Clive Simpkins

Standard Bank needs a disaster recovery plan

I'm left in awe that a commercial giant like Standard Bank can exhibit such utter incompetence when there's an IT problem.

Evidently as a result of some sort of attack, their Internet Banking service went down yesterday. They claim it was for a very brief period. However, over an 18 hour period (only during office hours) I still got answers from their Internet Banking call centre conceding that there were problems.

Yesterday afternoon I called into Talk Radio 702's Eyewitness News Desk to report the problem and was told they'd look into it but there was only one person at Standard Bank permitted to talk to the media - Erik Larsen - and he 'wasn't always easily available'. Hmm. What's the point in paying him then?

I don't care (as the marketing people have subsequently told me) that the attack affected the bank's 'ability to communicate with its customers'. Never ever, when there's been a problem with either Standard Bank or Vodacom 3G service, has either organisation taken the trouble to SMS or e-mail. Yet they BOTH boast cutting-edge technology capability. Bizarre.

If you try calling the Standard Bank Internet Banking call centre out of office hours in a time of service failure like this, you get a recording telling you what their office hours are. Um, Not helpful.

Here's what I think the difficult-to-reach Mr. Erik Larsen may want to consider:

1. Don't wait for hours to decide that this IT glitch is not a 5 minute fix.

2. You will NOT panic customers by immediately sharing problems. You'll get their understanding, their respect and maybe they can go to a plan B (i.e. into a branch) because they know what's going on because - guess what? - you told them. Gosh, isn't that easy enough?

3. When you have a problem, put extra people on the phones and keep your call centre open longer hours to deal with the crisis. Or is your salary bill and the bottom line the only consideration? Isn't  reputation management on the radar any longer?

4. When you finally do get your part of the problem sorted, brief your call centre properly. I called this morning (Standard are pulling the recording) and got told explicitly 'If you're a Vodacom 3G customer, the problem lies on their side' or words to that effect. But quite blatantly blaming Vodacom. Not fair, much though I can't commend Vodacom service.

5. I wonder if there's actually a document or crisis communications plan lying covered with dust in a filing cabinet at Standard Bank, that was once put together by some PR agency? Get it out, dust it off, update it and implement it the next time things go wrong.

6. Their marketing person (she tried real hard to mollify me) told me today 'We had no means of communicating with our customers'. Huh? I said: What about the media? Radio in particular? How about (when you know it's going to be largely wireless internet customers being denied access), using Social Media like Twitter or facebook to to get the message out there? How come they didn't pick up on all my tweets of frustration?

All in all, a horrible communications and reputation management failure. It should be an embarrassment and of deep concern to Standard Bank's shareholders. If they can't handle something on this scale, I'd hate to see their response to a real crisis. Jaco Maree, the Standard Bank CEO, may want to revisit how his organisation connects (or doesn't) with its stakeholders.

Because I still can't 14:10 29th October '09 (twenty five hours later) get into the Standard Bank website, here's a little screensnatch off Google, of Erik Larsen's contact details. File 'em. You may need 'em.

 

Reputation Management 101

 

'The sound of the customer's voice is your salary cheque speaking' – Clive Simpkins

Is an individual or a division of your business doing damage to your reputation without you knowing about it? Could they, unknown to you be messing up even long-standing and valuable relationships with important clients? Chances are pretty good that the answer is 'yes'.

The people most likely to be villains of the piece are those in your admin or support services section – particularly your accounts department. The clerical mind-set is the opposite of the customer-centric approach needed to develop relationships and ensure a happy supply chain. They're in the main, bureaucrats, cops and rule-enforcers. Things must be done 'their' way. They often forget one crucial thing; it's not just customers or clients but also suppliers and service providers who contribute to their salary cheque and employment sustainability.

The bureaucrat is concerned only with her or his world running according to script. They typically lack flexibility. They don't, can't or won't think like an 'owner' in the business. If they were personally responsible for maintaining relationships to ensure salary survival they certainly wouldn't behave the way they frequently do.

I've twice this year had to threaten use of my access to the media to get (way overdue) payment for services that I provided to a particular multinational. First they changed (without consultation or notification) their payment terms to thirty days. A few months later it unilaterally went to fifty five days. This despite the fact that their internal accounts and procurement system is so inefficient that it can take ten days to get a purchase order (PO) number before you're actually able to invoice. So by the time you get paid, they've enjoyed your services and you acting as their bank for at least sixty five days. That's nothing short of corporate bullying and supplier exploitation. I don't accept that kind of unprofessional treatment from anyone. I picked up the phone to their European head office chairman and retribution came hurtling down the line at them. Miraculously, an inflexible accounting system was then able to pay me in half an hour. But why should one have to go through such time-consuming and relationship-damaging nonsense?

Regardless of your monopolistic position or your corporate power base – be respectful to people at all levels in your supply chain. Go read 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins and understand why some companies enjoy sustained growth and performance, staff stability and intensely loyal customers. It's because everyone plays to a script of dignity and mutual respect.

Years ago, a woman in a pharmaceutical company I consulted to mis-appropriated the power mantle of her boss. She treated everyone around her – and particularly suppliers – in an appalling manner. She'd commission work and then say 'I'm not the accounts department' when you followed through on outstanding payments. She eventually got the heave-ho and started her own business. She then had the gall to e-mail all of us who'd suffered at her hand to invite us to purchase stationery from her. Her business never got off the ground. Nobody would even give her the time of day. A poor and short-sighted relationship investment in her future received its legitimate return on investment.

This begs the question: What kind of relationship investment deposits are your employees and colleagues making on your behalf or in your name, to the detriment of your business – probably without you knowing? Maybe time to conduct a client, supplier and stakeholder survey on their perceptions of your business?

Should you be using Social Media?

This question gets asked more and more by organisation PR people and those involved in reputation management. Like all technological developments, there's a barrier to entry. Example: You've never played a video game. You're simply not going to be able to co-ordinate the buttons, steering wheel and pedals to prevent yourself having a crashing good time on screen. This is where the so-called 'thumbs generation' does well. They approach every newly emerging widget in a spirit of enquiry, adventure and with entertainment and connectivity in mind. We need to do the same.

Not all of the Social Media mix will be for you or deliver on your communication needs. But I've blogged for a long time and that blog has become an influential and controversial part of my personal media mix. Organisations have learned painfully that you can't start a blog punting your products or services as if it's genuinely being written by an outsider. When you get busted trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, the backlash is pretty fierce.

Podcasts are serving the needs of many tech-savvy organisations across the spectrum. They're little audio files that people can click on and download or listen to there and then. The advantage is that if you miss a radio interview, these days that interview will be available a short while later on the network's website as a podcast. It's a great way of communicating short and relevant bits of audio information to your client base. I regularly get interviewed for other people's podcasts on a variety of topics. So they're using external sources with 'cred' to add to the lustre of their media mix.

Have I gone LinkedIn, MyGenius and Twitter? No - for a variety of reasons. I really can't think of anything more mind-numbing than spending time putting up my activities in 140 characters or less, as Tweets for people to 'follow' me. The tweets of some people I know are a banal embarrassment. If you're a high profile celeb or politician, heck, you'd be brain-damaged not to use it. Barack Obama did during the US Presidential primaries, to great effect.

Enter facebook I resisted the idea of using it until a conspiracy of friends swamped me with e-mails and SMSs bullying me on to it. (I'm a pushover). Now I regularly use it. It keeps me in touch with my dear ex pharmacist in Oregon in the USA and connected to all sorts of people with whom I simply don't have the time to make regular personal contact. Ditto for them I'm sure. It's even produced some unexpected work for me. As people for whom I'd done consulting work years ago take up the threads again. It's become a way of keeping in touch with all sorts of micro trends of interest to me in the work I do and also to share on many fronts with other people. That's the essence of networking. It's great to use in sometimes unproductive airport or between-meetings moments. And it needn't be just messing around. You can make it work for you.

My recommendation? Get involved with some of the Social Media at least. It can pay dividends for you and your organisation. Health warning though: It can be very addictive and time consuming if you don't use it intelligently and judiciously. But that's not a good enough reason not to use it! Finally, a confession: I've started using Twitter as well (blush).

OUTsurance can take a call centre bow

In a world where I weekly have to deal with some or other call centre, OUTsurance stands out like a shining beacon of cordiality and efficiency. Most call centre agents are flummoxed if you ask what I call an 'off-script' question. You can hear from their disinterested, unmodulated tone of voice that they really don't want to be doing what they're doing. In contrast, OUTsurance call centre agents - and I've spoken with several different ones - chat in a warm, informal yet professional manner. If they've had voice coaching, then credit to them and the coaches. Refreshing in a world of mediocrity and don't-care-less-ness. Take a bow!