I always was told “under promise, over deliver” – which as you say, makes sense and really works. As far as I'm concerned it's not a con at all – it's just making sure your words line up with your actions – which as you know is so important in business.

Thanks again for the kudos

I always was told “under promise, over deliver” – which as you say, makes sense and really works. As far as I'm concerned it's not a con at all – it's just making sure your words line up with your actions – which as you know is so important in business.

Thanks again for the kudos

1. Multi-Touch Support – great idea in theory, but companies should be wary of “jumping in” without properly supporting that endeavour. Too many have created (for example) twitter accounts, then abandon them. Maybe because they don't invest time in it, or because they forget to make sure the rest of the business is on-message about the existance. @o2 are a great example of that for me – when they recently had an outage, and I called Business Customer Service, they asked how I knew it wasn't a phone issue – when I said “your corporate twitter account said so” they simply refused to believe.

So while getting on board with these newer (and real time) tools it's equally important to be ready as a business to support it at all levels – then it'll be successful. That's a concept easier for micro/mini bus to handle than the bigger enterprises.

3. In my experience (and this is an interesting one!) depending on who you're targetting sometimes the non-geo ranges work to make you seem bigger – and for reasons I don't quite understand reassures Big Corp that Not-So-Big-Corp is in fact Big Enough to handle them. Insane I know, but true, I've had feedback on that!

However, flipping that the other way, if I'm looking for the smaller things, restaurants etc, I tend to look for local numbers – more because it is less likely to be a chain co (and I like the environment of micro restaurants etc). Same applies to various other industries.

4. I'm with you on that but as a telecomms provider have to meet our customer needs (wants?) too. There is some merit to “queuing” systems, but only where they're properly managed. I don't mind a 2-3 minute wait for something where there is high demand, but the never ending queues are just unacceptable – it increases dissatisfaction in a moment (well actually many many moments!). For our part, for customers with premium or managed accounts, we offer a 100% guarantee of no Press 1 for… type stuff, ever – and this is a written part of ou proposals.

5. With you on that too – and again from personal experience as a company we're pushing this more and more – it's not always easy – especially when you have diverse offerings and plenty of third parties to manage too, but ultimately, the more you work with people, the better things are. That's a nugget I could have done with 10 years ago!

7. Someone said to me years ago, always set pessimistic timescales, and deliver “early” – it sounds a bit like a con but it makes sense. Set a pessimistic timescale, and you buy room for unexpected slippages and into the bargain can (well if you're actually any good at service!) complete early – and customers always appreciate it.

That'll do I think – good blog post.

1. Multi-Touch Support – great idea in theory, but companies should be wary of “jumping in” without properly supporting that endeavour. Too many have created (for example) twitter accounts, then abandon them. Maybe because they don't invest time in it, or because they forget to make sure the rest of the business is on-message about the existance. @o2 are a great example of that for me – when they recently had an outage, and I called Business Customer Service, they asked how I knew it wasn't a phone issue – when I said “your corporate twitter account said so” they simply refused to believe.

So while getting on board with these newer (and real time) tools it's equally important to be ready as a business to support it at all levels – then it'll be successful. That's a concept easier for micro/mini bus to handle than the bigger enterprises.

3. In my experience (and this is an interesting one!) depending on who you're targetting sometimes the non-geo ranges work to make you seem bigger – and for reasons I don't quite understand reassures Big Corp that Not-So-Big-Corp is in fact Big Enough to handle them. Insane I know, but true, I've had feedback on that!

However, flipping that the other way, if I'm looking for the smaller things, restaurants etc, I tend to look for local numbers – more because it is less likely to be a chain co (and I like the environment of micro restaurants etc). Same applies to various other industries.

4. I'm with you on that but as a telecomms provider have to meet our customer needs (wants?) too. There is some merit to “queuing” systems, but only where they're properly managed. I don't mind a 2-3 minute wait for something where there is high demand, but the never ending queues are just unacceptable – it increases dissatisfaction in a moment (well actually many many moments!). For our part, for customers with premium or managed accounts, we offer a 100% guarantee of no Press 1 for… type stuff, ever – and this is a written part of ou proposals.

5. With you on that too – and again from personal experience as a company we're pushing this more and more – it's not always easy – especially when you have diverse offerings and plenty of third parties to manage too, but ultimately, the more you work with people, the better things are. That's a nugget I could have done with 10 years ago!

7. Someone said to me years ago, always set pessimistic timescales, and deliver “early” – it sounds a bit like a con but it makes sense. Set a pessimistic timescale, and you buy room for unexpected slippages and into the bargain can (well if you're actually any good at service!) complete early – and customers always appreciate it.

That'll do I think – good blog post.