Your Greatest Advocates

YOUR GREATEST ADVOCATES


Many would remember that fateful night in Istanbul May 2005. Half time AC Milan 3 - Liverpool 0. It is probably the night that most Liverpool fans will never forget. In fact world football will never forget. The greatest comeback in football ever. While the players went off the pitch to the dressing room the fans in the stadium and also around the world me included wondered what will happen. Many thought Rafa Benitez inspirational speech in the dressing room did the trick. And some credit should go to him. But let's not forget the greatest inspiration of all the fans in the stadium singing You will Never Walk Alone. I was reminded of this again this morning by football legend Johan Cryuff

Liverpool might be England’s most successful football club but we’re nothing without our supporters. Dutch legend Johan Cruyff knows a thing or two about football and he probably summed up what sets Liverpool and its fans apart better than anyone when, after witnessing the greatest comeback ever in Istanbul, he enthused: “There's not one club in Europe with an anthem like ‘You'll Never Walk Alone’. There's not one club in the world so united with the fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team. That's something not many teams have. For that I admire Liverpool more than anything." http://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolFC?v=box_3

Relating this back to brand leadership signify that your consumers are by far the best leaders and advocates for your brands. The idea is to provide the environment for them to succeed. While Rafa Benitez may have inspired the players off the pitch, it was those 40 000 fans with the singing that could be heard in the dressing room that made every player proud of wearing the Liverpool shirt. It was the ultimate motivation to succeed.

Very often marketers do not provide the environment for consumers to take the leadership on their brands. They place a brand on the market, provide the advertising to make it succeed and ensure they tick all the boxes on the 4P's (Product, Place, Production, Promotion). The fifth P = People is often forgotten. They fail to provide a platform for consumers to interact with them and ensure that their greatest advocates talk about their brands. In most cases consumers start interacting with their brands through www.hellopeter.com and then apologies and PR management starts to come into place. This is very re-actionary in terms of marketing. I am reminded of a campaign I have seen recently for MiWay where they are providing a service for their consumers to give feedback positive or negative in regards to service or product. A brave move indeed from a short term insurer. But nevertheless the right move.

Marketers think they are in control of the brands they put out on the market. In fact consumers have long since taken over. Marketers have just failed to recognize it. We are in an age of User Generated Content. All those issues on Hellopeter are easily searchable on Google. Recently I had an issue with Nashua Mobile which went on for months. The issue could have been easily resolved by the company but they chose to keep it going for months. I registered a complaint on Hellopeter and within a day received an apology from customer service promising to look into the matter and get back to me. Six weeks later they are still to get back to me. The point is that the information is in the public domain and searchable. Just Google "Hellopeter Nashua Mobile" and a complaints section on the company pops up. If they have chosen to give me a platform to interact with them, provide them with feedback ensure that my billing was done on time. I would have been singing their praises like those 40,000 in Istanbul.

With the opening up of bandwith in South Africa through Seacom, more consumers will have digital access meaning the Hellopeter.com site could get bigger.

The Message is simple, Provide Consumers the opportunity to be the Greatest Advocates for your Brand.

Virgin Losing The Plot

I am an ardent fan of Virgin. Like many global Citizens I have not only admired the company but also its owner Richard Branson. I have read some of his books and even attended some of his talks in South Africa. My first experience directly with the brand was in 1998 when I flew Virgin from Johannesburg to London. It was an incredible experience and was certainly sold on everything Virgin. Richard Branson is the ultimate entrepreneur.

Recently, I have been receiving regular calls from Virgin Mobile call centre agents. They offering me a special on a phone that I don’t need or want. They have not taken the time to do their home work on me as person to understand what I look for in a phone. They just assume because it is on special I may be interested. The call agents sometimes even get annoyed at me when I say call back after you know what I am looking for. I have a contract with Nashua Mobile on my Blackberry which runs for two years at a time. Virgin should be proactive and ensure that they call me six months prior to my contract expiring to enable them to understand my needs, the phone I require and the contract I need. It is not difficult for anyone to provide a better service than Nashua Mobile (they have become big and clumsy). In that way I would be in a position to offer them a chance at my business. Just too merely call me and offer me a phone is by no means enticing me to join Virgin Mobile. In fact it is highly irritating.

The first lesson of customer service is to understand their needs. Give them a product that they want not what you want to give them. Put the customer in control of the event and you will be successful. The call centre agent route may work for some but if you are truly looking for brand advocates then please understand who they are and what they do and what they require.

Sorry Virgin you have lost the plot on this one.

Clinton, Me and Pages 8-12

Short term insurance companies are those that we love to hate or at least I do. They offer the world and deliver actually very little. It is not necessarily their fault. When you do claim for an incident that occurs they tell you that on pages 8-12 of your contract there are exclusions to the policy that you need to be aware of. Well that is what has happened to me. On the 20th August I put a claim through to Stansure for what I thought was a burst geyser but as it turns out it was only the safety valve that was leaking. I was informed very kindly by Clinton my Claims manager that it is not covered and I would have to repair it at my own cost of which I did R1447 later. What about the resultant damage I added well he said that was not covered and referred me to pages 8-12 of my contract. He further added that he will send my case through to management for “special” consideration. Two weeks later still no Stansure or Clinton. I have in the interim called a few times to enquire the progress. It is still with management was the response. In digging further into my contract I discovered that If my geyser did in fact burst I was only covered for R3500 of which R500 would be for my own account. I have a 200 litre Kwikot geyser which cost R4500. This simply means I would have to fund R500 for the access and an additional R1000 for the geyser. I am beginning to think that I was sold a lemon of a policy. The moral of the story I should have read the fine print. Stansure are completely within their right to exercise the contents of the contract because that is what I signed up for.

This begs the bigger question of whether insurance companies should change the contents of their contracts and ensure that if a geyser did indeed burst they would fund the entire cost and not just a portion thereof. I just feel as if this is cheating. But again I should have read my contract. I was sold a policy being told that it was comprehensive cover and that to my mind means that If ANYTHING goes wrong even the safety valve on my geyser it is covered. It seems my idea of Comprehensive is not same as the insurance companies as it comes with four pages of exclusions (please refer to pages 8-12). I am still waiting for Clinton and his management to tell me whether they will indeed come and repair the resultant damage in the bathroom.

Following this incident and pages 8-12 of my contract I was wondering if I should change my household policy to another company. I remembered seeing some awesome claims and marketing from ABSA. So, I went on online to the ABSA website and filled in a form for someone to contact regarding insuring my home. A few hours later I received a call from one of the agents who duly started to take down my details and asking me lots of questions on the status of my house (type etc). She then asked me if I had burglar bars on my house to which I replied NO, she then asked me if I had an alarm system to which I replied NO. I went on to justify that I live in a well controlled estate with Electric fencing armed guards and even swat teams if we would need them. She then indicated to me that because I had no alarm they are unable to insure me and put the phone down. She did not even take the trouble to understand where I was from and what type of security I live under. Well ABSA is not getting my business, I am sure they don’t need it anyway. Well for now it’s Clinton, me and Pages 8-12 of my contract.

It seems that as consumers we often take the obvious for granted. We tend not to read the fine print or the contents of a contract carefully prior to committing to it. Stansure are fully within their rights to reject my claim and I would have no basis to fight them on it. Remember pages 8-12 of my contract. What is certain though is that I am in the market for another policy and will certainly scrutinize every point on the contract before signing it off. Also as a consumer I have being sucked into this web of call centre agents who to no fault of their own donot understand consumer behavior and proper needs of a customer. I will certainly be looking at the services of a broker. Someone I can speak to face to face and will understand my needs, where I live and ensure that the exclusions to my contract are limited to page 8 only and not pages 8-12.