Jaculate

I don't give a damn if you open on Saturdays (when you have a business account they don't credit cheque payments until Monday anyway), or if you are the only bank open in a town (you aren't in mine), or if you open late (again, payments after 3.30pm don't count anyway).  How about when a business moves from Barclays to you on the basis that we'll get "better service" - you actually deliver it??  All we want to do is allow our customers to pay for renewals using debit or credit cards (transaction value <£120) and they tell us we haven't been trading long enough.  How long do we have to trade for before we can take this by debit card?  I'm hardly going to do a runner for £120!

This entire Natwest promotion is a load of flannel in my opinion - they are not actually doing anything that matters.  Let's face it, opening for an extra hour in a town where they are the only bank (which will be a small town) could involve a VERY small number of staff (who would probably have to be there anyway).  It's nonsense and just another example of how these companies make it look as if they are serving their customers whilst actually not doing anything that could potentially cost them money or expose them to any risk.

We don't have a bank overdraft and our business is prudently managed and entirely self funded - I'd love to know why us taking debit card payments presents any sort of risk to the bank when I am building a sustainable and profitable business.  I'd like to know how we can have such a massive jump in our turnover, move from a home business to a small office, and then a bigger office, and employ seven people but our Business Manager (hah!) doesn't notice!

Come on Natwest - pull your fingers out and DO something real for the thousands of small businesses setup in the last two years who are driving the current recovery!

And they wonder why everyone hates bankers!

We have now added 500 templates (most of them with a choice of three or more colours to the Site Builder).  Head over to www.my-free-website.co.uk and play around with it!  It doesn't cost anything to build your site and it knocks spots off the GBBO campaign!

If you decide to publish it just let us know and we'll create a hosting account for you.  Remember, it's just £120 + VAT a year (which includes a .co.uk domain name and an email account).

We are coming up against this GBBO recently.  Apparently mostly organised by Google we are hearing MANY reports of it being useless for any kind of reasonable business use (no real email, rubbish templates, 0800 number not recognised and so on).  If you need a web site I'd rather you used www.my-free-website.co.uk than sign up for something that MANY businesses are realising isn't really fit for purpose.  You've been warned but try this link for a LOT of issues:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=0beeba463f879b7b&hl=en

And this massive list of complaints is hosted by Google!

Our telemarketing team are reporting back that a few local developers (not companies - just idiots working from home) are giving "free" websites to businesses in the North East.  We found MANY problems with their service offerings including:

1. No XHTML/CSS standards designs - all built with old HTML (which mostly failed even those less stringent requirements).

2. Very poor design and no client branding at all.

3. Domain names registered to the developer - NOT the client.

4. Non search engine friendly content.

5. Very expensive hosting - £20 per Mb per month in some cases!

So - here's my challenge.  If you WANT a free website use our new service (the Ladybird Site Builder) at www.my-free-website.co.uk.  Build your own site, play with it and let me know if you want to host it.  Get a quote for hosting and we'll beat ANY hosting quote by at least 50%.  Now, our custom built sites at £199 are probably going to do MUCH more for your business but if you MUST have free then at least have QUALITY FREE.

There you go - a FREE website for ANY business in the North East.  Just pay for a domain name (which will be registered to your business) and pay for hosting (our standard price is £10 per month including unlimited email accounts).  If you find cheaper hosting with the same features as our network we will take your written quote and reduce it by at least half.

We will NOT see North East businesses being given web sites which may open them to legal claims under the DDA (contact us for information) or see them lose control of their brand to unscrupulous operaters.  We remind EVERY business in the North East to ring 0800 084 2997 (freephone) for a quote from a real company with real staff which is on the North East England Service Providers Register (with a VAT number, DUNS number, IAP membership, etc). 

Why do we have to tell BT how to do their job?  We had a simple problem which can be summarised as follows:

Our telemarketing team use Voice Over IP lines (VOIP) and these use strange numbers beginning with 0506.  The problem is that when a customer uses redial (1471) the calls come to our VOIP system (which is usually engaged).  So how to get the incoming calls to our 0800 number? 

I spent a LONG time trying to get BT to understand what we needed and in the end I had to come up with the solution:

1. Add geographic numbers (0191 to each VOIP line)

2. Set up permanent redirection on the new numbers to our 0800 numbers.

Result? Customers called by our telemarketing team can hit 1471 and redial our 0506 numbers with those calls being routed at the exchange back to our landline.  Of course, we have diversion on the landline so if it's busy or the office is closed customers will be diverted to my mobile.

Now why can't BT suggest solutions like that?  I find it hard to believe that we are the only Company with a requirement to do something similiar.  I have a local rep coming to see me tomorrow to get our BT Versatility box hooked up and working - it was in the new office when we moved in (all £1200 of it) and I'm sure they are going to tell me it is no good and will need to be replaced.  In 1998 when Ian and I were running a huge business we did all of this on BT Centrex - how can their technology have gone backwards in the last ten years?  As a Company we try to reuse technology and I have a massive dislike of binning hardware that works - surely it isn't too much to ask BT to simply re-commission the hardware we have (and yes, we'll sign a maintenance contract) to save throwing away a perfectly good piece of kit ???

I'll update with the outcome - but I'm not optimistic.

Telemarketing isn't for everyone.  Michelle recently decided that telemarketing isn't the job for her and said that she would prefer an admin role.  Therefore, we have moved Michelle from telemarketing into a role which combines our office administration and PA functions into one.  We value her contribution to the business and we are keen to keep her in her new role - she will be responsible for devising our office admin systems (something I've negelected as the development work has increased!) and will then move into a role where she supports me (managing diaries etc) and provides a first point of contact for customers.

I consider this a promotion for Michelle as she will have much more responsibility and access to core Company information for which high levels of trust are required.  I look forward to working with her for many years to come!

Apple Kitchens recently moved to our network and we are pleased that Apple North East (the division of their business that builds conservatories, sun rooms, garage conversions, and provides block paving) have also moved to us. 

We have now completed their new site at www.applenortheast.co.uk and both of their sites will be optimised for search engines in the new couple of weeks.

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new web site for Apple Kitchens North East.  The client supplies kitchens and bathrooms in the North East and has been established since 2005; they had an old site with dated branding and a tired look which simply was not performing in line with their expectations.

We downloaded all the content from their old site and merged it into a fresh new template before adding our new Foundation Framework code.  Taking advantage of the new AJAX uploading system in our new Control Panel we were able to build their galleries in a matter of minutes.  An intelligent enquiry form was added and this has validation and CAPTCHA built in to prevent users submitting forms with incomplete information and to stop robots submitting adverts and spam.

The new site is at www.apple-kitchens.co.uk.

We are now an approved provider which means that clients being funded by Business Link may be able to obtain grants for web development work.  Being on the NEESPR is a mark of our professionalism - they have reviewed our performance by speaking to our customers, confirmed that we have Professional Indemnity, Public Liability, Employers Liability Insurance and all the other paperwork a real company must have in order to trade.

If you need more information please ask us.