Banks are clearly waking up to the CRM thing, not only do Bank of Ireland carry around 30,000 plus account names in laptops but clearly intend selling them insurance.  At the other end of the scale a rather intriguing letter crossed my desk this week entitled ‘Whatever your plans we are hear to help’ from AIB Direct Banking, assuring me that I am only a phone call away from the advice I need. 

Funny that. My dedicated account handler in AIB has had for many weeks now a copy of the latest accounts and a email request that they now reconsider our banking terms and facilities on the back of 56% growth year on year in turnover. I made a call (becasue actually there is only one email address per branch in the jolly old AIB) and asked him to come back to me. Fortunately I did not hold my breath. Weeks later I am still waiting for enlightenment but now I have this fine letter which is about as impersonal as it comes and cost part of a tree to produce.

Still let not the pot call the kettle black, we all sometimes fail to realise the essential truth of good CRM – its about the individual not the masses. With more than 600 websites its sometimes hard to remember this too.  So I took myself off this fine Saturday morning to Riverside Furniture Design aka RFD to see their fantastic new showrooms in Portarlington – just a day after their new SitesToGo website went live.  This could cost me! Watch this space for the drawings…..

Marketing speak just does not work on the web. Superlatives are filtered by our scanning style of reading and can obscure the main message.  But the web does encourage people to say more, and perhaps less carefully in print and perhaps to make commitments they cannot keep. However the web also has mechanisms for exposing untruths.

I write this from a very noisy lobby in the Silver Springs Moran Hotel in Cork. Despite the claims on its website and in the room info that the whole hotel has broadband I can categorically assure you that room 502 does not! Nor does the establishment seem to think that researching my business plan in a lobby full of first communion kids and families should be a problem. In fact its a disaster when two valuable free days to lock myself away with the most deferred task on my list, led me here to take advantage of the claimed pervasive broadband and a nice hotel room with plenty of damp towels to keep me awake! Nor is the spa that I promised myself a reward with a) on site or b) open for treatments on Sundays.

Ah I hear you say did you not value the Ireland of old? Yes but was not truth part of that? And will not Trip Advisor catch up with the truth eventually?

Wow!  I find myself corrected. Or maybe I just opened my mind. Three of the five sessions I attended turned out to be quite worthwhile and learning experiences. Bruno Sardi of Dell on how they use social media to solve problems, generate ideas, share learning curves and activate communities was my highlight. Check out www.directtodell.com www.ideastream.com www.regeneration.org – I have a new admiration for this company!

Low point www.igopeople.com but maybe I will be proved wrong – they could start their problem solving mission with the HSE I suppose…. but am I missing something here – like a business model?! Bebo did a passable commercial for brand advertising but commercials we can see anytime….

Best news yet I hear thorny issue of standards in the industry has an august working group devoted to it.

That time of year again. The Irish Internet Association (IIA) conference is tomorrow. Theme is social networking, should be standards in the web industry which are appalling, not just in Ireland but most places.  Will be worth the trip to the big smoke (Dublin – small smoke is Tullamore where I will start my day with a BNI meeting at 7am).

The IIA has never generated a cent of business for us but we somehow hang on in there in the hope that this august organisation will some day focus on the real issue – how to improve the standards of web development.  Tomorrow will though provide some inspiration, some food for thought and maybe the odd new contact. Watch this space!