Protected: Credit Control Warrior
April 10, 2010Businesses Still Opening despite the odds ..
March 29, 2010
Karizma - Turkish Barbers
Despite the odds new businesses are still opening up in the middle of this economic climate.
What is this due to ?
Is this an entrepreneurial spirit that just cannot be crushed? – unique individuals, who despite bucket loads of advice not to do so, struggles to raise finance from powerless and frightened bankers, little incentive to even bother trying and poor support from any government bodies – and they still decide to risk their money without a safety net and take the ultimate plunge and open up a “new business”.
Thank God – the landlords, the shop fitters, the signage guys, the staff, the local councils and the revenue all benefit & maybe the odd Marketing & PR Company!
I absolutely celebrate inside when I pass these new stores/businesses.
Long live the entrepreneurial spirit, it won’t be broken!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Students “Doing the Business”
March 29, 2010
I had the honour and pleasure of being one of the judges at the Cork Schools Enterprise Finals at CIT in Cork this month. This initiative was sponsored by Cork County and City Enterprise Boards.
It basically consisted of transition year students starting a business and running it as a project as part of their development. In my section I was judging the City entrants with Natasha Lynch from Essential French and we had 6 good contestants to review. It was a pity there weren’t more entrants from the City but I guess the schools are quite busy these days – I would recommend it to any school as it seemed like a fabulous experience for all of them.
It was incredible meeting these enthusiastic students, who showed us their business plans, their ideas, their “inventions”. They shared with us their real-life experiences including “power struggles” and disagreements, disappointments and successes along the way. They poured their energy into all of their projects and already you could see how these unique experiences will stand to all of them.
To all of those students, their teachers, CIT and the Cork City and County Enterprise Boards – I salute you!
To the winners (which from my point of view was everyone who participated and learnt valuable life lessons) well done guys, you deserved it. To the guys from my old school Spioraid Naoimh, keep up the good work – next year you might be in the prizes!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Get Results – Complain Online!
March 1, 2010This is just a very simple follow up piece on an issue that I was having with Eircom, which was dragging on and on forever.
Basically I was pretty much getting no satisfaction, I was being passed from pillar to post and getting nowhere fast.
In the meantime I read an interesting article about how many years ago a guy in the States blogged about lousy service he had received from Dell Computers. Once he had blogged the post was noticed online and soon there was an avalanche of people with the same problems & eventually Dell spotted the commotion, reacted and more importantly took the issues on board and sorted out some serious issues they were having.
Eircom Business
I took the same approach and put my frustration on my blog (I circulated this through Facebook & Linkedin) and found that while no one in Eircom was listening through the normal channels the story online was quite different!
Within hours I had a guy onto me directly from Eircom responding to my blog post. The issue that had been dragging on forever was sorted within a week (well hopefully, when I get the credit I will know it is sorted).
On the positive side the issue was sorted, on the negative why did it take an online post to get a reaction?
The power of online media ..
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Have we less to say to our Customers?
February 15, 2010
Billboard Advertising in Ireland
I am amazed by the amount of empty billboards that I am seeing around the country at the moment.
In what I consider to be quite a good location quite close to where we live there are three billboards and they have been empty pretty much since the start of the year – eventually this weekend two of them were filled.
There are clearly huge cutbacks going on by the big mainstream advertisers.
Why did we advertise last year? The year before?
Is now a time for advertising less?
Is now a time for not talking to your customers?
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
What would Darwin think of Nama?
February 9, 2010Charles Darwin the English scientist who passed away in 1882 had a very famous quote “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”
What would he make of our property industry? In the muck for the best part of two years and no new initiatives, besides reducing prices and passing the buck from the developers to the banks to Nama. Is this the best that we can do?
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Eircom Business – Are you listening to your customers (part 2)
February 8, 2010
Eircom Business
This is a really strange one.
If you recall on my last blog on this issue I was sharing a huge frustration that I was having with Eircom Business for quite a while and quite politely getting nowhere fast.
I am not sure if this is good or bad? – Eircom actually responded literally within hours – ‘to my blog’ and not to my actual complaint.
The caller from Eircom Customer services, quite a nice lad Vince wanted to know in detail the nature of my complaint – this I guess is good?
Eircom cared enough to track what was being said by customers online and responded by tracking me down and listening to what I had to say.
On the negative side you must wonder why the ‘official’ channels don’t seem to work as well as the ‘online’ and unofficial public channels.
The issue still isn’t resolved, which is quite staggering, but I did get a response, which I guess is hopeful at least.
I will keep you posted ..
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Eircom Business Customer Service!
February 4, 2010
Eircom Business
I am sure that I am not the first to have experienced lousy customer service but I just have to blog about Eircom. At a time when we are all busting a gut to get by, delivering excellent customer service it astounds me how some companies can get away with the total opposite.
Without going into the blow by blow of the story they made a total shambles of a simple leasing agreement on a phone system and put us on a careless business tariff that had us paying about €300/400 too much every month. This went on for over a year – I was offered a credit of €200.
Read on …. the text of my last email to them (lets see if they are listening to their customers online: I will circulate the blog on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter)
email: 4th Feb 2010
Hi Padraic,
This is going from bad to worse ..
In response to your efforts to get this sorted on your side I received a call yesterday from a ‘Debbie’ in Eircom.
While very pleasant and courteous she seemed to be quite junior. She politely explained that her credit jurisdiction did not extend beyond €200 and if I wanted to achieve something more than this I would have to make an ‘official complaint’!
Aaaaaahhhhhhh …. what in the name of god is going on at Eircom.
In fairness to Debbie she saw the funny side and acknowledged that what was going on and my steady flow of correspondence did qualify me as ‘a complainer’. She totally empathised with me and promised that someone with some sort of authority would call me back in half an hour.
I needn’t tell you that I never received a call from anyone.
Officially ‘This is a complaint’ to Eircom and not me writing for the fun of it.
I would appreciate some action please.
Regards,
Greg Canty
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Michael Courtney Tribute
February 1, 2010
We will meet again
Last week (26th January) a man that was very special to us sadly and unexpectedly passed away.
We were working together on the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Committee in Killarney for the last two years. Michael Courtney, a Councillor in Killarney and Chairman of the Committee brought energy, warmth, commitment and a unique sense of humour to the project. The whole team have made terrific strides since we began the project and in Michael’s honour we will be even more determined to achieve our ultimate goal.
Michael always appreciated our input to the project and thanked us in such a way that made you always feel very special.
We will miss him greatly at our meetings and we will especially miss the cup of tea afterwards in the restaurant at the International Hotel, where he always spent half the time chatting to pretty much everyone who entered the restaurant!
Michael, thank you ..
Greg Canty is a partner at Fuzion Communications
How do I find New Customers Easily?
January 24, 2010I deliberately changed the heading I originally had for this article as I felt many of you may just switch off and not bother reading any further!
While that may not be a fair thing to do it is actually not too bad as the title I have chosen for the article is actually very accurate. However the title I had originally chosen was “Social Media is a form of free advertising – Use it!”
Already as I had feared many of you could be saying – I can’t even use a computer so I’m not even going to read this!
Please bear with me and read on. It’s easier than you think and this is a unique opportunity for your business. Many people are already using the different forms of Social Media and are successfully spreading the word about their business and winning new customers in the process.
Consider the different Social Media tools as forms of free advertising, free publicity and a free way to spread the word about your store or your brand. How can you ignore it?
You owe it to yourself to at least understand how it all works, how it could work for you and your business and then decide whether it is something you need to learn or something you need someone to do for you. Most importantly understand how some of your competitors are using these tools and the advantages they are gaining in the process.
Facebook for Business
A small piece of information that might help to hold your interest – There are over 1,110,000 registered users of Facebook in Ireland, all over 18. You might assume that most of these are quite young? Nearly 500,000 of these users are 30 and over. My guess is a lot of your customers are busy using Facebook!
Some of you will already have discovered the power of the different social media for your business but for most it is a fabulous awareness opportunity just waiting to be discovered.
Let’s start with the basics – What exactly is Social Media?
They are the tools available on the web for socialising with other people online. There are many such tools and all totally free you will be glad to hear. The most popular and most useful of these are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
You don’t need to have a website to use any of these tools, just an email address. If you have a website they can be used to bring more traffic to it.
I will try my best to explain each of these in the most simplest of terms:
Facebook (www.facebook.com) is a powerful free resource for communicating with individuals and groups. At the heart of it you sign yourself up as an individual, build up a network of friends sharing messages, pictures and even video. You can also become a fan of business pages, which could include your favourite shops, charities etc. You can also set up a business page for your own business and encourage your customers to sign up as fans – through this you can add news about new products, show visuals of new collections, announce sales and even invite your fans to an event such as a sale.
I strongly recommend Facebook for any business in the hospitality or retail sector. We encourage all of our clients in these sectors to set up their presence on Facebook and to use it proactively. For example Starbucks have over 5.5million fans worldwide on their Facebook page, that’s a lot of coffee drinkers!
Twitter for business
Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a totally different beast. Basically you can set up an account or identity for yourself or your business and you then choose to follow others or let them follow you. You can then publish short messages referred to as ‘tweets’, which can be seen by the people following you and vice versa. For me quite honestly I am not totally sold on Twitter but I do see the sense in deliberately following businesses or journalists that may be of relevance to you and learn what they are writing about.
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is quite different to the others as it is a business to business form of online networking. On LinkedIn you set up your profile and from here you can invite others to connect with you. With LinkedIn you can normally see quite detailed information about where people are working and the position they hold. LinkedIn comes to life through the ‘Groups’ facility. You can join groups on LinkedIn such as your local Chamber, trade Groups or different interest groups. You can also set up a group yourself and invite others to join. For example I set up a group called Spend Ireland, which encourages people to spend their money in Ireland. These groups can be excellent for discussing topics and finding out information. Another feature of LinkedIn is the ability to register personal recommendations for your contacts and vice versa and you can also request introductions through your connections.
You can spend a lot of precious time on each of these so are they worth it?
Must – My own view is that you absolutely must be using Facebook proactively for your business as a store or as a brand. Make sure you complete your profile and regularly keep it fresh with news, updates, offers, visuals and comments. Let your customers know that you have a Facebook page and encourage them to sign up. A vital point to remember is that it is a form of ‘Social Media’ – try not to be too formal, you will only turn people off. Learn as much as you can by joining other peoples pages and watch how they are communicating news and offers. If you feel you do not have the time arrange for someone to do this for you.
LinkedIn for business
Maybe – I would try LinkedIn and Twitter once I was up and running on Facebook.
One final tip for you – If you have a website make it easy for people to share it with their contacts on the different social media by adding an ‘Add This’ sharing button to your website. Check out www.addthis.com to learn how. If you have a website and are also using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn direct them to these pages by adding buttons to the site.
I know that all of this can seem complicated and can be a little daunting but I promise you will get there one step at a time at you will win new customers for you business. What are you waiting for?
Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion Communications, providing Marketing Consultancy, PR and Graphic Design and Web Optimisation services.
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