When Will Control Truly Shift To The Consumer?

For those engaged in the process of empowering consumers, 2012 is already a fascinating year. So it was timely that a bunch of us met at Ctrl Shift's "Explorer's Club" to try to map the timeline for when 'customer relationship management' truly inverts and firms finally acknowledge their customers control them. 

The output of the session is being converted into an 'infographic' that will be available as a reference soon. In the meantime, here's an excellent drawing that Joel Cooper produced during the session to reflect the various themes:

Usual Suspects Bottom Out EU Consumer Scoreboard

You may wonder why a blog focused on how we seize control of our consumer experiences devotes so much space to our frustration in the personal finance space.

Because, as the latest edition of the EC's Consumer Markets Scoreboard confirms, it's our biggest source of angst.

Bank current accounts and credit products, investments, pensions and securities all feature in the bottom 20% of the "Market Performance Indicator", with investments, pensions and securities coming in lucky last.

Real estate services, internet service provision and railways also get a pasting; as well as secondhand cars, clothing and footwear, meat, and house maintenance/ improvement goods.

An incredible 31% of consumers find it fairly easy to compare investments, although only 34% of consumers think they deliver what's promised. A naive 26% of us are as likely to trust investment providers as used car salesmen.

Yet 76% of us don't bother to switch providers...

As a result, until the usual suspects get their act together, we face an endless stream of edicts emanating from the Brussels bureaucrats, adding more and more to the complexity for both providers and consumers alike. A great deal more proactive work in this area by providers may help stem this tide. Switching providers might also help.

In the meantime, internet service providers and the "meat market" can also expect the joy of EC market study questionnaires.

Will White Paper Deliver Green Shoots for Consumers?

To clear their desks ahead of the summer (and clutter ours to no useful purpose), UK officials responsible for Business, Innovation and Skills have recently released a white paper outlining the government's approach to consumer policy, presumptively entitled "A Better Deal for Consumers".

It appears the paper has been prompted by the "downturn" and "the way consumer markets are changing because of the effects of globalisation, and the increasing use of technology by consumers and business to buy goods and services." Which should read: "a dog's breakfast of either previously announced or 'new' but belated attempts to help the vulnerable, tinker with consumer credit, and update enforcement powers and some consumer law."

Don't get me wrong. There's some good stuff in here. But it's beyond me, for example, why it's taken until 2009 to call for a quicker solution to the saga of the bank charges litigation (we've owned some of the key defendants for some time), or to begin the no doubt lengthy process of banning unsolicited credit card cheques, restricting the basis on which credit card issuers can reprice cards after issuing them or ensuring that credit cardholders' repayments are credited towards the most expensive aspect of their card bills first. And, while anything to help those who are overly indebted is to be applauded, we've already heard about the £290m of government funded loans in the budget. And, in the vast scheme of things it's hardly worth mentioning that the government "will invest a further £300,000 in free face to face debt advice [which] will give an immediate boost to debt advice capacity for six months and enable the equivalent of 12 full-time debt advisers to help an extra 1,200 people struggling with crisis debt."

The 'meat', if there is any in this paper, is simply a reference to the unfortunate process of gold-plating the Consumer Credit Directive, and "bringing forward, in due course, a new Consumer Rights Bill which will [no doubt gold-plate] the proposed EU Consumer Rights Directive". The latter exercise has of course been rather undermined by the lack of any real evidence of detriment (see the EC's Consumer Markets Scoreboard).

Guess it's a case of hurry up and wait for that better deal.

Here's an extract of the menu in more detail:

Helping the vulnerable:

• Help to support homeowners and social housing tenants in arrears, and better legal protection for mortgage holders and tenants
  

• ”Breathing space” relief for consumers overburdened with arrears on their utility bills and other unsecured debts
  

• A new debtors’ guide to help those with debt problems understand their options
  

• A new self-help debt advice toolkit to support debtors who want to negotiate repayment proposals with their creditors themselves
  

• A Money Guidance service in the North West and North East of England to help people make better financial decisions and avoid problem debt
  

• A new dedicated NHS helpline to offer healthcare support to those experiencing recession-related stress and anxiety
  

• Improved guidelines for health and social care workers to support people with mental health problems and overburdened with debt
  

• Reviews into how effectively energy and water suppliers protect vulnerable customers from disconnection and help customers with problem debt
  

• Swift enforcement action against debt write-off scams and against firms who exploit the vulnerable in debt
  

• Measures to ensure more responsible debt recovery practices by debt collectors and bailiffs
  

• Programmes to reduce household energy bills.

Tinkering with consumer credit:

• A review of the regulation of credit cards and store cards, including a ban on the sending of unsolicited credit card cheques
  

• Ensuring consumers can access impartial support on choosing and managing credit cards and other consumer credit products
  

• [Gold-plating] the Consumer Credit Directive, including new requirements on all lenders:
• to explain their products to consumers adequately before they enter into a contract, including the consequences of any failure to repay
• to check the credit worthiness of consumers before they lend to them to follow guidance from the OFT to tackle irresponsible lending practices
  

• A review by the OFT of high cost credit markets
  

• A continuing programme of reforms to make the credit market work effectively for consumers and lenders.
  

Updating enforcement powers:

• A series of pilot projects to test the use of new powers to deliver compensation for consumers
  

• A new national strategy and specialist team for internet enforcement on consumer issues
  

• A central “Fighting Fund” to tackle rogues operating on a big scale
  

• A new Consumer Advocate who will co-ordinate work to educate consumers and be a champion for groups of consumers who have suffered a loss at the hands of a business
  

• A mechanism for consumers to get money back that has been recovered from overseas scams
  

• Support for product safety testing of imported goods at major ports
  

• Stronger penalties for rogue traders through new banning orders
  

• Simplifying the confusing array of sources of information and advice to ensure consumers can more easily find the support they need
  

• A new Consumer Rights Campaign.
  

Updating some consumer law:

• Developing rules on new “digital” products to ensure the core principles of consumer protection apply
  

• Looking at how the law on misrepresentation and duress can be made simpler, more transparent and accessible to business and consumers
  

• Reforming consumer law and simplifying weights and measures legislation without diluting consumer protection
  

• Modernising Trading Standards powers to help them deal more effectively with modern trading conditions
  

• Bringing forward, in due course, a new Consumer Rights Bill which will [no doubt gold-plate] the proposed EU Consumer Rights Directive, the lack of any evidentiary basis for which is illustrated in the EC's Consumer Markets Scoreboard.
  

Posted via email from Pragmatist's Posterous

Is This Entertainment?

"The entertainment industry scored a rare victory on Friday," says the FT, reporting the prison sentences and fines handed out in Sweden to the four promoters of Pirate Bay.

Really?

As has been shown in the UK, there is no economic justification for spending public money on special life-support for the so-called "entertainment" industry's antiquated set of business models, let alone on imposing criminal sanctions. And doing so in the case of file-sharing only encourages these laggards to persist in their efforts to slow the development of an open internet to their snail's pace.

When lobbied for more public resources to tighten the entertainment industry's failing grip on consumers' wallets, Ministers should demand instead that the industry delight people to the point where they don't need or want to use the likes of Pirate Bay.

Now that would be a victory for the entertainment industry - and entertaining to boot.

UK Bank Charges Assessable For Fairness

Breaking news in the bank charges saga: the Court of Appeal ruled today that certain allegedly excessive current account charges can be assessed for fairness under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

There'll be no further delay on that little issue, as the banks' request to drag it into the House of Lords was refused. [The House of Lords subsequently granted leave to the banks to appeal, due to be heard in June 2009]

So now, either (a) customers must endure another delay while the banks pompously trot out their evidence as to why the OFT was wrong to challenge their fees as unfair, or (b) the new significant shareholder in many of the banks can put an end to much of this nonsense by insisting they refund what was alleged to be excessive as a "fiscal stimulus".

Of course, a "fair" bank could always demonstrate real leadership on the issue, by simply issuing the refunds of its own volition. But it seems each bank believes that just wouldn't be fair on the others.

Oh, look, this post comes hard on the heels of the one where the European Commission says:

"in the banking sector switching is low and offers difficult to compare. The substantial variation in bank fees between Member States is not explained by differences in expenditure levels". In the first half of 2009, the EC will "assess the problems consumers face resulting from a lack of transparency in retail financial services."

Nasty!

Government to End Bank Charges Litigation?

With the government now such a significant shareholder in so many UK current account providers, it could save taxpayer's money and boost the (alleged) victims' finances by requiring an end to the expensive saga of bank charges litigation, and the refund of fees that the OFT alleges are excessive.

Note the finding by Mr Justice Smith (at para 415) that "information provided by the Banks suggests that in 2006 [alone] the Banks between them received £2.5 billion from Relevant Charges on an average daily unarranged overdraft balance of £0.6 billion."

Another judgment in the saga is due tomorrow morning (21 January 2009) at 10 a.m.

Update: the 21 January judgment held that only certain NatWest terms are capable of being a penalty. Whether or not they do constitute a penalty is phase two of the saga, and phase one is yet to conclude.

Phase one is held up because the banks appealed the first instance decision that both their current terms and their historic terms are capable of being assessed for fairness under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations. Judgment on the current terms is expected soon, whereupon the banks' appeal in relation to the historic terms will begin.

Of course, the Court of Appeal's decision on both sets of terms could go to the House of Lords, meaning several years' further delay.

Meanwhile, the lower courts won't hear cases pending the outcome of the higher court proceedings. And the Financial Services Authority is also preventing anyone getting their money back via the banks' own complaints procedures. Similarly, the Financial Ombudsman Service (where complaints to the banks utlimately go) won't process complaints until the court proceedings are over.

This is no way to treat the nation's consumers, especially when the consumers' own watchdog is involved.

If the banks won't act fairly on their own initiative, then it must be part of the government's "fiscal stimulus" package, to insist that all banks that took bail-out money immediately refund the element of bank charges which the OFT has complained are excessive.

Even Faster Payments, Please

My refusal to pay for a current account landed me at Alliance & Leicester some time ago, as it also took the extraordinary step of paying decent interest on a regular balance. "Clunky" is not the word for it, and you really need your wits about you to avoid the fees lurking within. Being a retail financial services lawyer helps mightily.

Recently the bank left me a message to say that it had decided to introduce so-called Faster Payments. This is hardly dazzling - you may be aware that this has its roots in the tidal wave of frustration at slow payments that was punctuated by the Cruickshank Report in March 2000, and the ensuing regulatory saga. I was there to help "sink the slipper", as a quaint Australian rugby expression would have it. Typically, the UK banks fought tooth and nail to avoid the inevitable conclusion that:

"there were profound competition problems and inefficiencies associated with payment systems in the UK. The report found that the underlying economic characteristics of the systems did not deliver price transparency, good governance, non-discriminatory access, efficient wholesale pricing and innovation."

I won't bore you with the catalogue of dithering over implementing a solution, but the fact that "faster payments" are long overdue is evident from the APACS's bizarrely triumphant puff:

"Faster Payments is the first new payments service to be introduced in the UK for more than 20 years. For the very first time phone, internet and standing order payments can move within a few hours - almost at the touch of a button."

But compare the APACS puffery, with the statements below from Alliance & Leicester. Note the nasty little catches marked by * and **. I've brought the weasel words up from the footnotes and placed them in bold italics immediately after each. I've even had to use red text to show the nasty catches within the nasty catches. There's a way to explain what they're doing without making such sweeping claims or promises in the first place. Faint hope that nonsense like this might disappear under the tighter FSA regulation of retail banking.

"We are improving our service to you by taking part in a payment scheme being introduced across the banking industry called Faster Payments. This means that when you move money electronically either by internet or telephone banking it will usually be available for you to use on the same day*. Other types of payments such as direct debits and the time it takes for a cheque to be available will not change. Payments to Alliance & Leicester Credit Card will not be sent using the Faster Payments scheme. This means that the time it takes for these to go through will also not change.

What this means to you

Currently, if you move money between accounts or make bill payments, it will normally be available 3 to 4 working days later. Faster Payments means your money will usually be ready to use on the same day.

We are now able to receive money by Faster Payments and have started to send money by the scheme. We plan to have the Faster Payments scheme fully implemented later this year. Certain conditions will apply**. If the bank (or account) you have requested the money to or from is not part of the Faster Payments scheme, your money will continue to be moved using the BACS (Bankers' Automated Clearing Services) scheme and will be available for you to use 3 to 4 working days later. The Faster Payment scheme limit is £10,000 for immediate transfers and one off transfers that are set for a future date. The limit for standing orders is £100,000. Standing orders move money to another account on a regular basis. To start with we will have lower limits. These limits may change at any time without us telling you first. Other banks' limits may be different. Additional security checks may be carried out to protect you from fraud. If this happens your money may not be available on the same day.

You can easily make transfers or bill payments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using our internet or telephone banking services.

[skipping several paragraphs of guff about internet and telephone banking that separates the * and the ** from the corresponding footnotes]

The Faster Payments scheme will allow you to keep your money in your account for longer."

A little premature to make the last claim so unreservedly, I'd say.

PS: 18 June '09: Here's John Kay's piece on the anniversary of the "faster" payments programme.

How to Disable Phorm

I looked at Phorm in February and again in June, but not really wearing my consumer hat. Now I have an unwelcome opportunity to do just that.

You see, I'm a BT broadband subscriber with multiple users at home, some of whom may not be all that, ahem, technologically inclined. So I'm a bit paranoid that, while I'm not aware of having been asked or consented to using Phorm (branded "WebWise"), other users may have inadvertently switched it on in the course of a BT trial.

Why I am paranoid? Well the service is basically designed to track the browsing habits of all users of the broadband-connected PC or laptop and use this to send more targeted advertising, so that BT and Phorm can make money out of you. But I don't just "browse", I research stuff, work and look after my financial affairs. Other users in the house from time to time will do the same. I don't want this stuff tracked, scanned or whatever else Phorm or BT plan to do with it. And I don't want to be pestered by ads, especially ones that may have nothing do with my real interests. I don't consider that I have a relationship with BT when I use my broadband to access the internet. I permission or de-permission cookies or accept marketing bumph from each of the site I'm happy to deal with. And so on.

I've now done what any good consumer should do. I've looked at the BT WebWise site and even the audit report from Ernst & Young (the mere fact that an audit report is felt necessary chills me to the bone). While these purport to tell me what Phorm is or isn't doing, it doesn't explain BT's role or the data it has access to and retains, or what BT is getting out of using Phorm. The BT terms and conditions (clause 18) aren't exactly encouraging on this point. In fact they are so lacking in material information that they deserve further consideration in light of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (which I perhaps rather hastily lampooned - but hey, if they're there, use them). The killer is that the mere presence of this unwelcome "service" casts on me an obligation to constantly police my own computer and all its users to ensure that we're opted-out and remain opted-out. It would be too much to hope that the anti-virus software providers will create a Phorm-killer.

Let's be clear. BT needs to persuade me, as its customer, to opt-in to taking this additional "service". It's not for BT to use my broadband connection to build relationships with people who aren't the accountholder, and get me to police their opt-in/opt-out. It must be BT's problem to ensure that if I don't opt-in (or if I do, but opt-out later) that the effective opt-out works for everybody on my connection all the time.

And to have any chance of persuading me to opt-in, BT must specify in more detail the nature of the data that will be obtained, all the proposed uses of that data, what I am going to receive in return (and don't say targeted ads - show me the reduction in the price of broadband to reflect your opportunity to gain ad revenue), and how I can opt-out and have that data deleted. From a personal standpoint, the "WebWise" service doesn't go far enough in this regard for me to trust it. Nor should the current level of disclosure be enought for BT to be able to claim they have my consent to thing under the Data Protection Act - I simply don't consent, anyway.

So, not trusting BT on the particular issue of how to stay opted out, I did a quick Google search hoping to learn how you would really know that you were not signed up, and how to switch it off completely. No luck.

The Register, which has done a lot of digging on Phorm in the past, and got a very concerning post from Chris Williams on 3 October. According to Chris' discussions with BT, they seem to track your usage whether you're opted in or out... so they can record whether you have opted in or out. You then simply have to trust that they won't sell or otherwise use your data to get extra ad revenue, fall victim to organised criminals, or allow the authorities to mash it with the Communications Database (you'll recall that the UK government has been particularly supportive of Phorm).

All the technical detail is in Richard Clayton's excellent piece on Phorm. His research suggests that you can add the Fraud Act, Computer Misuse Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to your reading list before deciding whether or not to sign up to WebWise. And even intellectual property rights owners have a serious set of bones to pick, as Nicholas Bohm and Joel Harrison have fulsomely discussed in their excellent September article for the Society for Computers and Law. But none of that is going to occur to the average consumer, so why is the government not taking their corner instead of Phorm's..?

Who knows. For my money, it's time to switch broadband providers.

Speaking of which, I see that Orange is attempting to make a virtue out of not using Phorm.

War on File-Sharers Spells D-o-o-m for Net Neutrality

The UK government is planning to promote "attractively packaged content" on the internet, bowing to pressure from copyright owners to prevent online piracy.

Only figures for the music industry are cited in the consultation paper, yet various regulatory and co-regulatory solutions are proposed that will affect all copyright content online.

The paper claims that about 6.5m people in the UK (25% of UK internet users), engaged in illicit P2P file sharing in 2007. This is estimated to "cost" the "music industry" £1bn over the next 5 years, against revenues of about £1bn per annum.

So, where's the problem? The "music industry's" digital music sales increased by 28% in 2007. Sure, declining CD sales resulted in a loss, but that's like saying Ford made a loss because no one wants to by the Model T anymore. It is also conceded that the decline in CD sales wasn't due to piracy alone - supermarket discounting and the shift to digital purchases were chiefly responsible. In other words, the "music industry's" woes are born of consumer dissatisfaction.

Consumers are used to getting content for free online, knowing that providers are making money out of advertising. So it's no surprise that 91% of survey respondents file-share because the content is free. More telling is that 42% say it's because they could find everything they were looking for. In other words, constraining supply by "attractively packaging content" doesn't work, and the music industry needs to get with the programme.

Of course, file sharing isn't actually not free. File-sharers spend time and pay for wireless technology, proxy servers, encryption and communications to download the material. No figures are given for how much revenue this generates, but at 6.5m UK consumers, it seems to be a sizeable market. I wonder who's making money out of that?

The chief cause of music industry misery actually seems to be the cost of enforcing copyright via the clunky legal system. They say it can cost £10,000 for each court order to obtain the IP address for each file sharer. I'm prepared to believe that, and I'm all for reducing the cost of enforcement. But that problem shouldn't need a "memorandum of understanding" among the rights owners' associations, network service providers and goverment, paragraph 3 of which says this:

"Many legal online content services already exist as an alternative to unlawful copying and sharing but signatories agree on the importance of competing to make available to consumers commercially available and attractively packaged content in a wide range of user-friendly formats as an alternative to unlawful file-sharing, for example subscription, on demand, or sharing services."

One shudders to think what is meant by "attractively packaged content". But it's implicit that any such packaging will be done by, and must suit, the few industry players who signed the MOU.

And that implies we'll be forced to pay for premium content bundled with rubbish, like "albums" on CDs. A sort of packaged internet, chosen for us by cosy institutions.

The neutral, open internet appears to be doomed.

PS: The Society for Computers and Law response to the consultation can be viewed here, and the SCL's response to proposals to increase the penalties for criminal infringement of intellectual property rights can be viewed here.

Turn Complaints Into Fixes, Features and Products - Welcome to Web 2.0

Ever since GE required me to get my Six Sigma greenbelt, I've been convinced that complaints can have a significant positive effect on costs and revenues. But only when you're prepared to painstakingly work from identifying the critical expressions of dissatisfaction to implementing the fix, feature and maybe eventually the product, that might logically result.

That isn't to say every business problem can't be solved without an enterprise-wide investment in Six Sigma, LEAN or some other problem-solving methodology. After all, an expression of dissatisfaction suggests a desire by the customer to improve his or her experience. And the process of capturing those expressions and resolving the issues creates the "architecture of participation" that is the very essence of successful Web 2.0 businesses.

Simply implementing a process for accurately classifying customers' initial expression of dissatisfaction from the customer's standpoint will get you going along the right path. It's then pretty much common sense to identify the most common issues, figure out their scale or value, and spend a proportionate amount in resources to find their root cause, the best fix for the money and a trigger that tells you if and when the problem resurfaces.

This is not a "customer service" issue. It's a business in itself.

Allowing all functions to see and contribute to the complaint resolution process will ensure that bad stuff doesn't get hidden, blame goes out the window (it could be you next!) and the organisation takes a holistic, realistic view of significant problems and the resources available to put them right for good.

Interestingly, the European Commission is currently consulting on a plan to harmonise the classification of complaints to third party agencies to ensure that "policy makers will be able to get a better picture of collective consumer detriment in various sectors". Ironically, that may in fact slow the pace of EU consumer regulation, as lack of transparency and consultation on the actual basis for regulating has long been a criticism leveled at the Commission.

BMW Should Help Pimp My Ride

I'm having an interesting discussion with BMW in the context of my efforts to reduce the wind noise on my R1150 GS.

It's been quite tough to find all the information on steps you can take to reduce wind noise. Most of it involves products offered in the after-market and no one seemed to have gathered the data together. So rather than waste my effort, I blogged it all and sent the link to BMW and MotorcycleNews.

While BMW were pleased to see the blog and its subsequent publication on MCN, they said "we are unlikely to link this to our website as it mentions other companies that we do not endorse or have any links with".

Now that's exactly the sort of standard corporate guff that I expected. Although I must say that I'm grateful BMW even took the time to respond, let alone say they liked the blog.

But in my view BMW is missing a few tricks by not facilitating its customers' efforts to personalise their bikes, notwithstanding their World of BMW off-road training courses, holidays and other efforts to encourage riding.

First, it would enable BMW to maintain a positive relationship with people who'd recently bought a bike. That relationship would help in the event there were any problems with the bike - and BMW recently admitted some quality control problems as demand for their bikes increases. Perhaps it was that admission which emboldened some owners to publicise their dissatisfaction, but those owners might not have felt so frustrated or inclined to publicise their concerns if their issues were swept up in the course of positive discussions about after-market features.

Second, BMW could profit from the after-market, both in terms of selling their own accessories as well as perhaps a revenue share on the sale of others' kit, e.g. via ad revenue on an owners' community website.

Third, well-facilitated personalisation options may make the bikes more attractive. Look at the Toyota's customisable Scion. The ability to personalise the car itself, drew praise in Peter Sheahan’s book, Flip. And according to the entry in Wikipedia:

"Scion offers about 40 different accessories; other after-market companies through the Optomize Scion program offer to add other accessories, as well. For example, one can add a subwoofer as well as different types of decals. The tC now offers an optional supercharger to increase power from 161 to 200 hp (120 to 150 kW). All accessories are sold individually, and do not require special packages. However, some options, such as Ground Effects, do prevent other accessories (such as mud flaps) from being installed. Companies that participate in the Optomize Scion program include GReddy, OBX, RÄZO, a few car detailing companies, and others."

So, what's to stop BMW facilitating its customers' efforts to personalise their bikes?

Nothing except BMW itself.

Are You Dealing With Introverts or Extroverts?

Interesting piece on Mashable recently, suggesting that most social networkers are in fact introverts. That means they are driven by their own thoughts and feelings, whereas extroverts are driven by external interaction (I think you could be neither - i.e. somewhere in between on the continuum - but not simply "both", as the Mashable poll suggested).

For any online service provider this begs the question whether your customers are introverts, extroverts or neither, and how you should manage your marketing and communications for each type. However, assuming your objective is to generate passion and connection amongst your customers as a community, then perhaps its better to view your staff and customers as a team comprising all types who need to get along.

Further, as Idea points out, the introvert/extrovert dichotomy is but one aspect of personality and how personalities interact in a team scenario:

"In the Myers-Briggs assessment, personality characteristics are categorized along four continuums: Introvert/Extrovert; Sensing/Intuition; Thinking/Feeling; and Judging/Perceiving....

Whereas introverted team members need extroverts to initiate spontaneous verbal discussions, extroverts value an introvert’s capability for problem solving based on careful reflection and consideration of all ideas....

intuitive members need sensing personalities to remind them of facts and limitations. Conversely, sensing individuals need intuitive members to remind them to think outside of the box....

As team members, thinkers are effective in articulating logical reasons behind decisions, while feelers can bring people together....

A team needs the right mix of judging and perceiving personalities to ensure adaptability as well as adherence to project boundaries and deadlines."

Now I don't want to stifle debate, but some takeaways might be:

1. An extrovert staffer could be asked to initiate discussions and debates, but might need to take some care to leave the discussion and conclusion open to engage the introverts;
2. Provide opportunities for people to think outside the box;
3. Articulate not only the reasons for decisions but also acknowledge how the decisions make people feel;
   
4. Demonstrate flexibility, but set expectations about any constraints on flexibility, like resources and deadlines.

Discuss?

Marketing Mad

Can anyone explain why Alliance & Leicester displays banner ads for its internet banking service within its internet banking account pages?

Is it a mistake? Or did someone consciously decide that this would impress all their internet banking customers?

Either way, it seems moronic to me, and I honestly consider switching to a new provider every time I see the damn banner.

Good to get interest on the current account balance, though. Great change from NatWest.

Crackberry 2, Email 0

Crackberry Adventures

Well, I had a Crackberry for 2 days, returned it, and am expecting another tomorrow.

Two top tips (explained below):

1. Before you get a personal Blackberry, check whether any of your emails are going to come from a Blackberry Enterprise Server. If so, you will need a BES-configured handset.
2. If you are a Vodafone customer, call Vodafone's upgrade or retention team to order your BES handset, and say you'll pay no more than £5 per month (on top of line rental) for email access.

Here's why:

• Crackberrys are configured to run either the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) or the Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES).
• Only a BES-configured handset will accept email from a Blackberry Enterprise Server (really only affordable for larger employers), in addition to email from other servers.
  
• A BIS-configured Crackberry will accept mail from MS Exchange etc., but not a Blackberry Enterprise Server.
• Vodafone's high street stores only stock the BIS-configured Crackberrys, and offer email access for "only" £5 on top of your line rental (for what?). If you ask a store for a BES handset, they will offer to order you one, but charge you £28 on top your line rental for email access.
  
• At the suggestion of Vodafone customer services, I called Vodafone's upgrade or retention team from the store, and they offered to deliver a BES handset with email access for "only" £5 on top of my line rental.

Will IT ever be easy?

Even I Now Have a Crackberry

Yes, even I have finally succumbed - a decade of Nokia loyalty overturned. With my Nokia E61 forlornly relegated to back-up status, my life's data is now on the dreaded Crackberry.

This Seismic Shift was caused by the internal communications etiquette of my current client. The company generally requires employees and staff to have their own mobile phones. So, to avoid the undue use/cost of mobiles, the preferred modes of communication are email or calls on the company's internal telephone system. Most requests that someone call your mobile seem to go unheeded in favour of email, as everyone assumes that your mobile is a Crackberry - you'll see the email anyway.

Ironically, I can't get email on my new Crackberry as the relevant server isn't responding to my password yet. So, the only way to communicate effectively would be to throw it at the next person I see...

Worse still, I remain deskbound, since approval for remote email access via my company-issued laptop is yet to reach the Guardian of the VPN.

Woe betide the next person who passes my office door!