Marketing to go..

I so agree with Sir Paul McCartney on this issue. Of course his record company should have been able to hit him with a raft of ideas within a couple of days of being requested for that - particularly by someone of Sir Paul's sales calibre.

I know businesses who take 5 days to decide on a really very minor matter. That's often a detachment from instinct and passion:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22923669-1702,00.html

Test your knowledge on Tudor times

I've very impressed with this site when I clicked to it from Cardinal Wolseys blog. Great game. Informative and yet not too long and a great package for what it sets out to advertise. I had hoped to save the beheading..but....
Before you run and gets your kids to play it too, watch the site in it's entirety as it advertises The Tudors tv series and so has flashes of sex scenes after the game though you need to click forward:
http://www.tudorsdvd.co.uk/game/

You know you're living in a poorer suburb when...

Local shops sell cigarettes individually. True. People here can literally go in and buy one cigarette from a packet. It's a service.

Please, show others their lives mean something.

You're a seventeen year old boy. You have no family to go to at Christmas. You live on the street. The Salvos found you one day and gave you a card to go to a hall for a lovely Christmas lunch. It's great you have a lunch.

You have no gift. There's no-one to tell you that to them you mean something. That your presence on this Earth is important.

You're an 86 year old lady with no family. You have made yourself a little Christmas lunch.

No-one has come to show you that you life has really meant something to them.

***

Please, go buy two Hoyts movie tickets and ensure they will be given to a 17 year old on Christmas day.

Please, go buy some soap and a washer and a lovely book and ensure that they will be taken to the 86 year old lady on the day.

Please, show others their lives mean something.
Check with your local Salvos or St Vincent de Paul or similar and find a way to show someone in need this Christmas that, to someone out there, their lives mean something and they are not forgotten.

Open Letter to Mr Sol Trujillo

Without Prejudice

Mr Trujillo, since you took over the pivotal role with Telstra:

1. Costs are up

2. Services are very much reduced. Across the board. Don't look to broadband successes, or provision of services to the outback (only), or profits, or shareholder happiness or your own salary et al as your benchmark of Telstra success Mr Trujillo. Become a basic customer of your own company and see what it is like at this point. It's not a happy engagement.

3. Errors are multiplying. Errors, errors, errors. In connections and in advice and it is people like me Mr Trujillo that have to make up the slack on these matters and often out of our own pocket. For the last two years I have experienced repeated Telstra errors. Don't worry, not in billing. The bill is generally correct even though I am probably paying almost double what I should be because your staff have failed to put me on the right plan, despite calls from me about the issue.

4. Telstra workers are demoralised. You might not have 'got' Australian culture Mr Trujillo but there was a time where, even if Telstra's company's policy was a bit wanting, you could generally get great service from the technicians. Your policies have effectively removed this and drained away client satisfaction.

5. The public face has become highly problemaitc. Your company appears to have shown problematic decisions and responses to do with social responsibility both in your advertising and in your services. Only these week we have the 'soft porn' issue re the Telstra site. Why is your company failing on these issues? How about only worrying about the bells and whistles on your website once you've got basic service 'right'?

Perhaps it's hard to see that good basic service reaps profit. It does.

6. Impractical processes are encouraged that multiply unnecessary costs.

With all this you still have the confidence, or the ego, to fight the new government. How do you feel you are serving the interests of the public, your clients Mr Trujillo with your sarcastic humour and 'tude?

We've not got a telecommunications carrier Australians can generally be proud of Mr Trujillo. Your governance has not improved service and pricing conditions. And still you argue free market pricing.

Embrace the Kumbaya (if you will) Mr Trujillo as, on your own, you're letting the fire go out.

I call upon the Labour government to do what they can to end Mr Trujillo's contract with Telstra.

Susan Plunkett

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

I loved this piece from the Vicar of Dibley when I first saw it and now I have the DVD I've been able to watch and enjoy it again. I was recently reminded of this material in a conversation with Drew McLellan. I'm sure some clever advertising bunny out there somewhere will adapt this one day:

Top Ten Views Around The World

I saw this pictorial via news.com.au today. The site invites other nominations and I hope people send in and celebrate the beauty of this incredible world we live on and in:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/gallery/0,23607,5028064-5007153,00.html#

Grab the Pencil and Play

For anyone who hasn't come across the Leo Burnett site please do take the time to have an explore and see what you think of the pencil device. I'm often an impatient site explorer and even I was willing to sit and adventure via the pencil:
http://www.leoburnett.com.au/

When You're Told You're Doing Too Much For The Clients#2

The clients will end up loving YOU too much rather than our service.

How about:

1. The business decides to investigate just-what-it-is that generates such good feelings towards the staff member and works to replicate this in a) other service centres in its organisation (and to train in-coming staff), and b) potentially within the organsational ethos.
2. Determining whether the staff member is actually making up for a short-fall in the business product or service.
3. Recognising that the connection is worth harnessing for research purposes.

Unless a business feels a staff member is being somehow subversive and swinging client perceptions to the negative re the business service, I'd treat a staff member well liked by the client base as if they were a valuable resource, rather than a problem child.

When You're Told You're Doing Too Much For The Clients

I raised this issue on another blog and received some very supportive comments. What does it say about an employer who tells an employee that they are 'over-servicing' the client?

Wouldn't you think an employer would be delighted to have attentive and comprehensive staff, given of course that other clients are not made to wait unduly?

Not necessarily.

Two rationales from employers I've heard:

The clients will end up loving YOU too much rather than our service.

Other staff cannot or will not give the same service as you and thus you set unrealistic expectations in clients for the general service they will receive at this business.

Are some of you folks blinking reading this? Let me assure you, both these examples are real.

I've love to hear some comments on this but I'm going to take one of the issues to the next topic in a day or so.