Archive for November, 2008

Business Startup podcast: EnterpriseCafe.tv launches today

Nov 29 | by Sam Deeks | news
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New video podcast for business startups kicks off with ‘Entrepreneur’s A to Z’

Today sees the launch of Iain Scott’s ‘EnterpriseCafe.tv’ – a site dedicated to ‘feeding your enterprising soul’.

Among the weekly video offerings is Iain’s ‘Entrepreneur’s A to Z’ – a less than reverent look at the things you need to know when starting out in business.

Other video offerings include ‘Bucket or Bookcase’, ‘Espresso Shots’ and the one and only ‘Enterprise Agony Uncle’.

You’re welcome to contribute to EnterpriseCafe.tv by phone, email, mp3, YouTube, Viddler. You can even leave a voicemail for Uncle Iain and star in a future show!

Compare online reputation management tools?

Nov 29 | by Sam Deeks | ORM
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Valérie Léonard compares 6 online reputation management tools

This is a very useful little review of the following ORM packages:

  • Attentio
  • BrandsEye
  • BrandMonitor
  • Brandwatch
  • Distilled Reputation Monitor
  • Trackur

with added value coming from the comments made by the people behind some of these packages. Worth a visit.

Who regulates PayPal in the UK?

Nov 29 | by Sam Deeks | The Dripping Tap
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Listen to The Mu Show #3 to find out who regulates PayPal in the UK – and how to complain

. click to listen

Are you unhappy with some aspect of PayPal’s service and frustrated by theircustomer service? Have you just about given up hope of getting your issue with PayPal resolved because you just don’t know where to turn?

The good news it that help is on hand. The Mu Show #3 tells you who regulates PayPal, who to complain to – and how to complain for maximum effect. We’ve also been poking away at PayPal through our blog posts (like this one) in the hope that the company will start listening and communicating better.

Listen to the show here – and do let us know your views on our voicemail line 01752 548771

Online reputation monitoring software first impressions: BrandsEye

Nov 27 | by Sam Deeks | review
3 Comments

Can BrandsEye help real-world businesses make sense of online reputation monitoring?

I’m not sure yet – because I’ve only just started trying out the basic version of it.

What I can tell you, though, is that there’s a fighting chance it will. What makes me say that? This: when I gave BrandsEye feedback their software wasn’t intuitive to use, they were bothered enough to get in touch to find out more – within hours.

That resulted in a 40 minute call from BrandsEye’s Tim Sheir in South Africa to find out what didn’t work for me and why – and to give me a guided tour.

This year, I’ve tried out 3 online reputation management software packages including BrandsEye. All 3 suffer from being designed by people who can’t quite get their head around the fact that people on the outside of their product don’t know what they know about it. ;-)

This result for me is disorientation. Don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Don’t know what I can do. And I’m heading out the door saying ‘forget it, I’ll just stick with Google Alerts’.

BrandsEye is the first of the three to take that experience seriously.

Watch this space for a fuller report on BrandsEye when I’ve had time to learn more about it.  Meantime, here’s the neat little ‘monitor widget‘ doing it’s thing…. all for $1 US per month.

The Mu Show #3

Nov 27 | by Sam Deeks | The Mu Show
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. listen now

Welcome to The Mu Show #3. This weeks Moo Marketing Tip we look at the 3 basic steps to managing your online reputation and what they mean in practice. Step 1. Monitor Step 2. Evaluate Step 3. Respond. Continue Reading…

Thanksgiving thoughts from a Native American perspective

Nov 26 | by Sam Deeks | history
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Google elevates Native American thoughts of Thanksgiving

I wanted to find out exactly Thanksgiving was all about. Before I’d gone two steps, I found the Oyate web site – a Native American site dedicated to ensuring that histories are portrayed correctly and in balanced way.

In a sobering (and from what I’ve read, accurate) account of the relationship between the first Pilgrims and the indiginous peoples of America, the site deconstructs 11 ‘myths’ about Thanksgiving – and ends with this:

For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation.

As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship

Personally, I give thanks that this web technology can give a voice to people who for so long haven’t had one.

How to complain about paypal in the UK

Nov 26 | by Sam Deeks | how to
27 Comments

Don’t get mad, get unstuck – with our crystal-clear guide on how to complain about PayPal in the UK

In the interests of positive dispute resolution, a stress-free world and a better service and experience for all (including PayPal) here is our step-by-step guide to complaining about PayPal.

Important notes:

a) Despite being registered as a bank in Luxembourg, PayPal IS regulated by the Financial Services Authority because it falls within certain categories of activity in the UK.

b) FSA have power to regulate PayPal but NOT to deal with individual complaints. The areas of ‘regulatable’ activity are listed here. While it is outside of the FSA’s jurisdiction to talk to you about individual complaints, the FSA are happy to hear from you if PayPal does not perform to the FSA guidelines.

For example: FSA expects PayPal to adhere to its guidelines on dispute resolution – one of which is that PayPal are obliged to ‘make it easy’ for you to contact them throughout the process. If you feel that PayPal are in contravention of that guideline, please bring it to the FSA’s attention using this form. (Please be clear about the distinction between complaining about breach of FSA guidelines and complaining about your issue.)

c) The Financial Ombudsman Service is the place to complain about your individual issue with PayPal if it has not been resolved within the 8 week period. You can download the complaint form here. If the FOS feels there are sufficient grounds and the issue is within their jurisdiction, they may take up the issue with PayPal, keeping you informed of what they are / aren’t doing along the way. If they think you have a case, their goal will be to restore you to the situation you were in before the problem arose.

So, here’s what you do:

1. Raise your complaint with PayPal in writing (email or hardcopy)

2. Give PayPal 8 weeks to respond / resolve the dispute with you

3. If after 8 weeks, you’re not satisfied, then do the following:

(i) Download a complaint form from FOS and send it to them with all accompanying documentation

(ii) Check this list of areas of business activity (more detail available from the FSA handbooks section) that are regulated by FSA. If you feel that PayPal have acted outside of the guidelines that the FSA impose on these areas of activity, then bring that to the attention of the FSA in writing.

If you follow the 3 steps above (all of them!) you will achieve the following:

1) You will bring to the Financial Ombudsman’s attention just how many unhappy PayPal customers there are out there.

2) You may achieve satisfactory resolution of your issue with the support of the Financial Ombudsman service.

3) You will go a long way to calling PayPal to account with the Financial Services Authority if and where it needs calling to account.

It’s revealing that the Financial Ombudsman Service person I spoke to this morning had never heard of ‘PayPal Buyer Dispute’.  If those of you who’ve fallen victim to this scam follow the above 3 steps you can bet he soon will.

Thank you to the FSA and the FOS for their time and information this morning.

Facebook Ads: Threesomes

Nov 25 | by Sam Deeks | smile
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Random clusters of Ads from Facebook, quite literally, as they come (in threes)

No 1. “Love you long time… to death actually”

Animated Twitter Avatar – first sighting

Nov 25 | by Sam Deeks | news
1 Comment

Mobatalk’s Michael Bailey nips in with a neat animated Twitter avatar.

Is this a first? I’d like to know. Seems that he’s created a bit of a frisson today with his animated ‘coffee drinking’ avatar.

Click to see the amazing moving avatar here! Click the picture (right) to watch Michael’s top Twitter animated avatar insider tips (worth $697)!

I’m so not-clued-up with Twitter that I don’t exactly know how to follow the conversations, but seems there has been some grumbling about Michael’s move.

Err… why exactly?

Customer feedback is like magma

Nov 25 | by Sam Deeks | business insight
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Customer feedback is like magma: : slow moving, unstoppable, potentially explosive.

Yes, customer feedback is a lot like molten magma.

It’s hot, scary and when it erupts, it can re-shape the landscape for miles around. It’s unstoppable – destroying everything that can’t get out of its way. And it leaves a more fertile environment in its wake.

There’s an old idea in business that if we put our fingers in our ears and hum loudly enough, we can pretend that we can’t hear the pressure of customer feedback building up beneath our feet.

All too often, we create organisations that don’t, can’t or won’t listen to what their customers have to say. Culturally, we fear the discomfort that feedback brings and the change it implies.

If we try to suppress it, not only do we lose the power of feedback to initiate and drive positive growth and change but all the positive energy of our happy customers, too.  Does your online reputation management strategy (or lack of one) block the flow of feedback or put its energy to work for you?

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