A Grand Day Out!

On Tuesday Iceland sent a car...
I felt just like a superstar...
We were off to main HQ...
In a Chrysler, all shiny and new...
Rob couldn’t come and he was sorry...
But he honked as we passed, from his lorry!

This week I want to tell you about my exciting day at Iceland’s Head Office. After dropping the boys off at school I came back home to meet up with Jo, my brother’s girlfriend who was coming with me. We were guessing what type of car would be coming to pick us up and went through every possibility from a “Smart car” to the Iceland Bentley! At about 8.55 a very posh looking Chrysler pulled up outside my house and just waited. Whilst peering out of the kitchen window I said to Jo, “Do you think that’s our car?”, and she said “Well how many cars like that do you normally see in Nailsea!”

It was our car, and we had a very friendly chauffer who insisted on opening doors for us and generally making us feel special. My partner Rob is a lorry driver and was unable to have the day off to accompany me but told me to text him as soon as we had set off to tell him the car we were in as he was travelling on the same motorway that day. We soon caught up with him and he honked his horn as we drove past waving!

On the way, Jo and I discussed what we thought Iceland Head Office would look like. I said I expected light, airy offices with huge pot plants and she said “Yes that’s probably more realistic, but I’m imagining Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with huge iron gates and an eccentric man in a top hat coming to meet us”.

It turned out I was closest as we approached a big building with a glass front. I felt a bit in awe, but as soon as we entered the foyer we were greeted by the sight of a 7 foot stuffed cuddly penguin!

Time seemed to pass very quickly and it was soon lunch time but our lunch was quite unlike any other I have had before. We went along to the Iceland ‘kitchen’ where we met an amazing lady called Annie. Annie and her team think up new and exciting dishes for shoppers like me and you. Some make it into Iceland to become big sellers and some don’t, depending on the feedback given by the testing panel. Both Jo and I said we would like to be in Annie’s family as her cooking really was superb and the ideas she comes up with are endless. We had been told to pace ourselves but when the first three dishes were so delicious it was hard to remember the advice. I can’t tell you exactly what we tasted as its obviously top secret at this stage but can say it was a whole variety of sweet and savoury dishes and we definitely ate more than we should have!

After that we visited the Iceland Contact Centre. Working within a retail environment myself I appreciate the importance of customer care and also the challenges faced by the call handlers. I’ll never forget the time a customer came into the opticians where I work and complained that her glasses had “stopped working” and asked what we would do about it. On further questioning it turned out that the lady had been playing bridge, and had actually gone home with her friends glasses instead of her own, hence why she couldn’t see! She saw the funny side and went away happy, but I think it demonstrates the wide range of problems and queries dealt with on a daily basis by Customer Care teams.

There was just time for some photos with Iceland’s big boss Malcolm Walker, who I had previously met back on the judging panel at the London auditions. He is obviously a very busy man, but like the whole of the Iceland team I found him friendly and welcoming. Then it was time to jump back into our luxury car and head home.


Next week you’ll be able to hear about how Sam’s 10th birthday went and more about the adventures of an ‘Iceland mum’. Hope to see you then.

Ellie
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