Filed under: Business, IT Community, small business — Tags: Business, CompTIA, IT Community, TCA —
Posted: 06:07
February 25, 2010

Are you getting what the IT community is about yet? A while back I wrote a post about the power of the IT community and what it can deliver to you, it seems so strange looking back that there was a time when I didn’t ‘get it’.

Right now I am sat in a TravelLodge in Leicester as I am attending the CompTIA resellers forum at 7.30am at the Holiday Express followed by the TCA Conference at 10.45am at the Walkers Stadium. Yesterday evening all of the people attending the Resellers Forum were out for a dinner kindly laid on by Kaseya, and yes it was a room full of geeks but it was a great night out and fantastic opportunity for me to get together again with Chris Timm, Richard Tubb, Andy Parkes, William Linard, Adam Harris and many others some of whom I had not see for some time. These guys are some of the best in our industry and I proud to say my friends. On the face of it some of these guys run IT companies that are doing what I do so why on earth would I want to be socialising with them much less sharing the way we work? Quite simply because through sharing, you get the reassurance that ‘that awkward customer’ is not just unique to you and that others face the same challenges that you do. Also by working together we can all help to raise the standard in the industry and that is what the Resellers Forum is all about. If you run an IT business and are interested in getting involved in the Resellers Forum then you should contact William Linard for more information.

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Filed under: Business, IT Support, life, small business — Tags: Business, IT Support, life —
Posted: 19:37
May 13, 2009

Over the years I have seen a great many IT engineers come and go, after all 16 years is a  long time in the trade. During that time I have also taught a number of engineers the best ways to do the job, many of which had no formal qualifications such as MCP, MCSE etc. The first lesson that I have always made a point of teaching is to listen; listen to the client. Whenever you go out on a service call you will be given a description of the issue that you are there to resolve. In my opinion, the golden rule is to sit down with the client and ask them to explain the problem and listen.  There are two reasons why I always do this; firstly the information that you have been given on your job sheet will be what the help desk interpreted from the client but may not be accurate so best to check. Secondly, you will allow the client to vent themselves to you and during the discussion you can usually connect with them on some level which will invariably given you a better insight to both the issue faced and the client personally. I have always felt that this was standard, common sense in all businesses.  However, those of you that follow me on twitter (@robfranklin) will have seen the experience that I had with Dell’s tech support on Friday which left me feeling somewhat frustrated.  Here is how the conversation went:

Me: “Hi there, I have a problem with BackupExec for Small Business Server that was supplied with these new servers for my client”.

Dell: “What is the problem?”

Me: “When I enter the license key it says that it is invalid. It accepts the “Premium” license key but it will not accept the SBS key”

Extended period of silence…now 15 minutes in to the call and not progressed

Dell: “What license number do you have?”

Me: “The license key is…”

Dell: “That’s a serial number”

Me: “It says license key?”

Dell: “No that’s the serial number”

Me: “But it says on the front cover that it is the “Software License Key” and inside, just above the key, it says “Software License Key”. Surely it would say serial number if that is what it is?”

Dell: “No that’s the serial number, you need to go to the Symantec licensing portal and register the serial number”

Me: “But I have done dozens of these and I have always just entered the key into the software”

Dell: “They have tightened up the licensing recently”

Me: “Hmm, ok where do I go to register the ’serial number’?”

So now we go to the Symantec licensing portal, I complete the registration in order to log on to the site. After entering the ’serial number’ it says that the ’serial number’ is invalid.

Me: “It says the number is invalid”

Dell: “Are you sure it is entered correctly?”

Me: “Yes I’m sure but it does not say it is a serial number it clearly says it’s a license key”

Dell: “Ok I need to speak with Symantec, can you hold"?”

Me: “Err yeah ok”

So I was put on hold, 35 minutes in to the call and I had made no progress. Needless to say I did not stay on hold as by this point I was completely frustrated by the fact that the support technician was simply not listening. The conversation above it not verbatim but I must have explained to this guy about 10 times that it clearly states it is a License Key and not a Serial Number but he was not listening.

The most important skill that any person who is in a customer facing role can do is just listen. By not exercising this most fundamental skill during this call my whole experience with Dell’s “Pro-support” was completely destroyed and had this been my first experience then I would be one very unhappy client and would think twice about buying Dell again.  That said only a week before I had spoken to them and the support tech I spoke to I cannot say enough about. He listened and acted on what I was telling while verifying what I was saying was correct.

I can only assume that my bad experience was a one-off but none the less it was a bad experience.  So if nothing else, don’t talk just listen and everything else will take shape.

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Filed under: Business, small business — Tags: Business, marketing, small business —
Posted: 20:26
April 2, 2009

I try not to do any shameless “whoring” but sometimes it just has to be done for the greater good.  There are a great deal of small business out there trying a great deal of marketing tactics without success because it lacks structure. Unless you have a natural flare or have had training it can be very hard to market your business/product and succeed but with a little training you can.

I am pleased to say that a fellow BNI member and good friend of mine, Kirsty Cambers from Fresh Marketing Solutions, is running a marketing masterclass.  Now in conjunction with Business Link eligible business with 2-249 employees that have not had previous Lead to Succeed Training should be eligible for Business Link support.  This support means that the course cost is reduced from £650 + VAT to just £75.00 + VAT!!  If you are interested please read on:

Overview
Award winning marketing consultancy, Fresh Marketing Solutions have put together a course to help all businesses achieve their commercial objectives in 2009. The 2 day Masterclass will provide the opportunity for learners to put together a strategic marketing plan that is tailored to their business.

Masterclass Content
During the intensive 2 day course, learners will cover a variety of topics such as tools and techniques for analysing their business environment, objective setting, evaluation of different marketing tools, implementation planning and measuring key performance indicators. The course is suitable for any team member that wants to have a structured approach to business growth or who may be relatively new to marketing.

The Benefits
Upon completion of the course each learner will have an accurate and relevant marketing plan to implement within their business. The marketing plan will be an action plan to ensure their commercial objectives are met for 2009. By attending this course, businesses have a much more cost effective method of obtaining strategic focus than hiring in a 3rd party which can cost thousands of pounds in consultancy fees. There will be options for post-masterclass support to ensure that the newly produced marketing plan is being implemented and remains relevant to their business.

The Consultants
With over 10 years of experience, both Consultants selected to run the masterclass have a wealth of experience across businesses from a variety of sectors. These range from large multinational organisations, small to medium enterprises and independent sole traders. Both Consultants are of a high marketing pedigree with proven expertise as practitioners and hold Chartered Markeeter status.

Course Details
Masterclasses will be held across April, May and June 2009. The course will be delivered in a Nottingham training facility where refreshments and lunch will be served on both days. Specific details of location, times etc will be issued in the learner packs sent to you.  All learning material will be provided.

The course is priced at £650 per learner (excluding VAT) with the option of group discounts.

Funding now available
If you have 2-249 employees and have not had previous Lead to Success Training you should be eligible for Business Link support. If you are eligible for funding you will receive a £575 contribution towards the cost of the course.

Kirsty will arrange for Business Link to call you and allocate the funding. If you are eligible for funding you will be reimbursed by Business Link for the amount that you are entitled to. You will be asked to pay the full amount up front then you will receive the £575 reimbursement from Business Link.

If this is of interest to anyone, which it should be at that cost, then please use the form below to contact Fresh Marketing Solutions.

End of shameless whoreing, have a great week all!!

- Rob

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Filed under: Business, Personal Develoment, life, small business — Tags: Business, life, personal development, small business —
Posted: 22:13
January 18, 2009

The old saying goes that “if a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing well” and never a true word was spoken.  The world we live in today is fast moving and sometimes you feel as through you are in the wake of an avalanche with no way of stopping.  People today do not spend enough time on things and it is all too often the case that they will procrastinate until it is too late to do a good job.  Sometimes it is frugal to procrastinate as it gives us time to plan the work that we are  undertaking, allow the creative thought process to run so we can create the work at hand.  However, more often than not this time is not required and more importantly it is wasted with resulting work being typically of poor standard.  A classic example of this was this evening my son said that he had homework to do.  This had been given to him on Friday but he had not done it, he also didn’t have the assignment as another child had taken it from him.  Creatively enough he decided to create a document which discussed various plants as he knew this was the topic.  The resultant document was not so impressive as he had copied parts from the Internet without formatting he text correctly and more importantly he had copied one section three times.  The resultant document was just rushed and had no real effort put in to ensure that what was being presented was correct or of reasonable quality.  This may seem a harsh analysis of his work but I was raised with the understand of “If a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing well”.  So with that I assisted him in making the necessary corrections and explained that what he had done was great but he needed to be more conscious when doing this sort of work.

The fact is that we are all judged by the work that we do for others.  This could be something as simple has helping over the phone, guiding a customer to the right place in a store or it could be a new network installation.  Whatever the task we, as individuals, should always try to strive to better ourselves and stand out above the crowd by going that extra mile to make our client happy.  Always remember that it takes a lot to impress people today but it doesn’t take a lot to disappoint them, which do you want to do?

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Filed under: Business, Light relief, Personal, life — Tags: Business, customer service, life, Personal —
Posted: 21:32
January 8, 2009

I believe that the current economic climate helps us all to appreciate that we need to nurture the client base we have much more than we have previously.  As businesses start to hunker down to weather the oncoming storm they need to know that their trusted advisors, whether this be IT or other services, are there to huddle up to them to help weather the storm.  Part of the process is to interact with our clients on a much more proactive way than previously, getting involved in there business and seeing where you can help them to save money.  Sadly some people just are not getting it.

Here is an example of how NOT to perform customer service:

We recently had to make a claim on our insurance due to a leak in our central heating system, this resulted in a number of our carpets being ruined.  While that other areas are still being sorted the carpets have been ordered and I was contacted by Carpet Right over at Derby yesterday to inform me that they were in and to sort out fitting.  The conversation went like this:

Me: Hello can I help?

Man: Hi this is Carpet Right at Derby we’ve got your carpet in, can we sort out fitting it?

Me: Yeah that’d be great, but I am just with someone now would it be possible to give me a call back this afternoon to arrange a time?

Man: What me call you?

Me: Errr yes please.

Man: Errr Ok I guess I will if I remember

Me: Oh..O K … thanks

I have done a course in customer service in that past and while I do not profess to be an idol to look up to on this subject I know what is poor customer service and clearly this man should not be in any job which requires him interacting with a paying customer.  Needless to say that when I do want carpets in the future, which I am paying for myself, I will NOT be going to see this company and as we are always taught “If someone has a good experience with your company they may tell 1-2 people, if they have a bad experience they will tell 20+”.  Guess which category I fall into!  Oh and just for the record, he never rang back so clearly he didn’t remember.

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Filed under: Business, Mobile, Security, small business — Tags: Business, corporate security, Mobile, Security, small business —
Posted: 16:51
January 5, 2009

I have just had the heads-up from a good friend of mine to let me know that he will be sending over my copy of Interguard software for home, laptop and corporate security.  All being well I should have the stuff over this evening and all things being equal will get something posted up over the next couple of days.  As products go this is shaping up to be a great product with a very comprehensive range for features for such things as monitoring web access.  DataLock which helps prevent data leakage from a business as well as laptop security so should your beloved laptop be stolen or lost then it can located, data retrieved and the notebook disabled from ever working again.

Awesome stuff so you’ll have the review as soon as I have it.

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