How NOT to do customer communication

One of the simplest ways to improve your customer service is to think about how you expect to be treated by someone offering you a service.

Mrs P and I recently decided we needed a new front door so turned to the Internet

We posted a job on Rated People with an outline of the work we wanted doing and shortly after I got a phone call from a local business and organised for him to come around, measure up and give us a quote.

We accepted the quote and filled out all the paperwork to place the order. The installation time was organised for some six weeks later because of the lead time on the door we wanted and choosing a date that worked for both of us.

We were told they would be there at 8AM on the day and should be all done by noon at the very latest. This enabled Mrs P to plan her day accordingly (school runs, etc)

On the day itself 8am came and passed with no sign of the fitters.

Finally around 9.30 I got call to explain that he was in Birmingham and his supplier was closed. He wasn’t sure why but it appeared they had decided to stay closed after the bank holiday. He said that he’d make some more enquires and get back to me.

A couple of hours passed and I heard nothing more. Mrs P was still waiting in the house as he hadn’t actually cancelled yet and didn’t know if he was going to turn up in the next five minutes or not at all.

I called him back and was told he hadn’t been able to hold of anyone at the company, he didn’t have any news for me which was why hadn’t called. We ended the call with him cancelling the appointment and that he’d rearrange once he knew what was going on with the door supplier.

The rest of the week came and went with another bank holiday in between. I went back to work on the Tuesday and still hadn’t heard anything by Wednesday afternoon so gave him a call.

I was told the supplier had indeed been closed over the bank holiday and he’d only returned from a holiday the previous day which is why he hadn’t called me.

A date was arranged for the following week.

The installation date came and he did turn up with the door (albeit twenty minutes late) though in the days running up to it we had no idea how we were supposed to pay him. (cheque/bank transfer/cash!)

Have I made it obvious what irked me?

While we were very happy with the completed work it’ll be highly unlikely that I’ll reuse or recommend that person.  

The entire lack of communication was highly frustrating.

First, the door supplier – did they do a good enough job of communicating a change to their opening hours? I can’t actually answer this to be honest as it could have been the fitter who hadn’t done his “homework”. That said if he’d ordered/reserved the door surely a collection date would have been organised. If this was the case at this point the fact they were going to be closed should have been outlined.

Second was the lack of ownership of the problem. The fitter had an appointment with us at eight AM but I didn’t hear from him until an hour and half after that. The conversation on the phone was all about blaming the supplier and I never actually got an apology at this stage.

Third was the lack of updates on what was happening. I had to chase him some hours later to find out what was going on and his response was “I didn’t call as I don’t have any news”. This wasn’t very helpful when we’d arranged for someone to be at home and they were still waiting on him.

Fourth, why did I have to chase up for a new appointment? I’m not saying he had to break into his holiday just to keep me informed but he’d returned to work as normal (he was on a roof when I called him) – if I hadn’t called when would he have called me?

Finally, and it’s only a small thing but the issue around how to make a payment. The night before we made the decision we were going to give him a cheque – we didn’t actually know if this was ok but he hadn’t told us anything different. It wasn’t on any paper work we’d had nor had it been mentioned. A little think but could have been little awkward when he’d finished.

I ended up as frustrated customer, I understand that mistakes happen – nothing runs to plan all the time but this could have all been avoided by making a couple of calls.

So as I said right at the start what I’ll be taking away from this how it can have an impact on my customer service.

Is it possible to OVER communicate? Either way too much communication is surely better than no communication right?

As always thoughts and comments welcome!

Networking Events? Why Bother?

I’ve tried to write this post three or four times and given up as I wasn’t really sure if I was getting my point across, thought I’d have another go at it!

Vaughan Shayler from Accredit UK posted this on Twitter a while back

Interested in comments on Alan Sugar’s opinion of networking – http://on.fb.me/fyfNDz

The article is titled “My Message to Small Businesses for 2011”

I think the specific part Vaughan is referring to is,

“Consider why you started your business. I assume it was that you have some experience or expertise in your field, and that is the big point – don’t rely upon anyone else. It’s going to be you who defines the way forward. I am sick and tired of hearing people asking what to do, going to networking meetings and seminars expecting to glean some gems of wisdom. These events are money-making exercises and benefit one party and one party only: the organiser.

They have become an escape for people to justify sitting around wasting a day bullshitting with each other while they should be working. You will learn nothing other than that there are another load of people in the same boat as you.”

From (http://www.facebook.com/notes/lord-sugar/my-message-to-small-businesses-for-2011/179399492080555)

As a rallying call to a new business owner or an existing business owner who is losing momentum I can go along with it. It’s very easy to spend time and money on networking events that would be better spent in your business.

But as a generalisation on networking events I disagree.

While I can understand the point of view that there are networking events like this it isn’t true of all of them. Not all networking events are there as money making exercises and not all of them are there for the benefit of the organiser.

I’m able to speak from experience since I’m involved in running AMITPRO. If we’re talking about cold hard cash every month I receive the princely sum of zero pounds, zero pence.

If you wanted to look at it from a business perspective I actually lose money because I spend a chunk of time every month organising speakers, liaising with the venue, sending meeting invites, updating the website, etc which is time I could be charging to my customers.

At the last meeting I donated a book to give away at the group. Now while the book wasn’t worth a vast sum of money it still came out of my pocket. Not the business or AMITPRO.

Why? Because I felt like it would be a good thing to do

Which is exactly how AMITPRO and tons of similar networking events run every week. Because it benefits everyone involved.

So what prompted me to finally finish a post I’ve been trying to write since January?

Two reasons

Firstly, at the last AMITPRO meeting Matt Barton was stood in front of the room relating his experiences around marketing his business (he drove up from Exmouth by the way and other than a plate of sandwiches and a cup of tea he received nothing in return for doing this, but he did it because, you know  – it benefited the group!)

As Matt finished his presentation and was taking questions there was lots of lively discussions going on around the room with people sharing their own experiences.

The meeting wrapped up and while I was packing up the projector I noticed the room was still full of people having conversations and swapping ideas and it reminded me exactly why I and countless others help put together these events.

This was also a room full of people I know I can rely on if I needed help with my business.

Secondly, I’m a bit grumpy. I’ve been up since 5am as I was filling in for someone at BNI. Givers Gain and all that

Sorry Bill Thompson, I think you’re wrong

Just came across an article on the BBC News site by Bill Thompson called “Learning to love computer codes”

The article talks about how Bill read through the recently released source code to MacPaint Apple donated to the Computer History Museum.

Bill then goes on to talk about how he thinks everyone who uses technology should have a basic understanding of the nuts and bolts that make up an application or operating system.

He talks about how his partners daughter is learning Latin to help with her fascintation with acient Rome and Greece and that the same applies to programming.

My partner’s daughter is currently learning Latin because she is fascinated by the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome and realises that unless she understands the language used at the time she will always be forced to see their world through the filter of another person’s understanding, because everything she reads will be in translation.

If she knows the language herself then she will at least have removed one of the layers between her and Suetonius.

I believe that the same is true of programming, and that anyone using computer technology should have at least a basic understanding of what software looks like and how the lines of code in Pascal or BASIC or C control the operation of your laptop, mobile phone or pacemaker.

It’s a nice sentiment but one that I think is way off. Yes, learning Latin will help when studying history but the same principle doesn’t apply when it comes to using technology.

Should I learn how the internal combustion engine works so I can drive my car?

or know that sound waves are converted into electricity to use a telephone?

People don’t need to know any of these things, they just want to make use of them.

Surely the whole point of mass adoption of technology is that it’s easy for the layman to use?

It’s a nice sentiment and it would be really great (and would make my job easier!) if people had a basic understanding of the technology they use but on a practical basis it’ll never happen because they don’t need to.

MSN Video Player vs iPlayer

I saw this article last week on the Times Online website,

Microsoft challenges BBC’s iPlayer with its new MSN Video Player

The recently launched UK MSN Video Player will show full series of various popular shows (there is even some old Doctor Who stuff on there!)

This is all powered by Silverlight of course

On the face of it this looked really interesting. The picture quality was decent and a reasonable selection of programming (they’ll need to keep updating it to prevent it becoming stale though)

However, my excitement once again turned to disappointment

As always seems to be the case with anything new and shiny at the moment there is a distinct lack of subtitles. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know how many times I’ve come up against “Digital Discrimination”.

The iPlayer is able to display subtitles and does for most programs (not all though)

At the top of the page is a feedback link so I dropped my comments into there. It would be nice if this was sorted sometime soon but based on my experiences with the Xbox and it’s Zune Marketplace service I’m not holding my breath

The Customer Is Sometimes Right

I’m not sure I’m being unreasonable or unfair here but I was a bit miffed after a telephone conversation I had this week

My youngest daughter is one at the end of the month so we decided to have a family gathering and naming ceremony all on the same day

The plan was that once the ceremony had finished our friends and family would retire to a local pub/restaurant where we could all get something to eat, chat and generally have a good time. The place we had in mind is some where we go to quite often and we’ve seen people reserve tables for these sort of circumstances

I made the call and explained we may have 30 to 40 people coming so we wanted to give as much notice as possible

The person I spoke to said they needed to speak to their manager and disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back I was told that they can’t make table reservations at a weekend, only during the week

I explained again that we have a lot of people coming and we wouldn’t want to turn up only for the place to be full or have all our guests at various different tables across the restaurant

She told me they have a roped off area that they only open when large parties arrived but she wouldn’t be able to reserve it for us.

I asked what would we do if we turned up and area had already been taken?

Her reply was

“You could call about an hour beforehand to see if we’re busy or not”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

We’re arranging a large group of people to arrive which takes a lot logistically anyway as most people aren’t local to us and they expect us to turn up and hope that they can fit us all in.

What if i called an hour beforehand and they were full? Do i just send everyone home?

I like to be a little bit more organised than that so we won’t be visiting their establishment.

I can’t get my head around why we couldn’t make a reservation and they were willing to throw away custom over it.

Maybe if they were worried about us making reservations and not turning up which would have caused problems for seating other guests I can understand but surely the answer there is to ask for a deposit?

Any other thoughts?

Digital Discrimination

I originally started another post that would mention this but I’ve decided it deserves a post all on it’s own

Over the last few days I’ve been playing with the new Xbox features (that’s the post I started, it’s on the way!)

When I first turned my Xbox on there was a handy little video displayed to explain what all the new features are so I fired it up

Mrs P was sat next to me and asked

“Don’t supposed it’s got subtitles has it?”

If you’re a new reader, my wife is profoundly deaf, she’s currently being assessed to get a cochlear implant next year. You can read about it here (www.thedeafone.co.uk) as well talking about her experiences around the CI process she also discusses what it’s like to be “the deaf one”

I pulled up the display menu and as expected there were no subtitles. If she wanted to find out about the new features either I had to explain them, she’d have to go to the website, or look through the online help

I’ve blogged on here a couple of times about the lack of subtitles in Xbox Video Marketplace, even though it looks like the system supports it, the video description usually lists “subtitles: none”

Since Zune Video was one of the new features I jumped into that to see if anything had changed

Again I was disappointed, where under the old system it looked like there “may” have been subtitles, this time around the was no mention of subtitles at all

What irritates me a lot about this that I can’t get any definitive answer as to why this is the case or if it’s ever going to change. Most Xbox games are pretty good when it comes to subtitles, in just about every game I’ve played cut scenes and the like have optional subtitles so that the story can be followed. I’m not sure what it’s like on the PS3/Wii though

While on this, www.deafgamers.com reviews games from a deaf standpoint so that as well as talking about the game itself it will highlight if you need to be aware of any issues where a lack of sound would interfere with playing the game. If a game gave instructions on how to control your character via voice over with no visual cues for example

Access for people with disabilities is a problem in the digital world as well as the offline world, when regular people upload videos to youtube they don’t think about adding subtitles. I’m not saying everyone should but one of the most popular sites on the Internet is generally unavailable to anyone with a hearing problem (or a visual problem for that matter!)

Did you know you can add subtitles to youtube videos?

You can add a complete caption file which specifies exactly when each line of word should be spoken or you can upload a transcript and youtube will try and figure out where it should all fit

There is a nice explanation of how this works here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=100077

However, the tutorial video is on a tiny little screen and has no subtitles…..the irony

I could create a very long list of areas on the Internet that are just off limits to certain groups

I do appreciate this isn’t something that has an easy solution. Broadcasting companies in this country are legally obliged to provide subtitles for 90% of their content. What if the program you want to watch is in that 10%. (The BBC are committed to 100% subtitling of content) If we can’t get that sorted on a platform that is under complete control how does a system like the Internet stand a chance?

This is where I think the Xbox platform doesn’t have any excuse. Microsoft 100% control the system. They set standards for the type of content that is and isn’t allowed on their platform so why can’t we get subtitles set as one of those standards?

Zune marketplace in my opinion has NO excuse at all. They are streaming major cinema releases. They have subtitles created for them for use in cinema (again I’ve blogged about this in the past!) and for the DVD releases. 

Having not tried Sky Player on the website or on the Xbox I can’t comment on their ability to display subtitles. (again, I’ve got an opinion on this too) Does anyone know if they can? This another area where there really shouldn’t another reason not to do it

Just for balance there are some technologies that have been a great leveller for deaf people

Email, SMS, Instant messaging, twitter, forums, blogs, facebook, etc, all these services are based around visual functionality first. Some them do have video and audio but it’s the core functionality that means you need the keyboard to communicate means deaf and hearing people alike are on an equal footing

If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the issues a deaf person can face when the digital and analogue worlds cross check out the the “Pesky People blog”. This blog first came to my attention when it’s writer Alison attended the “Hello Digital” event in October. She had tried to make provisions to attended the event but was badly let down by the organisers and she talks about various disability access issues in depth on the blog – it’s worth a read!

So will anything change? I don’t know, going on my past experience around deaf issues probably not which is a terrible shame

It would be good if I could get some information from Microsoft as to what there policies are for disability access around the Xbox, especially where Video Marketplace is concerned

Also any opinions you have are welcome. Very few people come across disability issues on a day to day basis because it just doesn’t effect them. What lots of us take for granted as just regular day to day stuff is hard work for people with disabilities.

Did you hear a traffic report on your radio on the way into work today? If you were deaf you would have just driven straight into that five mile tailback

What about calling your credit card company as you’ve been incorrectly billed? Just a five minute call to get that straightened out? Not if your deaf, you either have to use minicom or type talk or get someone to call for you (then they insist on speaking to the account holder)

Just a couple of examples but it happens every day

Customer Service and Service Delivery – Get it right!

I’ve not written a post like this in a while!

I’ve had a couple of experiences over the last few days that reinforces how customer service and service are not mutually exclusive

You need to get them both right if you want your business to stand out from the rest. This sort of thing is highlighted to me when dealing with larger companies

In my last post I talked about my shiny new HTC Touch 2 Windows Phone. Well guess what, it’s broken

I was out watching my Sunday football team at the weekend (watching is all I’m doing at the moment as I need a knee operation) and I’d forgotten to charge my phone. By the time I got home the battery was dead so I hooked it up to the charger and left it

When I checked on it few hours later the phone started up and shortly after the home screen was displayed the whole thing locked up. None of the buttons worked nor did the touch screen. I couldn’t even power it off and had to either pop the battery out or press the soft reset button

I performed a hard reset (press both the volume buttons and turn it on) but it was still the same

So the following morning I called T-Mobile and braved their telephone menu system

I spoke to a customer service agent who asked what the problem was

I explained the problem, told her that I’d tried a hard reset and said that the phone was unusable

She asked if the problem occurred in specific menus on the phone or all menus. I said that I couldn’t get into ANY menus. The phone locks up before then

She said ordering a new one shouldn’t be a problem and it would arrive tomorrow. So far so good I thought but it turns out there wasn’t any stock. Service delivery fail!

I needed to know where this put me as I was now without a phone

She seemed surprised at this

“Are you not calling from the phone?”, she said

my perplexed reply was, “No. I’ve already said the phone is unusable”

“You said that the problem only occurred in certain menus”

“No. I said that I couldn’t even get into ANY menus, the phone is unusable”

Customer service fail! You really need to listen to the customer when they are describing a problem

She basically then said I had two options, wait for stock or take it my nearest service centre

I asked where the nearest centre was and she gave me the address before adding,

“If you take it there the repair could take up to 28 days”

Multiple fail! This isn’t doing anything to solve my problem. I have phone I’m paying for and can’t use. Waiting 28 days isn’t really an option I want

She then told me that she would monitor the stock and call me the following day to let me know the phone was dispatched so I’d get it the following day

That was Monday, I didn’t receive a phone call at all on Tuesday so I’m not expecting any phone to show up today.

Yet more fail! If you promise to do something for your customer, make sure you actually do it. If they hadn’t received any stock so I wouldn’t have been getting a phone today, at least keep me informed to that fact!

In contrast I had to take my car to the garage recently. It’s something I always dread as you hear lots of horror stories about people getting ripped off for work that doesn’t need doing.

However, the garage I go to have really good customer service, they did the exactly the work they said they were going to at a reasonable price and even sorted out a problem with car they probably should have charged me extra for

In their reception area they have a notice board full of letters of thanks from previous customers. Recommendations from happy customers are always a good thing to see

What’s the difference between these two companies?

Size

As a small business it’s really something that’s critical. There are tons of garages I could have taken my car to so by making me into a happy customer they get my repeat business. It’s a real differentiator

For big business it’s difficult to keep a high level of service across your whole company, there is also less competition and they all have similar problems

So now I’m off to ring T-Mobile again..that’ll be fun

My Windows Phone – HTC Touch 2 and Mobile Madness

Let’s get something out of the way – I don’t want an iPhone :-p

No that’s out the way back to the post…

Our mobile contract recently expired so I try to approach this in a reasonably simple manner

1) Is the price plan fitting our needs? If it is then I don’t really want to pay anymore per month, if anything I’d rather pay less

2) The less we have to pay for devices the better! Windows Mobile is our first preference.

So even after our recent “billing issues” with T-Mobile we went to them first to give them the chance to keep our business. I told them our preferences and asked to see what they could do

What was really frustrating here was the first person I spoke to didn’t really know exactly what they were selling. I was told that our price plan didn’t exist anymore and if we wanted Windows mobile we had a choice of two devices, one we could get as a free upgrade and one we’d have to pay for. The price plan choices were also confusing and it wasn’t clear how much data we’d be getting (which is important!)

Annoyed I left it and decided to come back as Windows Mobile 6.5 had just been announced so I wanted to see how quickly the devices would filter through

I then went to look at the competition and looked through their offerings on the websites first and initially I found

Three don’t appear to sell any Windows Mobile based devices

02 and Orange have price plans that are higher than what we’re paying now and it was very very unclear about data allowances

Vodafone had price plans that were slightly more than we were currently paying with less minutes, texts and data but had a greater variety of devices

I then spotted the HTC Touch 2 Pro which I liked the look of so spoke to Vodafone’s small business team. The upshot of it was that i was correct in that we’d be paying slightly more per month for less features on our package and would have to pay for each device

So I went back to T-Mobile see what they were doing on the Windows Mobile 6.5 front

I spoke to three different people and not one of them was 100% sure about the devices they sold! The good news was that our price plan does still exist and we don’t under or over use it so it’s the correct plan for us

So if we were going to stay where we are it was just a matter of trying to pick a device

There are two on the website, and like the other experiences I’ve had with the other mobile providers trying to get clear and concise information wasn’t easy

By the time I’d been backwards and forwards and tried to figure out who actually knew what they were doing I didn’t care about the version of Windows Mobile!

It then transpires that T-Mobile have recently started to stock the HTC Touch 2 (though it was no where to be found on their website) which does run Windows Mobile 6.5 (again the staff on the phone weren’t entirely sure of this!) so that is what I went with

It arrived a couple of days later (no thanks to the Royal Mail postal strike!!)

So after all that…the phone!

Image from HTC.com

Compared to my HTC TyTn II the phone weighs nothing at all! That keyboard makes all the difference.

When going for this phone my one worry was the lack of keyboard and was the reason the Touch 2 Pro caught my eye as I used it quite a lot. A week in and I’m just about getting used to it

The touch screen is nice and responsive and the few people I’ve shown it to said they liked how the device looked. It also has an FM radio built-in, I’ve never had a phone with the capability and haven’t had the chance to try it out yet. I’ve put an 8GB micro SD in though so was planning on using MP3s more than listen to the radio

The quality of the calls I’ve made have been decent and it plays nicely with my hands free kit

I’m not going to do a full blown review of Windows Mobile 6.5 (Windows phone!) as there are plenty of other people who will do a far better job but just some thoughts

• The new start menu is very nice. On my old 6.0 device using the start menu with anything other than the stylus or the device navigation buttons was a no go
• The threaded conversations for text messages is interesting. I’m still getting used to it but it’s keeping my inbox a lot neater
• The new onscreen keyboard is pretty cool, now i’m getting used to it I haven’t been anywhere near the stylus
• Internet Explorer is nice. Though I’m currently testing Opera mobile that came bundled with it as it just too many good features (tabs and password management are my current favourites)
• While it’s generally more “finger friendly” there are still some areas that very obviously are the same as in previous versions of Windows Mobile so i think this is more of an incremental upgrade.

I’ll need to read the manual for the TouchFlo stuff though. The areas on the front screen for text messages and emails have changed since the day i turned the phone on. I may be misunderstanding it’s use though

Overall I’m really pleased with the phone. At the moment I don’t have any immediate regrets for ignoring the Touch 2 Pro. I do wish we could do away with the version madness though

When you buy an iPhone that’s exactly what you get. Regardless which generation of handset you buy you always get updates so you can take advantage of the latest features. No such thing with Windows Mobile as you are at the mercy of the handset manufacturer and the mobile provider. It was immensely frustrating dealing with the sales staff who just didn’t know their products

Sky Player on Xbox 360 – Fail!

Regardless of the title this post actually has nothing to do with the “technical issues” that caused Sky Player to get pulled from the Xbox dashboard today

It’s to do with the way it’s been priced

There are two ways to get Sky Player on your Xbox

As an existing Sky customer

If you are a Sky customer and have multi-room (or Sky broadband unlimited) you already get access to the existing Sky Player service on the Sky website and now you also get access to Sky Player on the Xbox at no extra charge

If you don’t have multi room you can add this on or buy an online multi-room option (between £5 and £10 a month extra)

As a non Sky customer

You basically have to take out a subscription (you also need to be an Xbox Gold member)

These subscriptions work in a similar way to a standard Sky subscription in that they start at £15 for the base “Entertainment Pack” and then if you want sports and movies you have to add these on at extra cost

So why do i see this as a massive fail?

I don’t see the point – if you already subscribe to Sky then all you are actually gaining is another platform to consume Sky content on

If you aren’t a Sky customer then what really is the point? If you wanted to sign up and pay a monthly figure then surely you would just get a Sky dish?

Just signing up for Xbox package you got no HD capability and no Sky+ option

As far as I see it people who have an Xbox are in one of two camps

Kids or Adults

Kids wont be paying for the Sky subscription so they get no say in this (you can’t pay with MS points)

If the parents are already paying for a Sky subscription it’s an easy way to put Sky content into their children’s room

For Adults who would be paying a Sky subscription then as I said above if i wanted Sky on a full time I’d sign up for it through a dish. My Xbox is on my main TV so even if I did have a Sky subscription I wouldn’t be gaining anything at all

Also looking at some of the options the Xbox only option works out more expensive and if you spent that sort of money Sky would throw in a phone line and broadband connection! So where is the incentive?

There really should have been some sort of pay-per-view option

I’d quite happily use my MS Points to grab a football match, watch Lost or the Simpsons or anything that took my fancy on a casual basis. This would also mean you could grab the teenage market if they could watch content on a casual basis using MS Points. Currently they have spending power at all for this!

I was really exciting when the it was first announced the service was on the way. It added to Microsoft’s vision of the Xbox being the entertainment hub of the home.

I’m just feeling massively disappointed

From a couple of Xbox blogs and forums I’ve seen already I don’t think I’m alone with my opinion

Also before I really get started I haven’t even looked to see if the content is subtitled. Video marketplace has a distinct lack of digital accessibility but I’ve ranted about that plenty of times before!

It would be good if a pay-per-view option were to become available in the future but I wont hold my breath

I’d love to hear your opinion

Other Links

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-3766-Microsoft-and-Sky-s-Official-Xbox-Sky-Player-Price-Plan-&-Channel-Listing-Announced.html (read the comments!)

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/sky-on-xbox-all-your-questions-answered-603561

Microsoft Partner Network and SBSC

I’m blogging on this a couple of weeks after the event because I’ll be honest I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about this

At WPC a couple of weeks ago it was announced an overhaul to the partner programme is on the way

There is a great explanation of it on the UK SBSC blog here

I’m sure the programme definitely needs a kick in the butt. As Microsoft’s and our own businesses evolve, the way we work together evolves too so a revamp will be good

Specifically for people who are currently SBSC certified there are some big changes too

The Small Business Specialist Community designation will be reassigned to a new competency called Small Business Solutions.  Key enhancements include providing additional entry points to target other types of partner communities such as Web VARs.  With that, the new competency will retain many of the same requirements and benefits that partners are familiar with today – and partners should continue to enrol in the Small Business Specialist Community designation to maintain program status and benefits.

Ok so Microsoft want to be able to get different types of IT businesses involved in small business? That’s cool

However, my initial reaction was one of disappointment though as I’ve always seen SBSC and competencies as two distinctly separate things.

I’ve always felt it was a separate group within the partner programme. In the same way that registered partners and certified partners are separate groups.

It’s something that differentiates us when we go talk to clients. When talking to a client an MCTS certification (for example) and a competency are pretty synonymous for them. The MCTS applies to the individual and the competency applies to the business and helps outline capabilities

So reading the rest of the post from the UK SBSC post the next bit caught my eye

Can I still use my logo?

Continue to use the logos you have today. You’ll be able to use Microsoft Partner Network logos after October 2010, after you have met the requirements. Existing logos will be retired six months after the new logo system is available

Initially I didn’t think this was a big deal. The “blue badge” would get an overhaul too to reflect the new programme but when i read Steve Wright’s (UK PAL extraordinaire) two posts I changed my view on this

This is his first post with his initial reaction – like me a little concerned about losing a key differentiator

MS partner program evolves – is it goodbye to the SBSC community?

In his second post Steve talks about how he discussed his concerns during his first PAL meeting

First PAL meeting

This is the stand out part for me. (I’ve highlighted a specific sentence for emphasis)

The impression I got was that Microsoft are looking to simplify the partner program and have therefore decided to create various new competencies and that includes bringing the SBSC designation into that framework. The concern over the disappearance of the “blue badge” was raised and it seemed to come as a surprise to Birger that it would cause concern for partners. I do get the impression that in some countries the SBSC designation has not taken off in the community sense like it has in the UK. Birger talked about the possibility of incorporating some kind of SBSC logo in to the new Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) and would take that information back to Redmond.

Surprised it would cause concern?

Does the fact we have a pet name for the logo (“blue badge”) not indicate that it’s quite a big deal to us?

Susan Bradley also sums it up really well here

WHAT IS BLUE AND WHITE AND…?

You have got to be kidding.  You guys taking a page out of "shoot ourselves in the foot" AICPA again?  You have a brand.  One that people are proud of, and you are going to throw it away?  Before you rolled this out did you even talk to anyone?  Run it by anyone in the SBSC?  You have a Partner Lead group, did you get their feedback?

It’s a brand and a logo that people have stuck on shirts and cars.  Don’t throw it away without listening to your partner network.

Quite

We’re one of those companies that are proud of our SBSC certification and the logo is a big part of that. I’ve got a blue badge sticker on my laptop, it’s on our van, it’s on the door to our office, it’s on our website, it’s on every single piece of paper we produce, it’s in our email signatures, I even had some stickers printed once upon a time

We’ve also just had some brochures and leaflets printed and the blue badge actually features more than our own logo!

I originally wasn’t going to post about this as I thought Steve and Susan said everything that needed to be said and I wouldn’t be adding anything extra, but I guess I just need to be another voice that says I quite like our little part of the partner programme. I understand that things need to change and we need to change with it but it feels like all the work that has gone into building SBSC as a brand is about to disappear

I’m also wondering what it means in the long term for SBSC as a whole. The new programme will come into effect over the next twelve months which is roughly how long the PAL role runs for.

What does it mean for Steve Wright, Andy Trish and the rest of the worldwide PALs?

Do Microsoft need partner feedback for a competency?

There aren’t PALs for the “Advanced Infrastructure Solutions competency” or the “Licensing Solutions competency” are they?

Did they not speak to the PALs about this?

I don’t think the community will disappear overnight as groups like AMITPRO would continue but the SBSC certification is great focal point for that and it’s something we all rally around

At the end of Steve’s post he said that he’ll be putting concerns over to Emily Lambert at his first regional PAL meeting so it’ll be good to hear more details what the plans are going forward