SnideUK

Running Hoops Round the Customer

Obviously customer service is a big issue for us - if any of our operatives display any I get very angry with them. SnideUK did not get the reputation it so richly deserves by giving people refunds or exchanges. I mean where would it lead if we went around replacing dodgy products or giving people money back when their new training shoes are more 'Water' then 'Air'. It's just not croquet as you Brits say.

The deal is simple, a customer gives us a fivester or a tenster, and in return we give them an approximation of the product they actually wanted but didn't want to pay full price for, and that's it! No afters, no come-back, no bleeding heart stories.

Of course in every scenario there are exceptions and to show how to deal with this we have made a customer service training film, to show the correct action to take when the customer seems like he might get ugly. Of course for the purposes of the film, and to save time, the customer is already ugly.

The training film itself is based on a real event which happened to Mickey Nomark, our Head of Sales, in Glasgow. There he was carrying out his normal business when he was approached by a man (who we later found out to be a 'Ned' called Shug McBlooter). The man complained that the pasta sauce he had purchased from us was 'pure bogging' and that it had 'gied him a dose of the Huns sae bad he's nae been oot ae the cludgie fur two hale days'. He then carried on to call Mickey something which sounded like 'Yeweebagasheit'

Mickey applied our normal customer care procedures, first turning his back and pretending not to hear, then suggesting the customer may have purchased the goods from a different outlet. However this was to no avail and the customer stood his ground, indeed he moved closer to Mickey, appearing to be growling something like 'Gerritrightupyeyatool'. At this point a local 'wifie' shouted; "Hey Wee Man, mind oot wi Shug he's a complete heid the baw. He'll huv yer nadgers fur his piece'

Re-appraising the situation, Mickey changed tack and calmed the situation down by offering the man a bottle of our finest Snide Vodka promising this would make him forget all about the pasta sauce. The man then left, ironically with the parting words, 'Nae danger, by the way, Wee Man.'

Following this episode, we updated our customer service guidelines to deal with Buckfast Commandoes, Fuggies or Dobbers of any description.

A further positive note is that, following his discharge from Hospital, Shug McBlooter agreed to join our enforcement authority liaison team, along with Malkie Heiderim, Chib Clipegubber and Hingmy 'Bamstick' Bahookie

On a final personal note I just want to say how much I like Edinboro, or 'Old Smelly' as the locals call it, it's so cute.

Vince Squarciare
Health & Safety & Customer Service Director
SnideUK

Snide Vodka - A blinding drink for any occasion!

Now that summer is nearly over, it is time for SnideUK to be looking ahead, finding new products to make pitiful imitations of and of course finding a new twist to some of our old favourites.

As Mickey has mentioned we have already launched the season's football kits, and already there are customers out there trying to get their money back because the sleeves have fallen off or they've got a tiny,little rash from the dye we use. Ooh diddums, my heart bleeds for them.

As everyone knows with the nights drawing in people will be looking towards Bonfire Night and Christmas and these are big sales opportunities for SnideUK. Naturally there are toys to bring a smile (albeit brief) to the faces of British children, but why should the adults miss out on the Snide fun?

That's why every year we have a big push on Snide Vodka. Of course we like to keep the product fresh -in a business sense obviously, we couldn't care one iota if it's rancid, we don't consume it - so we do like to use different branding.

For our last push we used the Glen's branding and I must say the distribution went well, although as ever the spoilsports did start bleating, simply because it had a tiny little bit extra methanol. I was most disturbed that they pointed out that real bottles of Glen's had 'AGC' embossed on the glass; I had given orders that our bottles should have ACG on them. Just a little joke, although I secretly hoped to hear about that bunch of 'milk-monitors' being raided. How I would have laughed!

Anyway, this time around we have launched Snide 'Spar Imperial Vodka. Unfortunately we have been unable to impress upon Spar itself the benefits of stocking our product, but it is already finding its way around the country.

To make sure it is proper SNIDE stuff here's what to look out for.

1. Our bottles are far cheaper (too cheap) than the 'real' Spar stuff.

2. It's not for sale in a Spar shop.

3. Our vodka smells like nail varnish. My fault I'm afraid, still I had a spare bottle so my nails were fine.

3. Our bottles  are Quinn Glass featuring the code QI:1445c . They also have a  smudged (deliberate!) inkjet code which looks like 102234 04/08/02.

4. Our VAT seals don't light up in UV light.

Oh and don't be put off by the whingers and moaners simpering that our product may poison you or even blind you. That's what vodka is for, getting you blind drunk or paralytic, right?. And a little spell in hospital is just what everyone wants to get over a party!

Evilyne Garotte-Onesto
Business Development Director
SnideUK

The New Footie Season (Second Half)

Oh yeah, and another thing, you know Chelsea...?

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK

The New Footie Season (First Half)

There's nothing quite like the start of the football season for excitement, everything is fresh, new players have arrived and for fans of every team there is that feeling of hope and expectation. At least until September and you are still waiting for your first victory, your new Bulgarian centre forward has gone awol complaining about the rain and the quality of the potatoes and your Chairman has put his full backing behind your Manager. But that's for later.

August is the time to rush out and buy the new season's kit and wear it with pride before doing so risks humiliation. So like the Managers, we have had a busy pre-season finding out the new designs of kits (great work on the internet, Tudor!), copying them, producing them and getting them to our retail outlets. Of course we don't manage to get every detail right and quality can occasionally suffer but time is of the essence.

Actually when I say quality occasionally suffers I am understating it a bit, quality is fairly atrocious the majority of the time. Last year we thought the Rangers outfit was okay; and it did seem to be holding up well but then just came apart at the seams over a couple of weeks. Seemingly it couldn't cope with any sort of tension. Still you know what, we don't care; try bringing it back for a refund!

One of the things our 'rivals' say is that by buying SnideUK football kits, you are denying the team you support income. But as I see it, they would only waste it anyway, it's far better the money goes to us. On top of that, of course, it could be argued that our actions are helping to level out the football leagues, because we concentrate on the big teams and therefore it is them that lose the most. We are indeed providing a public service.

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK

Snide customers want branding!

At SnideUK we live or die by our branding. Well, some of our customers die, but not usually because of our branding, and very seldom due to our clothes. Although I wouldn’t suggest taking our nightwear too close to a naked flame, or indeed wearing it on polyester sheets, or rubbing it too hard. But still branding is very important to us,

Without paying close attention to branding, nobody would buy the fetid dumpster-fodder that we produce. It is brands that people want, we know that and that’s what we give them.

People want branded goods and many don’t want to pay full price, so we sell them ‘branded’ goods. OK, the products we sell aren’t actually the same products, are not as good, have none of the design quality, the manufacturing quality control or use the same materials. They do however have the all important logo on them - and that is all that matters!

The power of branding is immense. All hail the brand!

Now some amongst what we at SnideUK call the ‘forces of reactionary protectionism’ carp on and on about the brands we use being ‘owned’ by someone else; that they are their ‘intellectual property’. They ‘say’ that these so called brand owners have invested time and money to build up their brands, that their brands generate demand through this investment in quality, design and marketing and that for this they have the right to receive the rewards that the brand earns.

Obviously we have a well-considered counter argument that answers these points. A thesis that has the entire intellectual capability of SnideUK behind it and one that is unanswerable by the proponents of liberal do-goodery.

Whatever! like we care!

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Bad News from Somerset

With market conditions already difficult, it is unfortunate to say the least to have to announce a serious blow to our trading position in the West Country.

I am therefore extremely irritated to reveal that an entire shipment of our products has 'gone missing' in Somerset. Whole shipments falling of the back of lorries/ships or even retail outlets does not help SnideUK's revenue one little bit.

That the 'theft' of these items has been made public may also have a knock-on effect on market confidence. In other words, Mickey Nomark might get a bit nervous next time he's down in Taunton or Yeovil and have to keep looking over his shoulder.

I'm sure that our Managing Director, Lennie 'Crackers' McVitie, will have a thing or two to say about this when he returns from his "working vacation" in China.

Cuthbert Honeydew
Chief Financial Officer
SnideUK

Mickey's Market Stall Musings - Knock-Off Nomark

It's been quite a week! First we managed to get shot of most of the Doctor Who toys - and those we didn't shift we have rebadged (stuck new stickers on!) as 'Dark Knight' merchandise. Imagine the look on a child's face when he unwraps his birthday present to find a "Joker Radio Controlled Hummer", you couldn't put a price on that! Well we can - it's £5.00, and that includes two of our very special batteries!

More personally, this week I have had to put up with people calling me Nigel - yes NIGEL! It's all down to a new version of that TV ad with Knock-off Nigel. You see the problem is Knock-Off is my name, I've been Knock-Off Nomark for years and then they come along and use my name for their own nefarious means and the end result is people calling me bleeding Nigel! Well it's not on, there should be some protection against people coming along and just ripping off your name like that!

I was explaining this to Bob Bunco and he came up with a cracker of an idea - we had to fight back! At first I thought he meant going round to sort out the purveyors of the reputation-robbing, flutey sockcheese,  but then he told me we had to meet like with like and should put out a song of our own. So here it is, an excerpt from my first release on the SnideUK label, Knock-Off Nomark.

The song and the video will be available through the new service Tudor is putting together: SnideTunes. What a great idea that is! People simply register - giving us their e-mail and credit card details - and we then supply them with mp3 versions of songs by artists who sound a bit like the ones they wanted. And as if that wasn't enough, we then e-mail them offering them lots of other things like drugs and diplomas.

The other thing about that Naff-Off Nigel is that he is downloading stuff for free, which was also in the news this week as the music industry announced they were stepping up the fight against downloaders and going to send letters to them. It may surprise you to now I back this totally!

It is scandalous that these people are 'sharing' music - giving it away - total bleeding amateurs! If someone is going to deprive artists of legitimate sales and therefore income, it should be us; we would do it properly and make some money from it.

By the way, If anyone downloads my song without paying, I'll do more than come round and play a flute in their office. When I'm finished with them they'll be playing a flute themselves every time they eat a plate of beans. And as for the next person who calls me Nigel...

Oh, and as my song is so catchy, why don't you record your own version and send it to us.  We might even send you some of our dodgy SnideUK tat as a prize.

See you on MTV!

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK

Mickey's Market Stall Musings - Jumping the Bandwagon

So what did you think of the Doctor Who finale? I liked it, especially when they quickly bodged together a new Doctor that wasn't as good as the original and who ended up being a bit of a disappointment and causing injury and death. It was like a Snide Doctor!

However, Evilyne is spitting nails as she had just 'doctored' a whole load of reject dolls to be Donna Noble. I know she needed to change the colour of the hair, goodness knows what the process entailed, but Evilyne is a genius with chemicals. Anyway following on from the season finalé Lennie asked us to go on a big sales drive.

The upshot is that I've been a bit busy this week attaching Doctor Who stickers to all the leftover and unsaleable guff we have. You see that's what SnideUK does - exploit consumer demand, for brands built up by other people, with substandard tat - and it really is a brilliant sales model. I think we should win a prize!

Spoiler Alert!!! It's the new Cyber-Leader battle bus!

So keep your eye out at SnideUK outlets for more great 'new' Doctor Who products.

You could get a Sarah Jane Smith Skateboard, Cloned Alt-Human Doctor Roll-On Anti-Perspirant or the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewpot Saucepan Set (with authentic telfon-style coating).

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK

SnideUK - The Celestial Toymakers

Look at me – is this the face of evil? Of course not, so why do some people have to portray us as the ultimate foe.

Exploiting other people’s inspiration and hard work is an art form and we do it to perfection! Human nature means that people want the latest thing but so what if the product they get is not The Real McCoy, this isn’t utopia!

In a moment of enlightenment a fortnight ago, Evilyne suggested we could shift some of our worst toys by branding them as Doctor Who.  So by sticking on a few stickers and boshing out some photoshopped packaging; bingo, in the blink of an eye, what was a bog-standard helicopter is now the cyber-leader’s chopper.

Now some people carp that simply because our wiring is a bit ropey and there’s a chance a child might get an earthshock, does that make us the enemy of the world. No, these faceless ones sowing the seeds of doom should back off. Toys are an important part of learning and Snide toys teach kids no end of lessons. The leaking batteries could prove the awakening of an interest in chemistry, the blue crystals falling off might provoke a career in geology – if they don’t choke on them of course.

So the draconian forces of the dominators should cease calling bad wolf . I for one will continue to play the long game, refusing to succumb to the heavy hand of fear and will not rest until Snide have made this the pirate planet.   Believe me, Snide will fight tooth and claw to maintain our market position

By the way we have at least 42 new ‘Doctor Who’ products in the pipeline including Davros’s accordion, Captain Bob’s sonic toothbrush, Martha’s project indigo USB hub and the UNIT 'attack-mode' mini cooper. Keep an eye out for them at a Snide merchant near you...and don't forget to let us know what you think of them!

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Mickey's Market-Stall Musings - A Complaint

It's not all fun and banter in this job you know.  Sometimes you have to deal with ungrateful, unsatisfied customers who think I've got nothing better to do than listen to their problems...

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK