Customer Service Matters Most

What makes you leave a service provider? Well it normally takes a lot because the hassle and time involved in shifting bank accounts, or Broadband, or telephone makes it so scary that you end up putting up with the poor service as better than the thought of losing your connection, or direct debits or incoming payments.

The opposite is however also true and we use social media and customer review sites more too often to criticise bad practice rather than promote good service. I know I do.

So when you get something as exceptional as the service I've just received then you really should share it.

Yesterday I received a text from my business mobile company O2 in Irvine saying that I now had access to a Guru named Stuart. Great idea I thought. This morning I got a postcard from O2 in Irvine giving me more detail and advising that I now had access to Stuart via a mobile number or an email address. Great reinforcement of a great idea!

Now for two weeks I've been trying to figure out how I could synchronise my Google Apps for Business. driving me absolutely nuts and I spent seriously eight hours, maybe more, trying to fix it.

So with nothing to lose a quick email to O2 Guru Stuart; the first reply suggested that he couldn't help as it would require changes to certain things that he couldn't fix. Five minutes later however a phone call saying that he had reread it and would come back to me if there was anything he could find.

Another five minutes passed and an email arrived with a techy type link but with easy to follow advice on what I'd done wrong. Ten minutes later, mild punching of the air and a fully synchronised communications network now working between Google Mail, iPhone and outlook on the the laptop.

Now when BT next phone me up from a call centre somewhere asking me if I'd like to switch my mobile, landlines and telephones back to them what do you think my response will be?

Almost without exception I have found the support from O2 Business to be exceptional. Exceptional may be hyperbole or not but customer care is only tested when things are going wrong. It's how you handle the negative issues that determine all of our future relationships with a client or supplier. When things go wrong with O2 - and they have - the ethos is let's sort it together.

So here I am feeling better about myself this afternoon because I'm praising someone! Feels great! And if it gets up the line to O2's customer service team then even better because Stuart in Irvine has made my working day, week prhaps even my month infinitely smoother than it was looking at ten o'clock this morning.

Customer Service Matters Most

What makes you leave a service provider? Well it normally takes a lot because the hassle and time involved in shifting bank accounts, or Broadband, or telephone makes it so scary that you end up putting up with the poor service as better than the thought of losing your connection, or direct debits or incoming payments.

The opposite is however also true and we use social media and customer review sites more too often to criticise bad practice rather than promote good service. I know I do.

So when you get something as exceptional as the service I've just received then you really should share it.

Yesterday I received a text from my business mobile company O2 in Irvine saying that I now had access to a Guru named Stuart. Great idea I thought. This morning I got a postcard from O2 in Irvine giving me more detail and advising that I now had access to Stuart via a mobile number or an email address. Great reinforcement of a great idea!

Now for two weeks I've been trying to figure out how I could synchronise my Google Apps for Business. driving me absolutely nuts and I spent seriously eight hours, maybe more, trying to fix it.

So with nothing to lose a quick email to O2 Guru Stuart; the first reply suggested that he couldn't help as it would require changes to certain things that he couldn't fix. Five minutes later however a phone call saying that he had reread it and would come back to me if there was anything he could find.

Another five minutes passed and an email arrived with a techy type link but with easy to follow advice on what I'd done wrong. Ten minutes later, mild punching of the air and a fully synchronised communications network now working between Google Mail, iPhone and outlook on the the laptop.

Now when BT next phone me up from a call centre somewhere asking me if I'd like to switch my mobile, landlines and telephones back to them what do you think my response will be?

Almost without exception I have found the support from O2 Business to be exceptional. Exceptional may be hyperbole or not but customer care is only tested when things are going wrong. It's how you handle the negative issues that determine all of our future relationships with a client or supplier. When things go wrong with O2 - and they have - the ethos is let's sort it together.

So here I am feeling better about myself this afternoon because I'm praising someone! Feels great! And if it gets up the line to O2's customer service team then even better because Stuart in Irvine has made my working day, week prhaps even my month infinitely smoother than it was looking at ten o'clock this morning.

Edinburgh Tourism Accommodation Audit 2012

Key findings from the Edinburgh Tourism Accommodation Audit 2012, undertaken on behalf of ETAG in partnership with Scottish Enterprise were released last week.

The audit, hailed as the most comprehensive analysis of Edinburgh’s visitor accommodation provision ever undertaken, shows that the city hosts 12,910 bedrooms in 529 establishments in the serviced accommodation sector (hotels and related types) and 7,353 bedrooms in the non-serviced sector (self-catering, apartments, hostels etc) throughout the year.

The audit also shows that the number of additional rooms available during the Festival period has increased substantially, rising from 20,437 to 27,504, with the biggest growth coming from the campus, self-catering and hostel sectors. This allows the city to accommodate over 50,000 visitors per night during August.
Compared with the previous audit carried out in 2006, Edinburgh has seen growth across all accommodation types, providing an additional 6,422 rooms in total. The single largest growth area has been seen in the non-serviced stock, with the serviced apartment sector showing the biggest increase, from 630 to 2,019 rooms, an increase of 220%.

The report also identifies that there are currently 765 new hotel bedrooms under construction and which are due to open in 2012/13.

The audit highlighted a number of key issues, such as the need for the city to maintain a balanced accommodation portfolio to meet the demands of both the leisure and business markets and ongoing concerns about the perceived high cost of accommodation in Edinburgh, particularly during peak seasons such as the August Festival period and Hogmanay.

These issues will have to be addressed in order to keep in line with the goals of the National Tourism Strategy for Scotland but the outlook for Edinburgh is positive and with continued and growing tourism to the area, visitors will be encouraged to explore Scotland’s other treasures, resulting in a healthy and growing hospitality industry nationally.

VisitScotland Social Media - Yup They Get It!

Warning.

This is a rant and if I was Irish I'd be saying fecking quite frequently.

So please feel free to fill them in where you think appropriate.

One paragraph of background first.

It is hard to quantify what the public bodies have spent on VisitScotland.com since they embarked on their "new" digital strategy ten years ago but it could be well in excess of £30 million quid all in when you take all the externals, buy outs, redesigns, restructurings, pay offs, legal bills, salaries, consultants, EC meetings; they will maybe contest the detail but you get the picture. It's been a shed load of investment. The current campaign for Brave which is by VisitScotland's own hyperbole the next big thing for Scottish Tourism has had £7 million earmarked on it. We heard maybe more.

Scene set?

The UK/European launch of Brave took place in Edinburgh on Saturday with a host of stars and politicians and media - and remember that £7 million that VisitScotland have invested in joint marketing and the recent all singing all dancing launch of the new VS digital strategy - and here's how it is represented online with VisitScotland. First Facebook:

Yup that's right folks, we're with you all the way on this new fangled social media stuff and we'll tell you about on Monday when we get back into the office. We understand the immediacy of social media and we recognise that we can get access to pictures that others can't and we'll tell you about it on Monday. We also recognise that our Chairman and First Minister have fronted a publicly funded £7 million campaign and we'll try and get it online for you but it may be after morning coffee as there's a lot to talk about first.

Seven or eight posts on their Twitter account and not a word on Facebook? (Not even a Facebook post to say why don't you follow us at the event on Twitter. Too obvious?) Too much bother having to write real sentences or something? No blogs. No website feature pages. Nothing on the industry website. Nothing on LinkedIn.

SEVEN MILLION QUID - the difference is in the detail. How often have we heard it's the little things that we do that diffeerentiate us from the competition. There was a whole tourism strategy launched last week based on such differences.

Now anyone who has read any of our posts knows we do not beleive that Social Medi is anything but a small part of a hospitlaity business' distribution strategy but with the resources that VisitScotland have to hand you'd think they could at least make a bloody effort.

Does it really matter?

We don't have the clout or distribution and it may be that it will just be written off as another insignificant moan at VS.com but perhaps it should be seen as a clear indication of an organsiation claiming one thing but clearly not getting it. They wouldn't be the first Scottish institution that needed claoer examination. Is it a further reflection of a disjointed digital strategy that has no real understanding of what online destination marketing should be about and reinforces once again that they should just leave this to the private sector to deal with.

Stop playing at being a poor man's search engine; stop trying to sell things online that you have no authentic experience of; stop spending millions of public money on things that others are already doing a lot better.

For a decade, VisitScotland, and the succesive governments funding them, have played at it with millions of taxpayers with no fear of being held to account for more than a decade of failing to get any of it right.

The blog hasn't had an update since 18th of June and this is with the new online marketing strategy in place? The booking engine doesn't work properly, comments we have is that their extranet is more complicated than the one they've just upgraded from; the website is dark and underwhelming and they are in the process of having to contract another third party for the provision of a "channel manager" to handle online reservations through their. It is always was and always will be beyond the public sector to drive an online marketing strategy from the top down.

No-one held account for failure, or the U turns, or the increasing costs, or the missed deadlines and failed deliveries. Now it may not be the scale of Barclays or the RBS or the trams or but you know what it is all cut from the same cloth. A lack of corporate responsibility and accountability.

Plus ca change...

You know posting about a Monday to Friday social media presence may seem a small thing but I'm not sure that there is anything that reflects more clearly on a complete lack of understanding of the media and spotlights the whole fragmented strategy than something so simple.

However does anyone in Scotland actually give a feck?

Golf Scorecard Design For Dragon's Tooth

Lovely wee job done this week for our old friends at Dragon's Tooth at Ballachulish on the way to Fort William.

Having designed their website a few years back Laurence Young asked if we could redesign their course map. The greenkeepers have just completed the addition of nine new tees to provide two sets of tees for the nine greens.

In the week of the launch of the movie Brave it would not be difficult to imagine that the course provided the location for some of the background images of the fantasy Disney film!

We designed the new graphic over the past week and it'll go to print for summer visitors. And it's always nice to get a Facebook plug from clients, "Sneak Preview! The new illustration for the 18 Tee Course has just been received . . . and here it is! Thanks to Steven Timpson of www.planbonline.co.uk for such a clear, attractive and professional production." - you can follow Dragon's Tooth on Facebook too

I played nine holes here during the May heatwave and it was he most enjoyable game of golf I'd had in years so if you're in the area you really have to fit in a round. Great soup and baked potato too!