Thursday, May 24, 2007

Law of attraction in business

Today I got into a discussion with my biz friend about the law of attraction in life and in business. It seems to be a very big topic these days and months and as I started to think more about it, it makes sense actually. What I see now is that we really attract such a people, things or events into our life as we are. We ourselves need to be great in order to attract great people & things into our lives. We cannot blame anyone but ourselves if we are attracting wrong people, wrong friends or wrong business partners. Its not even that they are "wrong" as such, they just do not match with our expectations. They might be great for someone else but are not great for us. They do not share the same values as we do and thus behave differently.

I can see it very nicely in our business. When we started 2 years back in Singapore, we were just not ready and we didn't deserve to attract quality people and business partners in our business life. However, the trend seems to be changing and the more we grow and the better we get every single day, we start attracting not just better business partners but also better suppliers and better staff . I am really not a psychologist but it's seems to be working that way.

My friend today with whom I had a discussion was right, the way to go about it is to create a community of likeminded people who share the same values. But its not about chasing them but its about living those values and thus attracting likeminded people. It's great to realize it and remind yourself so we can practice it. I for sure will.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Bad day for service industry in Singapore

Last Friday was a very frustrating day for me and a very bad day for image of the service industry in Singapore, especially for image of SME service companies. It just happened that one day I came across 4 different unbelievable scenarios, all related to my customers or my company, where customer service was just simply horrible. Judge yourself, please.

Scenario No.1: I referred one company, from which I was buying barcode scanners and printers, to my important client. I knew that my client is a bit fussy one so I explained to that company how to deal with my client. Friday afternoon my client was calling me very furios that that man I referred to him promised to come to fix the printer in the morning but hasnt turned up and hasnt called. Feeling very bad, knowing that its pretty critical that barcode printer works non stop, I called my supplier and asked him what happened. I almost fainted when I heard what he was saying - that my client is very bad, that he is expecting him to fix the problem on the spot or give him some other solution while he needs few days to find out what is the problem and also that he is not going to give him a training on how to maintain printer because my client is not buying labels from him. I tried to explain nicely that its not very good strategy to blackmail customers and force them to buy something otherwise no training, but he didnt seem to get it. He was telling me things I seriously havent heard for a very long time in business and I was really disillusioned.

Scenario No. 2: My another client purchased an e-marketing campaign package and the first issue was out on Friday. She was really upset when she was showing us how it turned out to be. She is very cautious about her branding and professionalism and so didnt like the fact that what was supposed to be a professional e-newsletter for her international clients turned out to be an average e-newsletter with very bad logos (with bad resolution) and while articles were supposed to be linked to her website, they were only linked to white pdf document she couldn't look at. She wasnt happy about few other things. We told her not to worry that hopefully this wasnt done on purpose and next time it will be better as they learn from these first mistakes.

Scenario No.3: This happened to the same customer from scenario No. 2 the same day. We were helping her to put articles online through her CMS (which btw was provided by her fellow BNI member) and while doing that we saw that the source is linked to some existing CMS, which cost is S$10 per month. She was really surprised to hear that as she was paying much much more for it to her web guy, who was even claiming that CMS is his company's own one. Well, thats easy to check and unfortunately as I said we did and explained her the difference. Worse, she signed up for 2 years (p.s. on the web of the original CMS company it says that if you sign up for 2 years you get 50% discount, of course she didnt get any). Again disillusionment.

Scenario No. 4: This is my own story and I couldn't believe it either. Its regarding my company secretary. I do not wish this company for any small business in Singapore. Later I will share why I'm so sure about that.
So what happened here goes way back 2 years when we started our company in Singapore. The owner, was the sweetest thing you ever meet at that time. However, it was true till the moment you sign the contract only. I havent heard from her afterwards when I was searching answers for my questions about overcharching us for things she never mentioned before. It was really unbelievable. I got first invoice with S$400 extra and my company secretary 's accountant told me, "ups we forgot to tell you before". Of course, I had to pay as it was about my EP pass so I had no choice and I signed up for 2 years (in illusion that I get better price). Soon, I was also annoyed by the fact that every time I wanted something from the company I had to talk to different people as there was no account manager for the client. If you needed mail you had to talk to mail girl, if anything regarding AGM, another girl, bills another one. I wrote a request for one contact person, but never got reply back. Then I kept receiving very confusing invoices from them and with figures that were shocking. Of course, we wanted an explanation before payment noone really found time to talk to us and explain properly, they just send invoices and kept quiet. So we kept quiet too. After some time in Singapore I started to ask around about that company as by that time I had some friends who were also in company secretary business and surprisingly, not just them but also many other SME business owners I met knew a lot about that company and it was not positive at all. I am really suprised they are still in business. They care nothing about the small customers, it seems.
I was not happy about their mail service either, it happened several times that we got important letters late and when I saw how they manage their mail I wasn't surprised. The worst to me is the fact that I had to remind them things and chase them for mails and when they promised to call me back, they didn't. We didn't pay our fees for the second year as we felt cheated and not being taken care of and the best thing was that noone really seem to care or ask us what is going on. We paid fees maybe 6 months later and 2 months after that, we got email from company requesting the outstanding payment that was actually already paid. Nobody asked for the payment for 6 months and when we paid they were suddenly asking for it.
Well, with all this in mind we decided to terminate our contract with them and I informed lady in accounting department about our decision. That was this March. She never got back to me with answer. As I was busy, I kind of forgot about it and I came to think of it just now as my 2 years expired on May 5. Btw. nobody contacted me that my service is due to end and asked if we want to renew or anything. I called them to tell them I want to terminate our contract with immediate effect and that was my Friday when I got reply from them - I talked to another lady this time. Again, not a single question why I want to terminate or why am I unhappy with them. On the other hand, they told me that because I have not sent in a handwritten notice 3 months ahead I had to pay for next 3 months before I can terminate the contract and of course they bulked in some other nice figures like S$100 for changing auditor, etc. I told them that the lady I talked to in March didnt inform me or reminded me this rule when I contacted her in March and that I really wish to just leave and not to pay for 3 more months. I got official email saying that only after I pay for next 3 months my files will be released, no further discussion. That really pissed me off and I wrote email to the boss, lady No. 1 and lady No. 2 sharing my feelings that their customer service is not the best and that nobody ever asked me why I want to leave, I wrote them my reasons for not being happy also...and the best part is the reply I got from them today...here it is as received:

Dear Dasha,
xxx (owner) has read your email below and has no time to reply to you, hence I’m instructed to tell you this. Kindly take your business somewhere else as you are not happy with us and she has better clients to deal with. Good luck. We will release your files once full payment has been made to us.

Thanks and Regards
xxx

I was shocked to my very core how one company can react to the feedback. Of course, I shared this email, as rare as it is, with some of my business partners and friends. Now, the best part of the story comes. When I shared this story, one of my close business partners told me that he also has bad experience with the same company secretary and the owner and now he prefers to be LLP to avoid company secretaries at all. He got cheated by them for 4K. They didnt do what they were supposed to do in 2003 when he was their client and when he got fine from the government and wanted them to correct the problem, they now wanted to charge him for all these years from 2003 till 2007 official secretary fee (even though he was not their official client anymore), otherwise they will not do anything. I think there are no words to comment on that.
I think company like that should not be allowed to run the business and I am very serious about it. We have controls to check if restaurants have basic hygiene in place, if not, they close them down. I think we should also have controls if companies have basic customer service and integrity in place, if not, they should also be closed down. Unfortunately, the reality is different. I am worried that many companies will fall into the same hole as I did and my friend did and who knows how many other SMEs did. We are a small company and of course we are careful with where we spent our money, because we also serve similar companies as our clients, so we understand what does it mean to be charged even S$100 extra when you do not expect it. Still, we are happy to pay to those who take good care of us and our customers are happy to pay us on time because we take good care of them. My auditor on the other hand for example if the best auditor I could find. I wish I could find company secretary like that.

I am not suprised anymore when some people and competitors tell me that we are spoiling the market by being too nice to our customers. Well, to us, customer service is a religion and no matter what, we will follow what we believe in. Of course, we are humans and make mistakes, but at least admit our mistakes and apologize...some companies are too proud to do that.


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