's massive legal team payroll) didn’t yet know – because I didn’t yet know – is that record and evidence tampering (which, for any other New Zealand citizen would attract jail time of up to 10 years under the Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 (Altering document with intent to deceive) or Section 260 (Falsifying registers) , and/or a $10,000 fine under the Privacy Act Section 212(2)(b) - appears also to be included in the “we’re exempt” culture of Massey and its veterinary “hospital” staff. Note to Readers: The above laws aren't some hypothetical, bottom-drawer, dusty old legal tracts in archaic library textbooks. They're real, "living" laws that apply to every individual in our country. And today, they are being made to apply to Dr Stephanie Rigg and her "colleagues" who falsified Harry's records to create a cover-up of what they did to him . . . and to me. I will, duly, see Dr Rigg and her associates in Court. Dissecting the Cover-Up: Massey’s Metadata of Deception But back to what readers do know for a moment: You’ll know that I’ve been in the battle of battles for the past two months to extract Harry’s full records (or anything approaching them) from Massey’s Legal and Governance department. HOWEVER . . . there was one thing I hadn’t known how to decipher that they actually had finally drip-fed to me. It was File Name: Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) . I’ve been learning a lot about veterinary science, record-keeping, and law in general lately. Not because I wanted to. But because if you want to figure out how deep the rot really runs at Massey, you kind of have to. So I’ve learned a bit about how to decipher clinical metadata. Just e nough to realise that this Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) is exactly where the digital fingerprints of a cover-up are hiding. Despite the fact that this document has as much redacted as it shows (probably more), with ALL staff names and positions blacked out, for example -I still found four distinct “smoking gun” entries in these otherwise heavily-redacted metadata logs. BIG. FAT. SMOKING. GUNS. that amounted to one undeniable overall conclusion: This document isn’t a clinical record so much as it’s a literal crime scene . There were already so many dodgy inconsistencies in the few items I'd managed to pull out of Massey to that point (as I've documented in various of my preceding articles). But this document is where, undeniably, the bodies are buried. You just need to know which clod of dirt to look under. Hidden in Plain Sight . . . In A Little Thing Called the Metadata (That the Average Pet Owner Wouldn't Even Know Existed ) There are four hidden but key findings demonstrating that the entire timeline of Harry’s “experience” in that hellhole were was orchestrated, and the sudden "neurological event/decline" exit strategy planned for him were a total fabrication. And that fabrication had a start time. (For this start time we will initially revert our focus back to Massey's previously-supplied "Clinical Summary" (in all its dodginess) . . . We will then lead from the immediately below into the afore-mentioned "Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit)". Bear with me. I promise not to let this get boring). Well, one of two start times. Either: (1) The 8.38am disconnection of his (with, by-then, the TWO 750% overdoses of the renally contraindicated convenience sedative with which the "crying dog"-sensitive ICU staff had plied him overnight) now life-essential IV fluids (8.5 hours into the prescribed 24-hour protocol that they charged me for). And/or: (2) When the day shift ICU "vet" arrived at 9am and decided a THIRD 750% overdose would be a strategic way do deal with a clearly already massively overdosed little 3.8kg, 15-year-old, dehydrated dog. Now WHY would any vet take such a decision? Well, for legal purposes, of course (remembering that the Venerable Dean Jon Huxley and the obviously not- so-new-broom Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter, have all the money in the public purse to pay their top-tier external legal counsel . . . and by gum, there are enough of the buggers, if this site's analytics are anything to be guided by), I will precede the following by stating that these are my conclusions, made on the basis of the collation and evaluation of the information before me. That said, what I know of my readers is this: You are no intellectual slouches. Feel free to let me know if you can come up with any other conclusion from the information (complete with now numerous "receipts") that I have thus far presented, most especially here and here , and most tellingly of all, in today's expose. R emember, though, I held the ultimate evidence in my arms at 6pm on December 1 . . . and, some 45 minutes later, I let them take it (safely, for them) away from me, just like Harry's (the literal body of evidence) life had just been taken from him. Little Numerals that Tell A BIG Story The plan for Harry's manufactured exit is not so much written into the records, as it is revealed by the tampering with the logs. They lay bare the lead vet’s apparent plan that his life would come to an abrupt end by the pre-scheduled time of (well, they couldn't quite get consistency in the logs regarding the exact minute, but by the absolute latest time of) 17:00 hours i.e. 5pm . . . assumedly, the end of the day shift on December 1. Just in time to mark him "Deceased" and seal off the records of this catastrophically overdosed patient, before the next shift came on, saw his records, and someone started asking the immediately necessary, and certainly appropriate, questions. And those questions would (0R SHOULD ) have included , but would certainly not have been limited to: How long has this dog been in this state? Why hasn't any rescue and remediation protocol been undertaken? Why was he given yet ANOTHER administration of 50mg of Gabapentin at 09:00 hours after the preceding two during night shift? Why is he disconnected from his IV fluids? Who approved that and why? (And if they knew he'd starred in a multi-video student film festival that morning): Was he taken out of his cage and handled in this state? When did he last drink? Was he given any food before he entered this near-comatose state? Does the owner know of the overdoses and the state he's in? Have you filled in an incident report? Have any emergency specialists been called in for advice? and, no doubt, many more questions. OR . . . maybe not. It depends if the rot in that ICU is fully immersive, or if it's concentrated on Dr Stephanie Rigg's day shift and the ICU shift staff of the preceding (November 30) night. But none of those questions could be asked and none of that could happen. The day shift - led by "Dr" Rigg ("Steffi") - wasn't about to let it happen. Thus, the pre-timestamped, just before end-of-shift, Time of Death entered into the "Euthanasia Authorisation" form that they had all queued up for me long before I ever arrived at that Godforsaken facility that fated December 1 afternoon.
by Jordan Kelly 17 February 2026
Harry WAS A Marked Dog. I Had Hoped Massey Vet Staff Couldn't Have Been Any More Wicked Than They'd Already Been Caught Out Being. But YES , Actually, They COULD . 
by Jordan Kelly 15 February 2026
This Is What Happens When Massey Thinks THEY Own Your Dog & Can Do With Him As They Please (You Just Pay the Invoice) At This Appalling, Unaccountable Veterinary House of Horrors (LATEST PROOF OF 'LAB RAT' TREATMENT HERE )
by Jordan Kelly 12 February 2026
FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS: GO HERE . My Precious Little Boy Died Needlessly, In Intense Physical, Mental & Emotional Agony . . . After Massive Overdosing, Intense Cruelty & Intentionally False Diagnosis by Massey 'Vet' (So Called) to Enable His 'Disposal' After Lab Rat-Style Experimentation
by Jordan Kelly 11 February 2026
While my focus is on the 750% overdosing of my precious little dog, Harry, with an unauthorised, contraindicated convenience sedative, his conversion from patient to live specimen, and the subsequent destruction of evidence (HIM), Massey’s focus is on deploying a taxpayer-funded legal hit squad to 'profile' me.
by Jordan Kelly 8 February 2026
An Expert Contributed Commentary (FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE .)
Show More