Twitter - how valuable is it in business?

Recently many ‘names’ in business (Robert Craven, Ken McCarthy and many many more) have declared in favour (UK Spelling) of Twitter as a business medium for ’spreading the message’ (their business).

I have been a raving fan of Twitter from the start. Heralded as a milestone in internet history and search engine optimisation, Twitter could best be described as one of the initiators of micro-blogging. Registering as a business on Twitter is easy, such as example BusinessFinder on Twitter.

Twitter can be an excellent medium for businesses, as any good marketing consultant should verify, to keep in contact with its customers, prospective customers and indeed any customer segment it chooses, and as many as it chooses since there are few restrictions to membership.

One of the key questions to me is the value in terms of search engine optimisation and the quality of internet links is a micro-blog post on Twitter. Is it only the main link that has value or is does the link in each post also have a value?

Abbey Business - customer service quailty standards being met?

Thanks to Jasmine Birtles of MoneyMagpie in her article ‘The misery of Abbey Business‘I don’t feel so alone in my desperation and frustration of Abbey Business Banking. I ma grateful to her for sharing her personal experience. I too have had problems in accessing my money deposited with Abbey Business in the UK. Abbey is part of the Santander banking group allegedly one of the Top 10 global banking institutions.

I have been obliged to ring them 6 times today (no regard for the customer’s valuable time) and I have been obliged to repreat a lengthy series of security questions (no regard for the customer’s level of acceptance, tolerance and frustration levels).

Previously I was offered a telephone reply by an Abbey supervisor or departmental manager. No telephone contact with me was made. To add to my injuries an unprofessional member the Abbey Business fraud department, who declined to offer her name (which I suppose is understandable - why publicise that you are a bad employee) and made the decision by herself to terminate the call despite.

Finally today I’ve been told that the Abbey Business ecommerce team have identified the problem (this is after other members of the Abbey Business team had previously identified the problem and failed to resolve the issue affecting my business account), and I’ve been told it will take the system 24 hours to update.

All in all I have had very little access to my business accounts in three weeks.

It is a good job I have been able to survive in the meantime, because 98% of all businesses would not have been able to trade through such poor level of business banking service. I would be most interested in the comments of a Professional business adviser in business banking, and his suggestions?

In conclusion, without prejudice, here is a summary of the Abbey Business bank customer experience I have witnessed. I am unable to say whether other Abbey Bank customers would experience the same below par levels of customer service or what impact that it might have on their business performance. How many businesses would be willing to chance it?

1.  After I reported my involvement is a fraud phishing scam, Abby responded quickly to stop any transactions out of the account. They were unable to set account quickly to keep me going, but offered to transfer monies to a new account to keep me in business. Fortunately I had just opened another business bank account with another bank. Yet the monies transferred by the Abbey representative never arrived in the new account, and were returned or transferred to my new Abbey current account 5 days later with no explanation ever given.

2. I was told I had failed a security check (quite hard since it was me, and I do not believe I had behaved differently from any other occasion.) I was threatened with my account being put on hold.

3. I rang to make a complaint. I was promised a telephone response by a Manager, which I never received.

4. I rang today 6 times to get access to moving monies. I was passed from Abbey Business Banking to ecommerce department and back again. The Abbey Ecommerce member of staff did not advise me why he asked me to return to the main department, nor did he speak to a member of staff to instruct them what to do. As a result I was left “hanging in abeyance”. Eventually a helpful member Greg, told me that he had contacted ecommerce again and they have identified the problem and it should be resolved within 24 hours.

What impression can I have with the low level of customer service I have received?

I am sure someone senior on the Santander banking group would be scandalised to learn of my Abbey Business customer experience.

As a business analyst, and business consultant involved in best practice would do as well, I could implement several quality control measure to transform the customer experience and at the same time vastly reduce time wasted, simultaneously massively increase individual productivity, and undoubtedly staff morale as well.

The Internet influence - 5 interesting facts (Anthony Tjan, Harvard Business Publishing)

Anthony Tjan in his Harvard Business Publishing article (28 Oct 09) entitled ‘Upstarts and Titans’ highlights 5 key facts that he has observed on the Net in the world wide web world:

1. Explosion of websites - (2009 200m) 40,000 times increase since 1994 (spanning 15 years).
2. 2009 1m blogs daily (the term blog first used by Evan Williams founder of blogger.com)
3. Twitter - launched 2006 - in 2009 has over 5b ‘tweets’ - blogs of 140 charatcers of less.
4. Google 2b global internet searches per day, and Facebook 700,000 new members daily.
5. Internet-unique industry-high rate churn of Top 10 players.

What does this say about the importance of business internet marketing? Fundamental to your business strategy? Do you need help from a business strategist or from a internet marketing consultant? What does it say if your business is not leading from the front, and where does a business owners or senior manager go to get good business advice?

Business experts on personal development can help today’s managers.

In my humble opinion In the UK there is a shortage of business gurus.

Names like Robert Craven nicknamed by the Sunday Times as the ‘entreprenueur guru’ spring to mind, but there are not many.

In the US it is a different story. Whatever one may personally think of Anthony Robbins, one cannot ignore the significant contribution he has made to the field of personal development, which he suggests is ‘the source of all one’s business’ and therefore his contribution to business performance.

His message is that there are 5 things to help (managers) face adversity and crisis.

1. Be decisive. (whatever happens, make a decision, learn from it).
2. Get resourceful (get help from a mentor, business adviser, colleague)
3. Get a vision (of how change will happen. If you can’t think of a positive one, think of the most negative one, and then do the opposite)
4. Get a proven plan (ideally, model on somebody who’s been through the same and who’s succeeded. Athony Robbins says “success leaves clues”).
5. Take massive action.  (5 frogs sitting on a log floating in a lake. One decides to go for a swim. How many are left? Answer: the same number since the frog who made the decision has only made up his mind, he hasn’t taken action yet. So this step is equally crucial).

So as a manager we need to think deeply with our minds (using Stephen Covey’s terminology) how best we can respond to the current situation, bearing in mind the current economic climate, and the current activitiy of our competitors. In my mind, as Robert Craven always reminds the UK SME business community, we don’t get far trying to go it alone. I have learned this from personal experience. For outstanding results we need outstanding business improvement, and that is likely to come from seeking external business advice and assistance. Do you agree?