SadokOnline.com

Can you ever afford not to care ?

// December 7th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Business

Its a dangerous thing to be the biggest, to have no competition, to have too much money: makes you callous towards your business.

Last week Paypal decided to suspend my account without any notice and without any explanation, and worse: as standard procedure towards successful businesses!

So if you are growing too fast, if you show success, if you make Paypal earn more money then the average customer, apparently you should be doing something criminal. So without a call, without a mail, without any verification, they decide to stop the service. Just like that.

Imagine your bank doing the same thing: you go to pay a bill, they tell you “sorry, you are making more money then the average Joe, liberal marketplace is an illusion, you are lucky we don’t arrest you, so until we feel like it, go away, we will call you!”

So I try to call the customer service, and very professionally they tell me they need me to explain to them howcome the success. I wrote them my business description (which is openly available on my website) and call again: they tell me I have to wait for the “qualified people” to check the info and that they have everything they need.

After waiting (and loosing money by the minute) I asked them to put me in contact with the holy “qualified people”, but even they can’t get in contact with them, all they can do is email them the information requested by me, I should wait, there are a lot of people waiting (!)…

My account was put back to normal in 6 days. I still haven’t been told why the account was suspended in the first place.

Even the smallest bank have account representatives. I can’t imagine how anybody could afford to do business like this. I am shocked of how such a great service could afford to have such bad customer care.

I am not the only one having this kind of problems, and it seems I won’t be the last, this is exactly why its healthy to have competition, and I am sure the competition took notice, but why should you be threatened to improve yourself ? Isn’t that the ultimate purpose of business ?

Sadok Kohen

Could the Godfather go 2.0 ?

// September 13th, 2007 // No Comments » // Marketing

It was 1972 when Michael Corleone told Sonny “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”. Companies where run from a top view perspective. The order chain was very well designed coming from the “Boss” trough all the ranks down to the simple soldiers. And if a few had to die in the process of making money, be it associates or customers, it was an acceptable loss. Machiavelli would proudly stand on top of the means that always justified the ends.

And then came Web 2.0. The rules suddenly changed. The business drive was taking its power from the most unusual source: its customers. And soon enough Machiavelli started to take a beating. Few examples:

• Digg kicked out a user for the very “acceptable” reason that the information the user posted was illegal, and deleted the post. The users revolted: Digg had to accept the chances to be sued.
• YouTube started to put advertisement in user videos. There was a huge protest, they had to stop and ask for permission.
• Google stopped its downloadable video service. Google lost some of its credibility.

To all of this instances the Godfather could have said: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”, but what would have happened then? Ironically he would have probably be trampled by an angry “mob” while buying fruits.

Take away the personal out of the Internet today and replace it with business: you get Web 1.o and then the burst…

So what could the Godfather 2.0 have told to Sonny ? Maybe: “Not Personal ? It’s STRICTLY personal!” and then opened a social networking site for mobsters.

What are your suggestions ?

Sadok Kohen

Taking customer loyalty for granted

// September 12th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Marketing

When I was in College, a friend of mine told me something that happened to him which stroke me as very funny at first but I found out later that it bared a very important lesson beneath:

This friend of mine used to go to the same restaurant to eat almost every day of the week, at the same hour. This restaurant was across his school so it was pretty convenient for him and he was welcomed almost as family. He knew everybody by name and so did everybody that worked there.

His lunch hours were different then most people as his classes ended a little late. One day he happened to be around school on a busy weekend and went in to eat. After waiting for more then half an hour and after several reminders he finally got angry and asked one of the waiters that he knew quite well, what was going on. The waiter replied: “You are right, but man, you just came on customer time!!”

(The term “Customer Time” may strike as strange, the event didn’t happen in an English spoken country but the literal translation is correct).

I started wondering, when does a loyal customer become so loyal that he becomes family ?

Because with family comes the feeling of being accustomed to a certain presence and taking that presence for granted is what leads to broken hearts or loneliness, which we try to erase by replacing with new experiences.

New customer acquisition has its own weight in the growth of a business. But it is our loyal customer base (our family) that supports us and allows us to chase new customers in the first place. Taking their loyalty for granted will only make it easier for them to go away on the first opportunity.

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted” ~Bertrand Russel

Sadok Kohen