Small and medium businesses

Update: So 48 hours later I still don’t have email. Thanks to a load of misleading and inaccurate information from Web Africa I decided to not pull my domain name from Web Africa and point it somewhere else yesterday or even this morning.

Apparently 2.000 domain names were affected.

I am still waiting for the CEO of Web Africa to return my call.  I hope he does and can explain this catalogue of disasters. (His PA did get back to me, but couldn’t really do anything to help at that stage). In any case I will very soon be an ex-customer of Web Africa, and move to an ISP where “service” actually means something.

Mistakes do happen. But I stand by my view that total transparency with both your staff and customers is the best policy.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook today is probably sick to tears of me whinging about my lack of email and website thanks to a DNS foul-up at Web Africa, my ISP.

Now while I still am not 100% sure of what actually happened, these are my thoughts around the experience from a customer care point of view. This is something I am paying a lot of attention to at the moment, as I am about to launch a new venture that will both rely on and differentiate itself by extraordinary customer care.

1. Realise the magnitude of the problem – quickly. I first reported the problem at 5 pm on Wednesday. When I checked my email on Thursday morning and called the support centre to check in, I got the distinct impression that there were no alarm bells ringing at all at Web Africa yet.
2. Be grateful that your service is that important to your customers and treat them accordingly. The fact that I called in about my email and web site being down before 6 in the morning should have been a clue to the support person that I wasn’t just waiting for Facebook updates and cocktail party invitations. That I was relying on their service for business critical reasons, and that in fact my livelihood relies on my connectivity.
3. Share information. I get that sometimes this is difficult, especially when you are still establishing the extent of the problem. But explain what is going on, and why you can’t advise on whether this is a 30 minute problem or a 28 hour (at time of writing) problem. Don’t under estimate your customers and similarly don’t bamboozle them with jargon. A simple: “the computer that translates your URL into computer speak seems to have failed. We’re trying to find out if this is a slight spasm or a monumental cock-up. In the meantime, your options are X, Y or Z. Why not keep an eye on our site for updates.”
4. Empower your staff with information. The poor first line support guys are doing their best in the face of frustrated and angry customers. The least you can do is give them the information in point 3.
5. Make this information easily accessible elsewhere. And useful. And update it. When I eventually was told where the alerts are posted on the Web Africa site, they turned out to be the most unhelpful things in the world, without a date and time stamp, and weren’t updated regularly. How about using Twitter for this? Or another channel that your customer uses. Being able to get some information on a regular basis would have stopped me phoning the helpdesk on the hour, and then later on the half hour, further adding to everyone’s workload, frustration and expense.
6. When a more senior support person steps in to appease the irate customer, make sure they actually have something to say. Hats off to the person who did contact me when he said he would, but what a shame he actually told me less than the first line guys, couldn’t offer any other solutions, and really didn’t add that much to the party.
7. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. At least five times today I was told that my domain name was being fast-tracked for resolution. Awesome. Except I knew that everyone who was phoning in was being told the same thing. Let’s assume that was 100 people. So, I’m first in line, with 100 other people – not going to work. And you know what, it didn’t.
8. Compensation. I’m still trying to decide what the best thing is to do here. Today, I asked for some form of compensation, and I asked that someone contact me about this after the issue had been resolved. I am pleased that Web Africa is going to offer me compensation, but I am feeling a bit ungrateful at the moment because a) the issue is still not resolved and b) because it was offered to me in the middle of the whole fiasco, it feels more like a “let’s do something to shut this crazy woman up” rather that a “gosh we are really sorry for screwing up, please accept this token of our sincere apologies”. (BTW – embrace your crazy, enraged, het up customers. They care enough to contact you, rather than simply walking across the road to your competitor).
9. Apologise. And empower your first line people to apologise. I remember when I was at school and did a brief stint at a South Africa retailer for a holiday job, we were told, if anything happens to a customer you must never apologise. It’s admitting guilt and leaves the company open to litigation. (Clearly they were reading from a handbook someone had picked up in the USA!) Thank god that this is changing, and that many millennial companies are happy to put their hands up, say we screwed up, we’re sorry and we’re going to fix it in these ways. I do think many (most?) South African companies still need to learn this lesson.
10. Treat your support staff like princes and princesses. They are the face and voice of your company for your customers (those people who pay your wages, remember?) and are so often the worst paid, have the worst working conditions and are disempowered and poorly informed. I love the idea of every single person in a company, especially the CEO, doing regular stints at the helpdesk.

This is not intended to be a dig at Web Africa specifically. For a start I think it’s too easy to hammer companies nowadays using social media, and that often people don’t think before they post. As I mentioned, customer care is something I have been thinking about a lot recently, and today’s experience crystallised a few thoughts for me.

Having said that, Web Africa, I really, really, really would like to have me email back up right about now.

Marketing a small or medium business has its own set of challenges and opportunities. The last thing you want to do is waste time, money and the chance to stand out by merely cutting and pasting a big company strategy onto a small company requirement.

Here are five issues to consider when you set out to create a marketing strategy and plan for your small or medium-sized business. These apply equally well to start-ups.

1. SKILL SET

Be clever about getting the right skill set on board. As a business owner, you need to focus on what you do best and not be distracted by writing brochures or press releases. You need to bring in the right specialist skills and the correct level of experience, at the right price.

Be careful about appointing a junior general marketer who will need a lot of hand-holding from you, and won’t have the breadth and depth of experience to cope with your company’s specific requirements.

You need a range of strategic and implementation skills, to work with someone who can manage themselves, and also look to the future to lay the foundations for growth. They also can’t be loath to get their hands dirty, down in the trenches.

If you take the agency route, which is a good option for getting a range of skills with a single price-tag, watch out for agencies used to working with the resources and expectations of a large company.

Ideally appoint an agency or a consultant used to dealing with smaller companies and their requirements. Hiring a freelancer who works for more than one company is a great way to get the experience and skill set you require, at a price that suits your pocket. An added bonus is the potential synergies with the contractor’s other clients.

2. FOCUS

You will be presented with a range of typical and not-so-typical activities and channels to reach your customers. Choose two or three of the activities and channels that make most sense, and then focus your marketing efforts on owning these.

Also keep your customer front of mind. Twitter might be the hottest topic in social media and marketing at the moment, but if your customers are mostly reading text email using a dial-up connection – you’ll be better off sending them a simple email newsletter, letting them know about special offers.

Keep sales and marketing tightly connected and focussed on the same thing. You can’t waste valuable budget on teams not being aligned and chasing the same goal.

3. MESSAGING ON THE FLY

You will end up creating branding and messaging on the fly. It’s not ideal, but it’s inevitable. As a start-up or a smaller company you need to get out there, talking to the market, and can’t afford to spend three months sitting around a board-room table, fine-tuning the most exquisitely crafted message and brand strategy.

However, don’t let your need for speed mean you don’t ever take time out focus on your branding and messaging to make sure it’s coherent, accurate and on track. Spend time once a month to reflect on how your messaging and brand is developing, and if you need to tweak, change track or emphasise any aspects.

4. KEEP IT UP

Understand that building and marketing a brand is not an overnight activity, nor can it be turned on and off like a tap. You need a sustained, coherent programme of activities that builds momentum.

So don’t be tempted to opt for quick wins. It will be more cost-effective in the long run to run a steady strategic PR campaign that builds momentum over three to six months, than to dedicate all your resources to a high profile advert that has a shelf life of less than a month, if it gets seen at all.

5. DUCK, DIVE AND HAVE FUN

Embrace the benefits of being small, nimble and able to react quickly by experimenting and trying something out of the ordinary. If it doesn’t work out, you can quickly correct the situation with minimum exposure, and if it’s a great success, you can do more of the same. Don’t act like a lumbering, slow to change direction oil tanker, when in fact you are a nippy speedboat.

SaleSearcher was an online specials and promotions listings site that allowed retailers to drive more customers to their stores by highlighting current sales.

Twokats Communications helped launch the site to retailers with a media outreach project targetted at retail and marketing publications. This is a great example of how a B2B media outreach campaign can quickly and effectively be implemented, on a tight budget. In both press releases, it was key to use third party endorsements in order to enhance the credibility of a new entity.

You can read the press releases here:

• Retailers get found thanks to Salesearcher, 9 February 2009
• SaleSearcher brings savvy customers straight to you, 17 November 2008

Coverage achieved:

Marketing Mix: Retailers use a little sale searching, February 2009

Mypressportal: Retailers get found thanks to SaleSearcher, 6 February 2009

Biz-community: TV, video and advertising ‘on demand’ creeps closer, 25 November 2008

Marketing Web: Fish for savvy customers online, 25 November 2008

Biz-community: New search site brings sales to customers online, 24 November 2008

Marketing Machine: SaleSearcher brings savvy customers straight to you, 21 November 2008

Mypressportal: SaleSearcher brings savvy customers straight to you, 17 November 2008

Note: Salesearcher has subsequently been put on hold by the owner, who is pursuing other activities.

1. Wide-ranging communications experience: I started off as a technology journalist, switched over to the dark side to become the PR and then marketing manager for a UK technology start-up, was the marketing manager for the leading mobile messaging provider when it moved from Cape Town to Silicon Valley, and finally am running my own communications consultancy working with a range of companies.
2. I’ve been employee number 50 twice: so fully understand the challenges of a rapidly growing company.
3. I survived the previous dotcom bomb: and lived to fight another day, with a heap of crisis communications experience under my belt.
4. I put my money where my mouth is: I am one of the founder members of a mobile start up in Cape Town – watch this space
5. I am media agnostic: the channel is there to convey the message in the most effective way, and is not there for its own sake, and certainly is NOT the story.
6. I’m passionate about brands and brand strategy and love creating and telling the story of authentic brands that add value.
7. I’m a connector: interesting and successful strategic alliances are a critical success factor for any business.
8. I’m a firestarter: nothing engages me more than starting or building something new, and putting in place creative strategies for success.
9. I know it’s unlikely I will ever know your business as well as you do. But I do know my craft inside out and can apply it to your business for maximum impact.
10. I’ve worked abroad for seven years and been exposed to US and European business cultures. But I’m proudly South African and want to build value at home, as well as raise our profile on the world stage.

Credit: thanks to Bev Merriman for inspiration for the format of this list.