About a six weeks ago I was sweet talked into changing from BT to Talk Talk free broadband. I was not looking for a move but free calls to landlines and some mobiles plus free broadband for a flat fee seemed reasonable. Also the speed offered was above anything BT had offered. I queried that but Talk Talk assured me that their own equipment in the exchange meant they could get a faster line than BT could. I explained I was a home worker and needed reliability and speed.

I was told I would get everything I wanted an that my current modem and installation was fine.

The first thing to go wrong was I did not receive the 'Welcome pack' so on the day of switch off by the old provider I could not connect to the internet but the help line got me sorted very well in 12 minutes or so. No real problem except queuing to get answered had taken 14 minutes on top of the 12 minutes.

But from day 1 the line was flakey. The connection kept being dropped. Sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for many minutes. Then two days later I went 'off-line' for 3 hours. Then two days later I lost it for a whole afternoon. I rang the support line and was answered in India I think. The line quality was not the easiest to work with but I guess for costs outsourcing must help Talk Talk make it free. We went through the help script. Everything checked out so I got the 'take two asprins and go to bed' Doctors response (we don't know what is wrong but hope it is better in the morning). I expained I was using the same PC equipment with the same wireless modem I had used for years without connection problems and in less than a week had more downtime that in 5 years with BT. Another week went by with much the same pattern. My next call to the support people had me buy new microfilters (never mentioned as a possible need during the sales pitch). I was also asked to move my wireless laptop away from the modem and try that. I still had the same issues so I called support again.

Again I was told - buy new filters and move laptop but now I was told to move the DEC phone away. In effect I had to move my office around. Never a problem before with the same kit and BT but hey ho it is free and my office could do with a change around (not!)

A few days later I am still having a problem. A call again has me being told - change the microfilters, move laptop away from router, move DEC phone away....yes done.... OK. Please move the modem and wire direct into the phone line socket. Wow and move the lounge furniture? I cannot wait to see what else I will be asked.

The sales person had never said to get free broadband I would have to rearrange my whole study and now move the router into the lounge. Wait for it.....I bet I will only be able to use my wireless laptop in the same room as the modem as my study will be too far away to use it! (Actually I don't know that yet)

Last weekend as usual the connection was flakey until it went off at 9.15am Sunday am. By 2pm I needed access urgently. So I phoned and talked to the Indian or Australian support desk. Guess what - I had to repeat myself and explain I had done everything they asked. Eventually I said I wanted to cancel my 'non-service'. That was when I was told that it would cost me £70! I had been charged £30 for a service that have never worked properly - certainly spending hours on the phone (and running up support call costs) plus lost working hours sort of wipes out any free purchase price. Now - they wanted to charge me to disconnect something that did not work. The sales person never mentioned that.

I asked to speak to a manager or have an e-mail address so I could contact them. I was told that there was no e-mail address available. I could only talk to them or disconnections and it would cost me £70 to terminate the service. I asked to speak to someone at a higher level. I did and having told them I had done everything in their script was told they would run diagnostic checks. She then informed me she had 'confirmed' my complaint but I would have to take it to a level 2 operator. The sales person had never said I would need to double justify not getting a service.

I wrote an e-mail to an address I found on the bill on Monday 10th - just about a month after this saga started. This is what I said:

Comment:
I am totally frustrated at the poor connection and unreliable nature of broadband. It has never worked properly since day 1 with the line dropping every few minutes and then being 'off-air' for hours. I work from home so this is a disaster. I will be in the middle of sending a large file and it will not get sent as the line drops. Before switching (from BT broadband) the sales person said it would be simple and done at the switchboard. Since then I have spent hours on the phone to what sounds to be Indian and Australian help desks that have told me (following the same script?) to change all the microfilters, move the wireless router away from my laptop or DEC phone and then to physically relocate the wireless modem and connect it direct to the master phone socket! All these requirements were never mentioned at the time of sale! I now have a wireless modem in my lounge which is not what I wanted. Why is this necessary as I have had BT ISDN and ISDN2 and then the same broadband wireless router happily working near my Dec phone and laptop for years? The latest incident was yesterday. I was online to the internet and e-mail at 8.30am for half an hour (with frequent line drops) and then nothing. By 2pm I still did not have a connection and urgently needed access to my e-mail so I started trying to call your help desk. After many minutes wait and being put on hold I was again asked to do all the things I already have done (don't you guys keep notes?) and then told a engineer would come and if 'my fault' I would be charged £140. (This related to the phone line being down too at the time) At that point I asked for the broadband service to be cancelled. I was told that would cost me £70! I asked to speak to a manager or have an e-mail address. I was told a manager was not available and no e-mail address was provided. I asked to escalate the problem. I was then put through to someone who said EXACTLY the same script to me (microfilters, direct connect etc). Finally she said she would run some tests. She then said my problem was 'validated' (after 3 weeks of complaining!) and I would have to speak to a '2nd level' and she would transfer me. She then said she could not transfer me as they were 'too busy' and I would have to call myself. I am trying to run a small business. In all the years with BT I have never had to make so many calls for support. 

I paid you guys £30 to install a service and although free it has never worked properly. This is costing me time and money to sort out. The only thing that has changed is switching from BT to TalkTalk exchange lines. Why would that suddenly cause a modem or microfilter fault? They have been fine for years. To check the kit (that you said would be ok) could cost me £140 and yet to say 'no thanks' to something that has never worked reliably will cost me another £70. This is no way to keep a customer happy.

I just want to cancel my free broadband and go back to Talk Talk. It is costing me too much time and effort and is not working releiably enough to use as a home worker. Refund me my £30 and do NOT try and charge me £70.

I await your response with interst.

Regards

======================================================================================

This is what I received back 2 days later:

Cadbury's CEO Todd Stitzer has said that the monkey ad (see my easrlier posts) has helped lift yearly sales.

One comment that Todd makes is that the viral campaigns have helped engage with a younger audience. I totally agree with that. He also says that TV advertising suits 35+. I would disagree with that. All age groups are now well represented online.

The report in the Times also mentions that they are commissioning another ad from the agency that produced it. My advice. Don't bother. The chances or scoring so well again will be hard. With over 100 'mash-up' versions of the original ad why not take the money being paid to the agency and have them come up with a viral competition. The best ideas are showcased on a Cadbury web site and the winner (chosen by the public) gets to work with the agency to produce it as a TV ad. Now that would really engage people! 

Great post by Colin Bryne, CEO of Weber Shandwick looking at news management and peer2peer influence. He refers to a survey done by them on sources of influence (link to report summary from web site home page) or advocacy as they call it.

Edelman PR have their Annual Trust report which shows essentially the same.

People are more cynical of 'fed' information and prefer 'authentic' voice. This is having a huge impact on traditional news and media sources. People (especially younger people) are watching and reading less. They are consuming more online and through SMS, texting, e-mail and now social media communication are connected to networks and super-networks and take information from these sources.

In my youth (it does take a while to look back that far) there were a few people in my circle of friends who were subject matter 'experts'. We would refer and defer to them. But their range of influence was small. Our network was groups on the school bus, the sports teams and after school mates. Some people were in all these groups but many were not. This was their physical limit of influence. Fast foward to today and the internet and mobile phones have made a massive difference to the scope, range and size of 'crowd wisdom' and influence.

Colin talks about the impact on politics and message management. I know nothing of what world. He also mentions business. That is my area.

I spent 25 years in corporates. The last 10 as Director of Marketing and then Corporate Communications.

If I was doing that job today I would be wondering just how I could engage in the peer2peer networks and be coversing with 'influencers' and 'decision makers'. My carefully crafted corporate marketing message would be increasingly ignored. People want authentic conversations - raw not necessarily rude and certainly not spun. They want to talk to real people in the organisation not some script following and outsourced contractor.

Not everyone, but a significant number (growing all the time as technology makes it easier) want to participate in the conversation. Look at Dell, Lego, GM and others. All have blogs and forums where customers are providing input to products and services. An open two-way communication circle.

For corporations and business people the world is changing. The sources of influence and channels of communication are changing. Like the dinosaurs it is time to adopt or face decline and replacement by other animals.

It's only been a few days since the Blog Council annouced its birth. Since then many bloggers have criticised the idea. Others have given it the benefit of the doubt. See Shel Israel (with links through to one of Dells bloggers take on it) and Jeff Jarvis

Founder members announced are AccuQuote, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Wells Fargo.

The Blog Council is a community for official corporate blogs and bloggers that represent major global corporations.

Our mission is to address the unique needs of blogging in a corporate environment.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet, share tactics and advice, and develop best practices. The organization teaches responsible, ethics-based corporate blogging.

The Blog Council CEO Andy Sernovitz is also CEO of GasPedal, a Word of Mouth communication consultancy. He also was a co-founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing.

Having spend a large part of my working life in corporations (25 years) versus agency/freelance (9 years) I can fully understand where the Blog Council members are coming from. Look at the world of corporates - it is full of trade associations. Will it be just be a big talking shop or a 'best practice' forum? Will it help establish a legitimacy for other companies to start blogging? It holds it first meeting in January 2008.

Having been on Government working parties and trade associations I just hope it is one of those that does deliver value. Some of the founder companies are not active in Europe. Others are. I wonder if the multi-national vendors will look at things globally? The good news is that SAP have just had Shel complete a global 'social media' research project. Taking that to the first meeting would be a great first step.

It's really nice to see a UK company doing well in technology, a market traditionally associated with US companies.

Sharedband are an Ipswich based company. Keith Collins is the sales and marketing director and as you can see they are getting good PR coverage. He inherited my job at Tektronix a few years ago our paths crossed and we became friends. As with many start ups budgets have been tight so getting PR coverage has been hard but it is great to see that the innovation of the team is now being recognised.

If anyone out there is not happy with their broadband performance check them out.

(Disclosure: Sharedband were a client. Focus provided voice-over for the Sharedband animated introduction in 2006)

Interesting survey done by Clearswift about HR's handling of employees use of web 2.0 and social media technologies.

Although based upon US data it shows that almost 1/4 of HR professionals do not understand web 2.0 and social media and leave that to IT. It seems that almost 2/3rds of companies ban employees using social media sites.

The issue for companies is this:

• If employees are not allowed to use social media tools who is monitoring the internet for a companies brand reputation or being allowed to join in the active conversations?

There is a wider issue at play here. All the recent research shows that employee engagement in the UK is poor. Employees feel that managers fail to communicate with them. They do not know or understand the companies vision and mission. 

The result? Upto a 1/3rd of employees would not recommend or promote the company and a large percentage would actually say negative things! 

Companies that are banning social media use by employees during work time do so with the best of intentions but just what are they risking?

Jennifer Jones from PodTech interviews Chris Pizzo on the perils of someone in the blogosphere 'smearing' you and damaging your online reputation.

As Chris says many companies are just not managing their online reputation. Whilst there are tools to help it is not as well established as traditional media monitoring. Yet the consequences of not actively monitoring and then participating in the blogosphere can be very painful (just as Dell did - see earlier post).

My experience is that most corporations are afraid of the online community. This is mainly due to the fear of loss of control. This is not like mainstream journalists or print media who have an uneasy relationship with companies that infact pay their salaries.

But to be fair to journalists I am sure it is the companies themselves who think they have some influence over print media. In reality they have little or none. Print media and journalists are better understood by business rather than independent people communicating via the blogosphere.

Secondly most businesses run on a longer timescale. Most trade publications are monthly or weekly. It takes time for a negative story to build usually. In that time the company can prepare a response.

With blogs the news travels fast. Very fast. Companies do not have many days let alone weeks before negative news can go 'viral' and word-of-mouth/mouse damages a companies reputation. 

The two key actions:

• Monitor online reputation
• Have a response action plan in place to handle blog 'swarms'

Horowitz Associates' report - Broadband Content and Services, 2007 - shows strong growth in the consumption of video.

Biggest consumption is video news followed by non-professionally produced videos. Video podcasts come in at 10% watching in a week compared to 61% watching all types of video.

Mobile video is growing fast with 27% having access via smartphone, MP3/iPod players or video-enabled PDAs. Over a 1/3rd say they consume video content at least weekly.

(Thanks to Podcasting News for the source of this story)

SAP comissioned Shel Israel, the co-author of the top selling blogging book, Naked Conversations to undertake a global survey on the state of social media. Shel is now releasing his findings in a series of posts. In the second one he pulls together his 'take away' summary of his findings.