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The Monetization of Everything: Maintaining Social Values in a Market-Driven Culture: PART 3

Carib-Beam — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:20:00 GMT

For the last two weeks, I have been sharing my recent encounter with the rebranded LIME and the new customer service model it appears to be unveiling in Barbados [some might argue there is nothing ‘new’ about it, but it honestly is new to me, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about it].

That very distasteful experience reinforced two lessons from a personal perspective I shared with you last week.

At the time, I also promised to outline the lessons that encounter taught me about some of our market-based decision-making models, as well as give LIME some free advice.

Before I continue, I feel compelled to differentiate myself from the diehard Cable & Wireless bashers who have shifted their historical resentments to the new brand.

During telecommunications deregulation in Barbados, I did some work for Government on policy frameworks that would support a liberalised, competitive sector in a small island like Barbados. The idea was to create an environment, backed by sound national policies and effective regulation, which would allow Barbadians to benefit from cheaper, more efficient digital technologies and services while allowing existing and new firms in the market to grow.

I attended several meetings with the Minister responsible for telecommunications at the time where the players worked tirelessly to ensure competition would benefit the consumer and new providers while not gutting Cable & Wireless, a company that has played a significant role in Barbados’ modern economic development.

Throughout that process, until this month, I remained one of what is now LIME’s paying customers. Even during the ongoing dispute between the company and the union concerning the closure of LIME’s Barbados call centre and the transfer of those functions to St. Lucia, I have remained silent. At my core, I believe while it is important for a company to have a social conscience, such an awareness is pointless if it is not earning a healthy profit it can invest in its own development and that of everything connected to it.

And so we come to the lessons I believe our Caribbean firms, including LIME, would do well to apply.

#1: At the most basic level, service providers in this evolving economy must understand and operate by the mantra that new digital technologies and the social networks they are enabling are game changers in just about every sector, including telecommunications. Old, rigid, unresponsive business models must change!

#2: Detaching provision of a technological service from real-time, proximal customer service is not always a good idea. People enjoy knowing their service provider is near, easily accessible, easily understood, and directly accountable to them.

#3: Linked to Lesson #2, LIME needs to align messages from its customer service representatives in St. Lucia with the behaviour of personnel in Barbados, including technicians. While it is at it, LIME should think about investing more in much-needed customer service training for its local technicians.

#4: LIME should develop a smarter business model for small, independent service providers like me. Why was it not possible for the LIME technician who called me to say, “Ma’am, I understand your frustration. However, our current business model requires that we charge you [‘X’ amount of dollars] for a site visit.” I could then have decided whether to pay for the privilege of saving my time or go in to have my problem solved.

I began this series of blogs with a quote from noted Barbadian author George Lamming, who said, “It is a bold perception that has allowed the market to kidnap the society, convert the society into a service station and evaluate every human activity as a commodity for sale.”

There are some human activities and behaviours we simply cannot put a price tag on … not everything can, or should, be monetized. Some things are too critical to healthy human and business relationships for us to take that risk.

The notion that time is money is creating many uncouth service providers who have kidnapped traditional social values like respect and replaced them with intolerant attitudes that will eventually impact poorly on many companies’ profit-making potential.

And so ends my saga with the ‘new’, rebranded LIME.

Check out my next blog on Exporting Caribbean Innovation.

--acb

The Monetization of Everything: Maintaining Social Values in a Market-Driven Culture: PART 2

Carib-Beam — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:25:50 GMT

Last week, I began recounting my recent unfortunate experience with LIME and its apparently new approach to customer service in Barbados.

I do not normally make a hullabaloo about bad service in the Caribbean since the effort it takes is more costly in the long run than any positive outcome. This is probably why service is so poor: people on the receiving end usually take whatever is dished out and move on.

But my recent encounter with LIME was so distasteful I had to draw a line in the sand.

What follows is an abbreviated re-enactment, from memory, of what happened when one of LIME’s female technicians in Barbados called me on January 8 to follow up on a request for technical assistance filed by their customer service centre in St. Lucia.

ACB: Annalee Babb, hello.

LIME Technician: Hello. I received a report you are having problems with your Internet.

ACB: Yes.

LT: What is wrong with it?

ACB [Long pause]: I cannot connect to the Internet.

LT: You will have to take your modem to the Windsor Lodge office to be checked.

ACB: But I spoke with a customer service representative in St. Lucia who said someone would come to check it for me.

LT [In an impatient, dismissive tone]: No. No! You will have to take it to Windsor Lodge!

ACB: But one of your reps came to my house a few months back, checked the modem, and told me I didn’t need to do anything.

LT: How long ago is a few months? That was last year? Last year is last year. You will have to take it to Windsor Lodge to be checked!

ACB: I run a small business with clients all over the world. For the last two days, I have had no Internet service. I spoke to a young man in St. Lucia who said …

LT [Cutting me off]: Ma’am, I said you will have to take the modem to Windsor Lodge!

ACB: I would appreciate it if you would do me the courtesy of allowing me to complete a sentence! I am a paying customer with a concern and I am tired of dealing with people in this country with bad attitudes who don’t understand how they are supposed to deal with their own customers!

From there, the encounter went downhill. The technician aggressively demanded I repeat what she had just said. I asked for her name, which she conveyed in measured tones [I was surprised she didn’t spell it for me, such was the clarity of her enunciation!]. I ended the conversation by indicating I would be writing on the matter [which clearly didn’t faze her].

The upshot is I called TeleBarbados the same day and enquired about their service. I eventually chose their 1mb Internet package, which I am told responds like a 2mb. A delightful young lady at TeleBarbados, Nicola, made an appointment for a technician to do the installation on January 14 at 2 p.m. At 10:45 that morning, the technician, a professional youngster named Marlon, called to ask for directions. He arrived at 11 a.m., did the installation, and I now have a robust Internet service.

I will disconnect all LIME service effective the end of the month and communicate with business associates via TeleBarbados’ high-speed Internet and my Digicel mobile phone. My company’s web development team is setting up a virtual office for me and my clients through which we can connect regardless of time or distance.

American abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never did and it never will. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for what they get.”

So, what are the lessons I’ve learned from this encounter?

#1: I may not get the service I pay for, but I will not pay for disrespect.

#2: If power concedes nothing without a demand, Barbadian consumers need to start demanding quality service as a basic requirement for enjoying their custom.

Tune in next week for the lessons this encounter taught me about our market-based decision-making models, and get my free advice to LIME!

--acb

PS: Special thanks to Mr. Patrick Hinkson and the TeleBarbados team for their professionalism and efficiency in making sure I got reconnected!

The Monetization of Everything: Maintaining Social Values in a Market-Driven Culture: PART 1

Carib-Beam — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:25:00 GMT

On June 23^rd 2009, at the naming of the George Lamming Pedagogical Centre at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, Barbadian author and 2008 recipient of the Order of the Caribbean Community George Lamming said, “It is a bold perception that has allowed the market to kidnap the society, convert the society into a service station and evaluate every human activity as a commodity for sale.”

Some might say Mr. Lamming is part of an old school from a different Caribbean that does not understand the alternate reality being created by new technologies, knowledge and innovation. But I believe his words carry such weight I’d like to break them down in the context of a real-life encounter I experienced this month.

Some time on January 6, I realised my Internet connection had stopped working. Since the former Cable and Wireless, now rebranded LIME, is my service provider, I assumed the network was experiencing technical difficulties, as it sometimes does, and that my connection would be restored in a few hours.

More than 24 hours later, on January 7, still with no Internet access, I called LIME’s customer service, which, for Barbados, is now run out of a St. Lucian call centre.

I should explain that I own a strategic communications and consulting firm, ACB Knowledge Consultants Inc., which operates from wherever I happen to be. I rely heavily on Internet connectivity to maintain contact with global clients and partners. In addition, I employ no one. I partner with others like myself, as needed, to deliver discrete high-end services. As a result, there are two resources absolutely critical to my company’s success: robust and reliable Internet connectivity and time.

Back to my recent encounter with the ‘new’ LIME. On January 7, after being kept on hold, I was connected to a St. Lucian customer service representative to whom I explained my technical troubles. He walked me through several steps that included checking my modem’s configuration. When nothing worked, he asked me whether I had taken it to be upgraded.

That was the first I had heard of this. Perhaps I was out of the island when LIME sent that particular memo. What I do know is that a LIME rep came to my house some time back to change my modem to the new one required by the network. Upon checking my device, he indicated it did not need to be changed and that I should have no problems with the company’s planned upgrades.

But the St. Lucian rep insisted the modem needed to be checked. I told him about the previous visit of one of his colleagues. I explained I was an independent service provider who relied on Internet access to do business with the world, a privilege for which I have paid LIME quite handsomely over the years. I added that I did not have the time to disconnect the equipment, drive to LIME’s Windsor Lodge offices, battle for parking, and stand in what would undoubtedly be a long line for a significant period of time to get the equipment LIME was using to provide me with its service to work.

The young man apparently understood my reasoning and indicated he would put in a request to have a technician come to me to fix the problem. However, he cautioned he could not guarantee this would happen before three working days had passed, meaning I would be cut off from my business contacts for almost a week.

An inconvenience but not a disaster … I could live with that. I had experienced similar frustrations with LIME in the past but the professionalism of its service representatives always made the inconvenience seem inconsequential … until my telephone conversation the following day with one of the rudest individuals I have encountered while doing business in Barbados, which is saying something in a country not known for its exemplary service ethic.

Check out my next blog to find out what happened and the lessons I learned about our market-based decision-making models in the Caribbean. I’ll also have some advice for the ‘new’, rebranded LIME, so stay tuned!

--acb

PS: Remember to say a prayer for Haiti, and mobilize to help them restore once the damage has been assessed!

Curtain’s Up on the Caribbean Blog with a Global View!

Carib-Beam — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:07:00 GMT

Hi, and welcome to the new Carib-Beam blog where I’ll be examining media, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship from the perspective of the English-speaking Caribbean.

But First, A Little About Me…

My name is Annalee Babb and at various times I’ve been a journalist, diplomat, adjunct professor in communications,researcher in new digital media technologies, and member of the Caribbean’s C-suite as the founding and former Chief Executive Officer of Invest Barbados and currently CEO of my own consulting firm, ACB Knowledge Consultants Incorporated.

I’m thrilled to be creating a space on the web where I can share perspectives on the lessons I’ve learned working in these capacities in and on behalf of the Caribbean.

But Why Am I Blogging?

I’ve always believed our people possess creative instincts that can position the region among the most successful in the world. But there’re barriers to realising the possibilities that must be addressed, especially given recent tectonic shifts in the global economy whose absolute effects many developing countries are yet to fully experience.

Amid these challenges, the Caribbean’s stability is in danger of being unsettled by a growing culture of tribalism counter to ideals of national collaboration, regional integration, and shared economic security. Added to this is the idea that the region gets lost in intellectual pursuits and analytical assessments without developing clear, simple strategies for advancing its economic, social and cultural agendas.

Almost 20 years ago, one of the Caribbean’s Nobel laureates in Literature, the writer and poet Derek Walcott of St. Lucia, suggested to the world that in the Caribbean, we are “the people on whom the light falls”.

So yes, as we enter the second decade of the 21^st Century, the Caribbean is facing serious challenges from within and without. But I believe there is a light in the region – a wisdom – that not only holds the answers to our internal challenges but can also speak to the world in ways that enlighten, empower and transform.

So What Will I Be Blogging About?

While this blog will focus on issues related to media, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, it can’t detach itself from the social and cultural contexts in which Caribbean economies function. And while others succumb to the temptation to blog exclusively about the region’s internal challenges, this blog will highlight Caribbean wisdom and creative ideas as a means of engaging with the world.

If there’s one lesson the global financial crisis and economic depression of 2009 taught us it’s that we can’t decouple man-made systems and institutional structures like markets from the human behaviour that shapes the results they deliver.

And where once those results could be contained within a distinct geographical space with relatively limited consequences, globalisation has resulted in the probability that any failings within these systems or structures will extend far beyond the place of origin to negatively impact far-flung countries and people.

This blog, then, will look at the Caribbean through a global lens. Here is where every week, starting today, I’ll share information, analysis, knowledge and wisdom from a Caribbean perspective that might have some relevance for you wherever you are. Here is where you’ll find Clear Ideas to Brighten the World.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be blogging about The Monetization of Everything:Maintaining Social Values in a Market-Driven Culture; Exporting Caribbean Innovation: 10 Ways to Sell Your Creativity but Keep Your Soul; Privacy in the Age of Social Media; The Caribbean and the Commercialisation of Knowledge; Institutions vs. Movements: A New Model for a New Generation; The Children of Caribbean Independence: Making Room for a Digital Generation to Govern; The Caribbean’s Millennial Generation: Where Are They and What Are They Doing Now?; and The Death of Globalisation: Implications for Caribbean Culture and Society. From time to time, I’ll also be inviting experts from various fields and countries to share their ideas and knowledge as guest bloggers in this space.

I’d Love to Hear From You …

I’d love to hear from you so please feel free to comment on anything here and also let me know what you want to see discussed or showcased in the future.

So bookmark this blog, e-mail it to a friend/colleague, download our weekly audio podcast, add our RSS feed, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Join me in using Carib-Beam to communicate clear ideas that brighten the world!

-- ACB