118118 is one of the many (supposedly 200+) companies offering Directory Enquiries in the UK and is one of the top three 118 companies which together control 90% of the industry. More recently, 118118 has launched a services allowing you to text the company a question and receive a reply from a real person.
For the last few days I have been playing with the service and using the 10 free requests 118118 offers from their website. Some of the results are spot on while others are not to great. Let us now take a look at the last 10 requests I made.
To begin some statistics, 40% of my results were deemed ‘unanswerable’ by the service, two were of ‘questionable accuracy’ and at the time of writing one question still has not been answered some 12 hours later. The average response time was 4.4 minutes.
Question 1
Q: What is Tom Merritt’s phone number at CNET.com and how do I dial this from the UK
A: Try Cnet Networks UK at the Europoint House, Lavington St, London. Tel: 02070211000. Nothing found for Tom Merritt’s Number.I guess this is a good attempt. Idealy the 415-344-2000 telephone number from which the company address book is accessible from would have been a better reply. The 118118 operator could have even called the number and pretexted a direct dial number for me!
Question 2*
Q: My chinese friend’s name is Chui Ying. Does this mean anything in Cantonese/Mandarin
A: No charge, the 118118 Team is really sorry but we’re unable to answer your questionThe claim, ‘Ask us anything’ is not the same as ‘We know everything, test us!’.
Question 3
Q: Who owns the website ‘flatmatesrequired.com’
A: No charge, the 118118 Team is really sorry but we’re unable to answer your question.Firstly to answer the question, I do! Secondly, website domain names have WHOIS entries. If you were to look at that you would have been able to say Ross C Brown / Kismet Networks owns the domain and probably the website too.
Question 4
Q: How long does it take to transfer between Glasgow Queen Street rail station and Glasgow Central Station
A: For the next train, 30 minutes.Well done. National rail publish a 30 minute transfer time between the two stations (by foot as their is no connecting train service). Realistically it can be made by an able body person in 15 minutes and if you run it can be made in a little over five minutes.
Question5
Q: What is £15 GBP in Hong Kong Dollars
A: £15GBP is approximately $231 HKD as on May 29th 2008.Spot on, the actual response gave five figures right of the decimal point so it was hardly ‘approximate’.
Question 6
Q: 2+2=5. Can this be true?
A: No charge, the 118118 Team is really sorry but we’re unable to answer your question.From Wikipedia: “In measurement in physics, the number of significant digits is usually encoded in the way a number is written. That is, unless otherwise specified, “2″ has only one significant digit, which means it represents a measurement with a margin of error of 0.5, which means the actual value may lie between 1.5 and 2.5. When adding such measurements together, the margins of error are also added, so 2 ± 0.5 + 2 ± 0.5 = 4 ± 1.0 . And since “5″ actually means 5 ± 0.5, these margins clearly overlap and one could jokingly argue that the numbers are the same.”
Question 7
Q: When can I watch ‘How I met your Mother’ on the TV in the UK
A: On the television channels ‘Trouble’, ‘Living TV’ and ‘BBC 2′.Spot on, the reply also included a telephone number for the BBC so I could phone them up and quiz them on their schdualing.
Question 8
Q: What is the age of consent in Scotland?
A: The age of consent is 16 regardless of sexual orientation or gender.Okay, Google seems to agree here but I was of the understanding that the age of consent is 16, or 18 if they are in a position of trust in relation to that individual, for example a teacher or care giver. Looks like I might be wrong…
Question 9*
Q: Why are the images sent back from Mars in black and white, not colour?
A: There are [sic] colour images sent from he [sic] panoramic camera in 2004.Didn’t answer my question. The operators done seem to be knowledgeable of current events either.
Question 10
Q: Who is Ross C Brown
A: No Reply (as of May 30th, 14:30h)Um, okay I know I’m not that famous but c’mon! Google me!
The two questions marked with an Asterisk (*) indicate questions I accidentally asked twice. The second replies are different to the first replies. In the second reply to my friends name the answer ‘Chui means ‘beat with the fist’ and Ying means ‘to oppose or attack” was given and in response to my question regarding black and white images the response, ‘Scientists often prefer black and white images are they are better for scientific study and can be altered with a number of lens filters’.
All things considered, this service looks good if you are asking basic questions like ‘If it is 5PM in the UK what time is it in New York’ or ‘When is the last train from Edinburgh to London’ but if you try anything too complex or not accessible on the first page of Google your results will be a little hit and miss.
Considering more and more mobile phone makers are better integrating the Internet into handsets, it this service particularly useful? Have you used this or similar services? Comments blow in the big box at the bottem, please!
Update: I’ve just published my follow post here, please check it out and leave your comments.
[poll id="3"]
May 30th, 2008 at 3.10pm
For fun, I also asked, ‘Why do ‘good’ girls like ‘bad’ guys?’.
The answer, ‘Some think it is a phase some good girls go through and eventually overcome, mainly allured by the exciting and risky life of a bag guy.’
May 30th, 2008 at 5.21pm
The 118 text service is incredibly poor and after asking a few questions myself, I cannot see how they hope to retain customers when most of their responses say they can’t find out the answer or are plain wrong. I asked them how many spiders you swallow a year on average and they answered 8 when a very quick google search shows how this was a myth started to see how such myths spread. I’ve used AQA before and that was much, much better.
May 30th, 2008 at 5.31pm
I spent my yesterday asking free questions to 118118 and i wasn’t very pleased with their answers. I normally use AQA (63336; you can also get a free question off their website) and i’ve found their service to be impeccable.
118118 also said they preferred Hilary [sic] to Obama.
May 30th, 2008 at 5.37pm
Try AQA. They’re much better. I use them all the time.
Text 63336 (www.63336.com)
May 30th, 2008 at 6.19pm
I have used this in the past but will not use them again. I asked about train times in Europe and, after a 2 hour wait, was advised to ring Eurostar – even though the office was closed. I then text AQA 63336 & got an accurate reply within 5 minutes. I complained to 118118 on their customer care line & was fobbed off. On the 1 occasion in the last 3 years that I complained to AQA I got a refund with no problem at all.
Another time I used 118118 I asked what I could do with a 9 year old child at a weekend and was told to take them to a playbarn. Being over 40 somehow I don’t think the staff would let me on!! AQA came up ideal suggestions with addresses & numbers.
AQA 63336 win hands down for me.
May 30th, 2008 at 6.52pm
I’ve tried 118118 ask anything a couple of times and I have to say I’ve been very disappointed. I’ve gone straight back to my usual service, AQA 63336. Brilliant answers everytime, funny, factual and complete.
May 31st, 2008 at 11.40am
What an absolutely useless service! AQA will always make the effort to answer your question even if it takes a couple of hours. If they can’t answer it, no one can!
May 31st, 2008 at 3.05pm
Yeah, I’ve used AQA 63336 a few times, and have always been pleased with the answers. 118118 is a new thing, so give them time, but AQA is the one for me.
(I’m not shilling, honest)
May 31st, 2008 at 3.42pm
I’ve decided that I’ll be testing AQA and 118118 on Tuesday this week asking both companies the same questions and posting their exact replies.
Be sure to check out this post (http://theblogof.rosscbrown.co.uk/2008/05/any-question-answere-vs-118118/) for details (as well as an opportunity to suggest questions) and the main page of the blog on Tuesday.
June 5th, 2008 at 12.36pm
can you find me a flight to poland for less than £54.28 on the 2-7 July?
June 6th, 2008 at 12.41am
Update: I’ve just published my follow post here, please check it out and leave your comments.
September 5th, 2008 at 8.41pm
How do I know what bra size am I?
September 8th, 2008 at 1.58am
please can you help regarding a song being played on bradleys 21st birthday party on eastenders 4th sept 2008 ,the song went . A shot in the dark a kiss in the park,any help would be most grateful ,thank you
September 8th, 2008 at 2.30am
“Why do ‘good’ girls like ‘bad’ guys?”
Personally, I would have referenced DMX’s song and maybe sent some of the lyrics which explain the reasoning.
I have a hard time understanding how someone doesn’t know how to use Whois. That baffles me.
September 8th, 2008 at 4.41am
118118 sounds like a good idea. If the service can deliver that his the main thing. Lots of promise for service of this nature, but the test is deliverying the goods. Being able to answer the questions in real time.
September 8th, 2008 at 11.49am
Good compiled Q&A on ‘118 118 Ask us anything’.
It has helped to clear the doubts on the services of 118 118.
Thanks
September 8th, 2008 at 12.21pm
Truthfuly, a service like this is a waste of time and money in my view, you can easily pull this stuff up through google and do it yourself.
November 19th, 2008 at 1.42pm
hi what is the height in meters of the eiffle tower???
xxxxx
November 19th, 2008 at 1.43pm
thank you for all your support with every one
January 7th, 2009 at 2.39pm
Is is cheaper for me to leave my hot water on all day rather than on a timer?
April 14th, 2009 at 8.31pm
I think it’s time you upgraded your numbers. Not overly impressed using your service only to be given the wrong number. So I’ve been charged and had to go elsewhere to actually to get the right information, poor, very poor.
July 18th, 2009 at 11.18am
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