Decoding the new economy

The basics of service

Cathy’s saga shows how people skills are as important as competency when you’re running a service business. You need manners and respect to match your skills.

Of course, if you don’t have any skills to start with, you might want to consider doing something else.

Recently I wrote about the things you should look for when choosing an IT service provider. Shortly after writing that column I caught up with Cathy (names changed to protect the guilty) and found out what happened in her search for a tech.

The results weren’t pretty and the reasons why are a lesson for anyone in a service industry. Let’s start with the most fundamental.

Respect
I find it hard to believe I actually have to write this, but I’ve seen it too often myself. Cathy’s first computer tech treated her with contempt and didn’t listen to her problem and needs.

You might think your clients are beneath you and maybe you are right. After all, that dumb customer doesn’t know how to use a mouse, fill in a BAS, fix a cistern or carry out root canal therapy.

But that dumb customer also pays your wage, so quit the attitude and show some manners and respect.

You should also respect your competitors, a point I forgot in last week’s column. Scoffing at the previous guy’s work is bad form and good clients will show you the door if they have any sense.

Competence
Don’t take on jobs you don’t understand. This is particularly common with computer techs who have a habit of saying: “yeah, I can fix anything” when a client calls.

In Cathy’s case she had a Windows 2003 Small Business Server which superficially looks like Windows XP but is a very different beast under the bonnet. The tech was experienced enough to know better.

Funnily, the tech I referred to Cathy declined the job because he felt her requirements were outside his skills. If the first guy Cathy called had shown the same humility and competence it would have saved everybody a lot of distress.

Appearance
In an industry known for cowboys, wearing boots that would look straight out of Rawhide is a big mistake. Clients are conservative creatures and many will turn away if you are too different to their expectations.

Dress how a customer expects you to dress- an accountant wears a suit, a computer tech has the blue shirt, dark pants combo and a bricklayer wears a pair of stubbies revealing more than you care for when the brickie bends over.

When you’re in an industry where people are afraid of being ripped off, showing up in a flash car confirms their fears. Leave the Porsche at home and show up in a cheap hatchback, the things are easier to park anyway. As you’ve probably guessed, Cathy’s tech drove up in a Mercedes.

Billing
Last week I advised avoiding the “no fix-no fee” crowd. However, that’s different from standing by your work.

If you’ve screwed up, as Cathy’s tech did, then bleating: “I sweated for you” is plain silly. If the customer is unhappy, waive or discount the bill.
Sure, sometimes you end up copping the pain when an unreasonable customer complains but billing issues are a reliable early warning a client is going to be a major pain. Refund their money and get them out of your lives.

The story does end well though. Finally Cathy found someone who was polite, competent and barely raised an eyebrow when they saw the mess made by the first tech.

Cathy’s saga shows how people skills are as important as competency when you’re running a service business. You need manners and respect to match your skills.

Of course, if you don’t have any skills to start with, you might want to consider doing something else.

Saving your technology relationship

Like it or not, your businesses is married to technology and often that marriage is not a happy one. Tech support is like a counsellor to your IT relationship; a good one will save you a lot of drama, stress and tears.

When a friend asked about changing IT support for her organisation last week I had to give the question some thought as switching service companies isn’t something you do rashly.

The first problem she presented was price. She was worried the quotes she’d received and the hourly rates were more than her own charge out rate.

On that front the advice is simple – get over it. Your doctor and plumber charge more than most peoples’ hourly rates and a good tech will save you a fortune in therapist and data recovery charges. So we’ll leave price to last and look at the other factors;

Confidence

Do their staff inspire confidence? The truth is support is as about trust mort than it is about competence. You have to trust the tech with your valuable data and systems.

The first step in establishing confidence is how they answer the phone. Are they polite, informed and prompt to return calls?

If they don’t care about you when you make a sales enquiry, you can be pretty sure they aren’t going to be helpful when you have a computer disaster.

So if you don’t like their phone manner, look elsewhere.

Presentation

They say looks don’t count for much. They are wrong when it comes to support.

Tidy, well dressed techs and a well presented web site indicate a business that takes itself seriously and is more likely to treat your needs as important.

Curiosity

Every business is unique in its own way and a good support company will ask lots of questions when arriving at a new site. Confidence inspiring questions include your business objectives, how you use technology and where it is currently frustrating you.

Questioning along those lines indicate people who want to know where technology fits in your business and how you can get the best return on your investment. Techs that ask those questions are worth a lot to you.

A good tech isn’t a “yes” man or woman. If your brother in law who knows something about computers has suggested something truly stupid then a trustworthy advisor will point you in the right direction rather than just agree with you. So take polite disagreement as a very good sign.

Training

It never ceases to amaze me how the tech support industry doesn’t train people. The vast majority of techs don’t get formal training and most support companies, particularly at the SME level, give their staff little preparation for new systems.

This means lower charges for you, but lousy service. Which is another reason why price should be the last of your concerns. Ask your prospective support provider what training they give their staff.

Outrageous claims

Be careful of silly claims. One of my favourites was a dodgy business a few years ago that claimed “all our technicians are qualified computer programmers” which is the same as an electrician advertising “all our staff are licensed forklift drivers”.

A similar thing applies to “no fix, no fee” claims. Avoid any company advertising they won’t charge you if they can’t figure out the problem as you’re paying a new operator to learn on your system.

Claiming to support big corporations is often the mark of a new, naïve business. Usually that indicates the owner once worked as a contractor for a company that setup that BigCorp’s desktops. Treat those claims with disdain unless it is a big support outfit with accordingly high charges.

24/7 service and two hour callouts are fair enough if you are prepared to pay for them. Be careful though when dealing with smaller support outfits as they can struggle to meet these promises.

Charging structure

Unethical support companies love the large billing unit. So avoid companies that charge in 30 or 60 minute blocks as these encourage techs to pad out basic jobs. A fair unit is ten or fifteen minute periods

The best plan for a business is a regular support contract which includes a basic level of services per month. These often include a base number of technician’s hours, either onsite or remotely. Review the hours regularly as you can overpay for time you don’t need.

Price

Finally we get to where most clients fall down. Good support companies that train, support and reward good staff have high overheads and the corner cutters will always be substantially cheaper.

You should be prepared for rates in excess of $150 an hour, with discounts for bulk purchase and fixed fee support contracts, the longer you are prepared to enter into a contract for the better the discount.

By all means shop around but don’t fixate on price, the company that charges $180 an hour to provide a qualified, experienced tech is far better value than outfit charging $60 an hour to provide a part time student working for beer money.

Don’t be surprised or offended if the really good support companies tell you they can’t help. Many choose businesses they can help and decline those who they don’t believe are a right fit for their skills. If that happens, ask them if they know of someone who is a better fit for you.

The relationship between technology and business is often complex, but its not one most businesses can neglect. Make sure you’re investing the right people and expertise in your systems.

Twenty three great ideas

A few weeks ago more than 40 of Australia’s most exciting innovators showed off their products at Tech23. Twenty-three of those business were selected to give a four minute pitch to industry leaders in front of several hundred spectators at a Sydney auditorium.

All the inventions were great – the highlights included Heard Systems; a bovine pregnancy detector, We Are Hunted; a music charting system that tracks a work’s popularity across the Internet and Posse; a ticket seller that harnesses a band’s fan base to fill venues.

The intriguing thing about two of these companies is they rely on communities. The fact both these businesses come from the music industry isn’t surprising. This is a sector where social and peer power has been long understood through sales charts and fan clubs.

With all of us having grown up with Top 40s and music videos we have an intuitive understanding of how these communities work.

An advantage all three businesses had were passionate, informed presenters who believed in their product and who could explain the benefits in 240 seconds. Those 23 presentations showed was just how important a good pitch is to communicating how a great idea is going to change the world and make investors happy.

Another thing that stood out was how a well done Powerpoint enhances a speaker while a poorly done one distracts and irritates the audience. Interestingly only one of the three pitches mentioned had a memorable overhead shows how a passionate speaker who believes in their product trumps even the most elaborate presentation.

In some ways it’s another variation of the rule of threes in that you have a three second pitch, a 30 second pitch and the three minute extended version. Indeed the ReadWriteWeb site has an extended rule of threes, describing how an “insanely great” service is being spoken about after three days, three months and three years.

While you can’t control what people will say about your business three years after hearing about it, you should be able to get across what your business does in three seconds.

Funny enough, that’s pretty close to how long it takes to read a 140 character SMS or Twitter message. Can you describe your business in one tweet?

Why innovation rises during a recession

Steve Lohr in the New York Times looks at how innovation rises in downturns. Are the various stimulus packages a roadblock to innovation?

Steve Lohr in the New York Times reports R&D budgets increased for 900 of the United States’ 1,000 largest corporate spenders on research and development.

What stands out is how patent applications rise during economic downturns with an increase of 25% in the 1929-32 period. Steve goes on to point out;

The Depression years yielded fundamental advances in technologies of the future like television, nylon, neoprene, photocopying and electric razors, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis.

A similar trend is true around later, far shorter recessions, when basic work on personal computing and later Internet-related technologies were done.

In this respect, economic downturns are necessary as they clear out the old, inefficient industries and allow new ideas and businesses to take hold.

While governments had to do something to avoid a massive depression when the capital and trade market froze in late 2008, is the propping up of debt laden industries like banks, housing companies and auto manufacturers going to act as roadblock to new ideas and businesses?

Just a thought.

The Depression years yielded fundamental advances in technologies of the future like television, nylon, neoprene, photocopying and electric razors, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis.

A similar trend is true around later, far shorter recessions, when basic work on personal computing and later Internet-related technologies were doneThe Depression years yielded fundamental advances in technologies of the future like television, nylon, neoprene, photocopying and electric razors, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis.

A similar trend is true around later, far shorter recessions, when basic work on personal computing and later Internet-related technologies were done.

Thoughts on Windows 7

With the release of Windows 7 Microsoft has formally buried Microsoft Vista. But should Windows users rush out for the new version.

“From today, when we say Windows we’re talking about Windows 7”, announced Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead of Microsoft Australia last week. And with that, Microsoft formally buried Windows Vista at their Sydney Windows Seven launch.

We won’t miss Vista, it was slow, clunky and irritating to use. Like Microsoft’s previous OS disaster, Windows ME, it was a hybrid of new and old technologies that managed to satisfy few users.

Vista’s poor reputation effectively broke the upgrade cycle where businesses and consumers replace their computers roughly every five years. Rather than taking their chances with Vista, PC owners decided to stick with their ageing XP boxes.

So Windows 7 is being held out as the saviour of the computer industry as Microsoft’s customers are expected to rush into long overdue upgrades. Some commentators predict the new operating system will reinvigorate PC sales that have been battered worldwide by the Global Financial Crisis.

The reality is probably a bit more complex, there’s no doubt the combination of the global downturn and customers putting off computer purchases hurt the industry, but to expect a surge of sales may be optimistic.

Most computer users are a cynical bunch who have heard all the hype before and won’t be rushing out to buy anything just because some bloke on the web tells them it’s the greatest thing since Wordperfect 5.1. The days of crowds waiting to buy the latest operating system are long gone, at least in the PC world.

While it isn’t worthwhile queuing up on a cold morning for Windows 7, the new program is a vast improvement on Vista. In a hopelessly unscientific experiment, I installed a complimentary copy of Window 7 Ultimate supplied by Microsoft on my wife’s cranky, Vista supplied laptop.

The results were good. Boot up time was reduced by 34% to 55 seconds while Internet Explorer loaded twice as fast and Word 2003 documents opened a whopping 300% faster.

For the record, the machine isn’t exactly a powerhouse being an Acer Extensa 5220 Celeron 2GHz CPU with 512Mb of RAM – exactly the sort of machine that should never have been supplied with Windows Vista in the first place, which was part of Vista’s problems.

So my experience with Windows Seven has been so far favourable. If you have been through pain with Vista, it may be worth upgrading although you will probably find driver and software problems won’t be solved by the new program.

For XP systems it almost certainly isn’t worth the upgrade to Seven as the process requires a fresh install, substantially increasing the cost, time and risk involved in making the move.

Overall, XP machines are best replaced outright as many are well past their retirement date as owners have held off being forced into buying Vista machines.

If upgrading or buying Windows 7 systems is on the horizon then you should start preparing now. Get a few Windows Seven machines and test them in your office; monitor how they go with your critical line of business systems, check they connect properly to your network and start getting familiar with the quirks and differences in the new system.

While Windows 7 isn’t flawless, Microsoft have learned from the mistakes they made from Vista, it is faster and so far seems less irritating and more stable. If you are struggling with Vista, or your Windows XP systems are on their last legs, the upgrade will probably be worthwhile.

All about Windows 7. ABC 702 Weekend computers, November 1 2009.

This Sunday, November 1, Simon and myself will be looking at Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system. Is it an improvement on Windows Vista and is it worth upgrading to? We’ll be answering all your questions on the new program.

Tune in at 702 on your AM radio or stream us online from the ABC Website.

Your comments and questions are welcome so call in on 1300 222 702 or SMS on 19922702.

It’s all about trust, baby

Imagine losing all your contacts, emails and calendars – you know have a meeting with an important client next week but you can’t remember which day and you can’t ask the customer because their contact details are gone.

That’s been the fate of a million Sidekick mobile phone owners in the United States over the last two weeks when the servers storing the Sidekick data went down.

The Sidekick is an unusual mobile phone that saves all its data “on the cloud”, a big group of servers run by the device’s designer, Danger, who were bought out by Microsoft in early 2008. Unlike other phones and PDAs, the Sidekick doesn’t synch with your own computer and stored data may get wiped if it can’t find the cloud servers.

This is exactly what happened a few weeks ago when the Sidekick cloud stopped. Owners of the Sidekick, a phone that’s never been sold in Australia, have been through a harrowing fortnight hoping their data will be recovered which Microsoft now believe can be done.

Sidekick’s outage is a major embarrassment for Microsoft who are pitching their Azure cloud product as alternative to other cloud services provided by competitors like Amazon and Google and the failure certainly deserves to be one of the technology disasters of the decade.

The question now is how badly this outage will affect cloud and software as a service providers. These service rely on customers trusting data and critical business applications to a third party and the Sidekick saga doesn’t inspire confidence.

It would be a shame if this is the case, as cloud services offer a lot of advantages to smaller businesses. In many ways they offer the same advantages big business have had through outsourcing services at a fraction of the price and complexity.

We need to remember that all technology breaks. People press the wrong buttons, unexpected software bugs appear and sometimes things just break or go wrong. Every business needs a contingency plan if things stop working.

While a data backup regime is a critical part of a contingency plan, you still need to consider other aspects such what happens if the power grid fails and leaves your without electricity for three days, if bushfires and floods stop workers getting to the office, or what will happen if you forget to pay your phone bill and suddenly you have no Internet access for a week.

Technology is complex and we have trust a lot of things are reliable and sometimes some of our partners aren’t as trustworthy as we’d like.

So have fall back systems just in case your trust in technology, partners and vendors is misplaced and test them regularly.

Author: Paul Wallbank

The basics of service

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