Wednesday, May 31, 2006

An interesting day in many ways with some interesting lessons - all about Customer Service! First of all I charged into town this morning as I knew I didn't have a lot of time, and flew into the bank where there are all these fancy machines for carrying out your banking. Only the cheque that I was trying to put into the bank was being rejected by the machine and so I headed upstairs to the business banking section ............... which did not open for another 5 minutes.

So, if you hit one brick wall you turn round don't you? I went back downstairs to ask a member of staff for a solution - but there wasn't one and I was told to come back in 5 minutes. OK, not good, but OK.

So, my next port of call was the Orange Mobile phone shop. I had received a new phone the day before via courier direct from Orange (thank you orange), and whilst I did write down all sorts of notes from my conversation with a very nice young man on the phone as to what I was meant to do to get the thing working - could I remember - no! So, I thought to myself, it's ok, I will go into the store, they will of course be able to help! "Have you got your receipt" I was asked, I explained that no I didn't have a receipt it was delivered by courier the evening before, I just needed help to set it up. I had everything in the box - except one piece of paper. I asked if they could possible call Orange who would of course be able to confirm that yes indeed I had come by the phone by entirely honest means - but the response I got was "It's a different department".

Needless to say, I left the shop entirely dissatisfied. But what a contrast this was to my dealings with the skincare company Liz Earle Naturally Active. I have purchased from this company before, and everything about their products and their customer service makes the whole progress a wonderful warm experience! This really showed me just how much difference Good Customer Service and poor customer service can make. Both the bank and the phone company are huge corporations and yet they do not place enough importance on the experience the customer has when dealing with them and then all the work they do on building up their brand is ruined in the eyes of the customer by the person behind the desk or behind the till.

Funnily enough, I am taking part in a Telephone Seminar at the moment by Sales Guru Chris Cardell, and guess what part of his seminar was about? It was about the fact that the most successful entrepreneurs and business people are not driven by the desire to make money, but the desire to make a difference and add value to their customer's lives! Someone needs to tell Orange and HSBC that!

Friday, May 26, 2006

Well, this week we have been working on making the personal wedding website tool for our members, more user friendly. The new system is now live and we have been testing it, hopefully, it is fine, though there may still be a couple of gremlins in it that we've not yet unearthed.

These things are always difficult as you never know if you have covered every aspect. I really hope our members find this system easier and more user-friendly!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Great news - we are in the Manchester Evening News tonight! All because a member wrote in and asked for our help finding a Nudist Wedding Venue!

I am so looking forward to seeing what other dilemas we are able to help our members with.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Today I did a telephone interview for Dee 106 based in Chester all about Mrs2Be. How exciting! They say it will be broadcast tomorrow - Tuesday 16th of May - so listen out for us!

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Another good week! This week has seen some new companies coming on board in the mrs2be wedding directory. What I have found is that once people know that mrs2be is using a well-respected PR company to launch the business, people know they are buying into something worth buying into!

Also this week; discussions have started with a bridal fashion house to sell wedding dresses online! How exciting! This deal will hopefully be exclusive to mrs2be and should be seen within the next couple of months.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

w/e 6th May 2006

This week has seen some interesting ideas being banded about as well as some ideas that have been in the pipeline being more firmly cemented.

A meeting at the beginning of the week with our PR company has set the PR machine in motion and so advertisers and members alike will start to see the benefit of this as we attract more special offers and member discounts as well as increase the volume of traffic and awareness of the site.

We have also had one large hotel in Chester agree to put a Mrs2Be membership discount together for us along with an offer of a special deal from their independant beauty salon! So, watch this space!

After a 4 hour long meeting with the programmer, we have agreed on a schedule of works that should see some improvements to elements of the site such as the mini wedding websites as well as some new tools that will be added shortly.

A further meeting with an established events/wedding planner proved fruitful and she has agreed to come on board to strengthen the Mrs2Be team even further which will mean that we can offer even more specialist help and advice to our members.

A good week all round!