In light of our recent global expansion I feel it is my duty to explain to you just what kind of business plan is needed to make your business successful in the world of software as a service. I think a lot of people have this mentality that SaaS is simply a way to replace all onsite infrastructure and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, what would you do if I came to you and said this:

“Ok Mr. ITPRO, here is what I’m going to do. I am going to spend a ton of money marketing directly to your customers the advantages of not hiring you to build their business infrastructure but to have them sign a contract directly with us so we can have a financial as well as a service provider relationship with them. Oh you? Umm. Ok, how about this, we’ll gave you 5% off the revenues. We can co-own the customer! Thats about 50 cents a month for a hosted Exchange, surely you can run a  business with that much money, right? Ok, listen, since I’m such a nice guy, I am going to double that! I’ll give you a whole dollar during the first year.

You can be a specialist trusted advisor reseller recommender of our service! Just turn all of your customers over to me!”

Ridiculous, but most people believe that is the SaaS model? What kind of an asshole would ever pitch that? I would rightly expect you to punch any moron that said something like that square in the mouth.

But enough of my telepathic abilities, let’s talk about our recent announcements in a way that can actually make you money instead of destroying your business.

Have you ever wondered just why Microsoft has completely fallen apart over the last few years, seemingly chasing one cloud technology after another while the existing problems just mount higher and higher and their efforts go largely ignored? They are doing so because Microsoft is on the defensive against companies like Google, SalesForce, Zoho and others that are promising incredible storage limits for just a few bucks a month (which is a deception to begin with because nobody actually ever approaches even 20% of the supposed limits without subscribing to every mailing list on the planet). But Microsoft has to fight the perception. Microsoft also has a problem that the world of business software is losing its pricing premium and the customer demands immediate gratification. Google and Yahoo have been able to provide communications mediums for free or very little using ad supported portals. How is Microsoft to compete in a marketplace where free is the king?

They can’t, they don’t and they end up chasing one failed idea after another all while burning all the bridges they built with the partners over the years.

Sooner than later, even your own customers will be asking you why they can get SalesForce for $X and you are proposing a system that seemingly does the exact same thing but needs a Windows Server, an Exchange Server, a SQL Server and enough licensing and labor to buy a luxury sedan.

These are not the customers that are going to buy a server.

These are not the customers that are going to buy managed services.

These are the customers that are willing to pay for the advice, that will one day grow to the point of needing some more - remember, Microsoft software is still the king of business software. Not to mention all the other needs that come with even a mobile office - software backups, licensing renewals, antivirus, etc. Who is going to provide all that?

Are you man enough to take their money?

Listen, you can dig yourself into a mental hole of thinking that none of these services are ever going to be taken up by anyone or that anyone interested in them is not your target client. Good luck. Or you can draft a business plan that includes these services in your portfolio so when opportunities present themselves for you to spend time consulting, you can actually get paid for talking to them it instead of building their networks. Time is money after all.

Now, why should you bother partnering with us?

Global presence.

24/7/365 support.

Business with leadership involved in the IT community, accessible and able to make special deals depending on the needs.

But you already know that, after all, you are reading this blog.

What you don’t know, and what separates us from the others in the market is:

Pricing and Contract Power

It is up to you what you charge your customers. It is also your god given right to let them nickel and dime themselves to oblivion if they so choose. The new Shockey Monkey service order panel that every MSP will get for free will let you set your own pricing on your portal, set limits on the amount of services they can order, let them pick and choose which services are a la carte. You actually get to build your business, I know, what a novel idea

Branding

Starting with July, all our solutions and customer access control panels will be brandable in the same way that ExchangeDefender is. Your logo, your color scheme, your terms of service, your business.

Centralized Management

No more getting services through tickets, all the service management will be central, consolidated, under your logo, at your price and managed from a single panel in Shockey Monkey.

MSP Tool Integration

Connectwise, and working with Autotask to import the asset information, statistics and service data into the way you manage your business.

Oh… and there is a little something else to this:

WE WILL NEVER DISRESPECT YOU BY IGNORING THE FACT THAT THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR CLIENT AND YOUR CALL WHAT YOU CHARGE AND WE WILL NEVER COMPETE WITH YOU OVER YOUR BUSINESS AND WE WILL NEVER MOVE YOUR CLIENTS FROM YOUR ACCOUNT TO ANOTHER PROVIDERS ACCOUNT.

I think that was important enough to put in caps, because it differentiates one of the most important factors you need to consider in this whole equation: TRUST. If you cannot trust the company you are about to partner up with on the basics of business courtesy - respect for the partner-client relationship, respect for your right to set your pricing, respect for the right to provide your own support, respect for you to be the main point of contact and representation of the company - how in the world can you TRUST them on anything else?

Your clients trust you. We want to be in a position where you can trust us to run the servers and networks and make Exchange, SharePoint, Offsite Backups and web application hosting redundant, reliable and affordable. If you have a question about that, 877-546-0316 extension 500. My name is Vlad Mazek, I’m the CEO, and I’m here if you need a real partner to make a business around these new solutions.

Are you interested? I know you are because it’s ____ or ____ (comment for iPod)

Time to consider this stuff is right now. This minute. Because if any of the above is upsetting to your senses right now, just wait a few days. You’ll be livid. (or you’ll have an advantage - your call really) Enjoy your 4th of July, the announcements of the further global domination will resume, 10 days remember?

Once upon a time, on a continent far, far (far, far, far, far) away prisoners of her majesty told scary stories to their children to keep them from getting hit in the head by the falling branches of the eucalyptus trees. The fable says that if the large carnivorous dropbear doesn’t eat you, you may grow up to download something off the Internet and have all your worldly possessions taken away by Telstra. As of today, the only scary story the Australian’s have to fear is that of the dropbear itself because…

Own Web Now proudly launches it’s Australian branch!

In yet another effort to prove that the world (at least Internet) is flat, the services we are launching in Australia are going to be priced the same as their counterparts in United States.

They will be a lot faster though, served straight off our infrastructure in Sydney which means no more delays for the transatlantic packet journey.

And just as I mentioned yesterday, say goodbye to being treated like a second rate citizen - say ehlo to my big friend - 10 Gb Exchange 2007 mailboxes.

Captain Cook is also bringing SharePoint 2007 which will be free with the Exchange 2007 hosting.

For those of you looking for a fast presence in Australia, email, web hosting, pop3/imap and sql are also on the ship, still under $10.

Not a joke, not a promotional stunt, not a limited offering, not testing the waters. Simply a giant thanks to Australia and New Zealand for being so supportive of my business for years. Shockey Monkey is huge down under and was the second of my products to be announced with native presence in Australia. I am simply answering the demand to help my partners in Australia stay on the edge as the world of services evolves. Available…. immediately.

The only product not offered natively in Australia are the offsite backups. Not because we don’t love you, but because we’ve seen 0 (actually, thats how much of it we sold) demand for such a service in Australia.

So should you ever find yourself down under in Australia (as the native guide explains: head south and to the left) you can count on Own Web Now partners to hook you up with affordable Microsoft Business solutions that won’t break the bank.

Gday, Australia. More professional post to follow @ OWN.

If he were around today, King George III would have written “Something of significance happened today” in his electronic diary. He probably wouldn’t have gone mad dealing with the new EU privacy laws which made it impossible for him to use the cheap software services from the new world. For today, Vlad Columbus set sail with La Nina, La Pinta y La Santa Maria back to the old world with ship loaded with spices, Exchange 2007, SharePoint 3.0, Offsite Backups, Virtual web and email hosting. With the looks of “consort fit for a king” at the prices even a cockney flower girl in Covent Garden could afford.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the world of Microsoft business class cloud services to Europe!

From a company with over twelve years of expertise providing services and data center solutions.

With massive redundancy across the continent, with data centers in United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany!

At the same prices we charge for services delivered from United States!

With ten times the storage!

No, we didn’t wake up last year with a goal to destroy our partners businesses by competing with them ruthlessly for every single corner of the market with notoriously poor services, legacy of horrible Indian support, from a data centers that probably won’t be finished for years just in hope of keeping Google at bay but ending up just freezing our own market. (I did mention this was going to get dirty, right?)

No, we did it in careful cooperation with thousands of partners who for years loyally sent us their businesses and with the rise of Patriot Act simply could no longer use USA-based services. We did it with the feedback on what is needed, what would sell, what would make everyone a lot of money. We also did it when we built up the network of partners that needed this, so we could make it profitable and sustainable.

So what is coming to Europe?

Microsoft Exchange 2007.

Microsoft SharePoint v3.

OWN Offsite Backup Servers.

OWN Virtual Hosting (web, email, SQL).

But it’s going to be expensive, right?

No, it will be the same price as for the service in United States. $1/GB offsite backup, $10/Exchange Mailbox, $10 for virtual hosting.

But it’s going to be crippled down to 5 Mb mailboxes, right?

In United States we offer 1GB mailboxes by default. We use enterprise class storage and clustering technologies and that happens to cost. So with the bandwidth costs in UK, more expensive storage, etc you’d imagine to have a little less room on your Exchange box, but of course!

Nope - 10 GB mailboxes. No, that’s not a typo - that is a ten gigabyte Exchange mailbox for $10.

Since we learned a lot about Exchange 2007 since our initial launch of Exchange 2007 hosting we were able to go back to the drawing table with Western Digital and SuperMicro and design our European offering a little better and a lot more affordably.

But this is just some promotional launch, right?

You should know better than that from OWN, we don’t do fire sales. You should also know that we are aware of the “currency” problem - yes, we are proud to be an American company and take American dollars from your credit card - but that doesn’t mean that we’re ignorant of the realities of international commerce and what the exchange rate fluctuation can do to your profit margin.

Each service will come with a contract and a 20% exchange rate fluctuation, so if your currency devalues to the US Dollar by more than 20% we’ll adjust our pricing.

So you are going to fight with us for the end market, too?

Yes, our logo is blue, but thats about as far as we go with anticompetitiveness.

All OWN contracts come with a non-compete clauses - we actually turn over the account if your customer signs with us directly, we don’t move accounts from one provider to another without the original partners permission, we never solicit your customers directly and we don’t offer any benefits or pushy sales people incentives to remove you from the food chain. We actually like working with partners.

Can I get it if I’m an American or Canadian?

Absolutely - the prospect of $1/GB international storage seems like a good deal doesn’t it? We aren’t enforcing geographic restrictions, nor are we marking it up like crazy country to country - so just pick where you want your service to be provided from when you’re signing up.

Great, so we get to promote you?

Ever heard of ExchangeDefender? We take the managed services stuff seriously - the services management console based on Shockey Monkey will have full branding for all your management needs.

What about the community?

Part of our profits will be spent to promote the EU IT communities.

What have I forgotten…

Oh yeah, first, this never would have been possible without our partners who gave us constant guidance and business over the years, enough business that we could justify this expansion of all our services to include Europe. We’ve always provided our ExchangeDefender service with global redundance, and now the rest of our family is joining in.

I know this may compete with your way of thinking or what you imagine the future might be. It’s hard to think of going from designing infrastructure for thousands of dollars (or euros) into the world of thinking that the same infrastructure is going to be provided out of your sight for $10. However, if you look at where the application development is heading, at what the marketplace is dictating as the value (or lack of perceived value) in the on-site infrastructure. Who is to say which one is the right one? Nobody knows, but the point is that you can compete at that level too.

What’s more, you can focus on the more profitable areas of technology consulting, of customizing all these nameless and faceless applications into something that benefits the end business enough that they keep on bringing you back for more where you’re not just another computer switcher but someone with indepth knowledge of their app infrastructure.

I want to thank all our European partners for the business and loyalty over the years. This move is long overdue. However, it is here with far more than we do or offer in United States. We look to growing the new market with you, not against you. Really, where do you want to go today?

Tune in tomorrow to see what we’ve got in store for her majesty’s prisoners…

Sitting around on a conference call at the moment, discussing the value of direct (intrusive, interrupt) emails for marketing and PR purposes. To me, the difference between the SPAM and the thousands of “newsletters” I receive each week is starting to disappear with each passing email because supposedly informative newsletters I signed up for “to keep in touch” are used for nothing more than to slam me with crap I need to buy (“Today, and if I call in the next 15 minutes…”)

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting newsletters need to be free of advertising or that advertising shouldn’t be showcased prominently - something needs to pay for the quality content I get delivered conveniently into my Inbox. However, it is pretty obvious when the only reason the newsletter exists is for you to sell shit. That’s fine too, when it comes from some cupon site or deals site, but if I signed up for your organization and gave you permission to email me to give me the news about what you are up to please have some respect and throw in a little news around your ads and promotions?

I clear out my newsletter folder every Friday, I get on the average of 700 messages a week. I am constantly feeding it one professional newsletter organization after another because I have found it that even the most reputable of companies will keep on sending you news and promotions even after you’ve signed up. Most also tie directly to the email you use to make purchases or maintain login information, so there is no escaping those. So my pile of e-trash grows.

So what is OWN to do..

I’d like to know if you read newsletters. If you do, drop me an email (vlad@vladville.com) or contact form.

Statistically speaking, we know people don’t read our newsletters. Oh, there are people that open our newsletters but they are pretty much the same people that already subscribe to our two blogs and are information junkies, or they are like me - open it just long enough to delete it.

For the past two days I have been working on hacking OWN support, or to put it more specifically, trying to do proactive technical support for questions you haven’t asked yet.

While this problem is easily fixed by saying “RTFM” we find that doesn’t reflect too well on our customer satisfaction. Saying it politely doesn’t work either “Could you please, please, please read the documentation?” and the bloat of trying to reach people in the way that they expect the information to be presented is starting to grow. There are videos, whitepapers, frequently asked questions, blog posts, wikis.. the reality behind this approach (as disorganized as it may seem) is that it’s as such by design because both of our customers that read the documentation don’t actually read it but scan the page for the content they are looking for. So jamming everything in a single place, single location leads to information overload and effective shutdown of the nervous system which then leads to a support request anyhow. While we have built a templated response system of canned responses, its pretty demotivating for the support staff to work on problems that have already been solved a thousand times. It also reflects very poorly on my organization because it kills the problem solving skills:

“If you don’t feel stupider by the end of the day you aren’t doing your job.” -Vlad Mazek, June 12th, 2008

Who would want to work under those circumstances? It takes me about 10 minutes to get back to the complex things I generally work on after I’ve had to explain to someone how the Internet works in their lingo and technical competence. And people ask why OWN doesn’t do retail work or answer sales calls - it’s a filtering mechanism folks - it separates people that can read and click on things from the people that need the following:

DRaaS

I am calling it Documentation Reading as a Service. Basically once a new order is processed by Shockey Monkey the system will look to see if this is the first order of this type. If it is, the system will generate an appointment request in the partner account managers system and shoot a copy to the customer as well to negotiate a time for DRaaS to be rendered. In addition to the email coming out with all the documentation, FAQs, PDFs and other filler nobody will ever read, we’ll now have an appointment for the OWN drone to call the client and render DRaaS:

OWN: Hi, this is _____ from Own Web Now, you just signed up for ____ and I wanted to give you a call and thank you for your business.

Client: Wow, you’re not an Indian?

OWN: Thank you very much so kindly. Now listen, I wanted to give you a ring and introduce myself and just go over a few things with the service that might save you a lot of time and a lot of grief as you go along. Do you have maybe 3 minutes?

Client: No, but I know you’re going to call me back so I’d rather talk to you now than dodge the callerid for the next month. Shoot.

OWN: Ok, so you signed up for ___. Now just like with all of our products, the support is free and unlimited, you can open as many tickets as you want and we’ll respond within two hours. If its urgent you can set a higher priority for a few $ more and we’ll work on it immediately. Now, I see that you got _______ service, are you familiar with it?

Client: Yes, I’ve been in IT for 200 years, actually Pascal stole my idea for a calculator and the queen saw right through him when he tried to show it off.

OWN: Wow, that is fantastic! Amazing story. Ok, well, I won’t take up too much of your time, just remember when you’re doing ______ - read the entire FAQ title section in a hyper exciting voice.

Client: (God, I hope she didn’t call my toll free number)

OWN: So thats pretty much it, you’re now an expert at ______.

The big idea with DRaaS is to answer the support questions we know we’re going to get and also give them an idea of how the whole system works so that they at least have a starting point when it comes to documentation. When people see a 30 page document they do what every 8 year old does - there are no pictures in this book! So if the DRaaS gives them a jumping point to at least realize how the system works they can look up details on their own. You can read more about it in my upcoming book, DRaaS Encyclopedia, available as a preorder at $49.99; Just one page, for the busy professional on the go! But since you’re reading my blog I am going to give it to you for free:

The other aspect hidden behind DRaaS is that it sets expectations right away. If we’re about to lose a customer because they didn’t know what they were getting into or they sold something we don’t make its probably better for both of us to pull out before we end up in a nightmare scenario of trying to do something custom (expensive) and both losing.

Jokes aside…

Looking at the statistics, it’s painfully obvious that most support requests are not just originated out of the clients ignorance but our own inability to communicate and set the expectations. The documentation sucks because the clients don’t read it and expect it in both encyclopedia that can be Googled and the short FAQ form that they will not comprehend because they have 101 level understanding of the underlying concepts which are supposed to be answered by the documentation originated by the dude that wrote the software and was translated into plain English by someone that drank too much in college. It’s a cycle of incompetence in which everyone loses money - we answer questions over and over again, client base is frustrated that it has to ask them to begin with, the end customer is getting billed for it all along and nobody gets to prosper because the system is broken by design.

I’m sure people would love using our software far more if they didn’t have to learn how to use it first.

Let’s hope DRaaS can fix that. I’ll give you an update a few months from now and let you know how it goes. If someone can think of a better name than DRaaS please post it in the comments.

Now off to monster.com to find someone with a sultry voice that men and women would want to listen to.

Looking for a job in IT? I need to fill six roles, quick, in the beautiful downtown Los Angeles, at 600 W 7th Street 90017. Two Sr. system admin gigs, four Jr. system admin gigs, all include absolutely zero (0) contact with the customers or end users. Role responsibilities include hardware and facilities management (networks, routers, switches, load balancers, SAN, bladecenters).

Requirements: college degree in IT field or military experience with IT certification. Relevant work experience in the enterprise / complex hardware field, these are not entry level or SMB jobs.

Email: vlad@ownwebnow.com

Today was a rough day, I am knees and elbows deep in fertilizer working on the rose garden that is Own Web Now and what it represents. This is pretty difficult for me to write so please take it with a grain of salt, in all sincerity, this is the first post that I hope nobody is offended by. In order for any rose to continue to grow and bloom, some big branches have to be cut down, blooms removed right after they are the most beautiful and soil planted, replanted and refurbished from time to time.

OWN, in the eyes of many of our customers, is Vlad(tm). Truth is, there are so many people, partners, vendors and organizations that make this possible. I had never envisioned going into a business as some dark overlord of IT with the Exchange superpowers, I always thought that OWN could and would grow into being an organization that benefits businesses, big and small, new and old, and that we worked on the organization that would serve the clients, not a company that would have to put up with things, deal with politics, cut deals and agreements just to make a buck. But fast forward a few years and here I sit on my throne, looking at the incoming CID LCD and wondering if I really want the hassle. Here is how I came to my answer:

Last weeks MVP summit was a huge eye opener because I had no big agenda, I had no hunger, I had really just wanted to enjoy the company of some of the smartest people in this business, buy a few drinks and meals and hopefully learn something new. What I learned is that the opportunity to serve is far bigger than the opportunity to try and change peoples perceptions and set ways.

What I mean by that is that I got to see what Microsoft thinks is the future, I got to see my peers across all markets, I got to see the value delivery that is provided across all segments of the business - IT, services, development, infrastructure, sysadmin. Clue: it’s all the same. In every sector, there are 10% of people who are hungry, dying to have you come in and solve their problem. Then there are 90% of the others, which cause problems for you. Who in their right mind wastes their time on the 90% of the problem cases just because they demand attention instead on nurturing the 10% and making sure that the 10% are the future of your company?

Friday Massacre

OWN was a company built on partnerships, but partnerships are a double edged sword. They are great when they work, they are awful when they have to be broken. Unfortunately, today I had to go through my list and break quite a few of them. For years I have tried to be a good guy and give people the benefit of the doubt, to work with people when they are being difficult, to go that extra mile even when I know I am losing an account. No, it does not make sense financially, but I wanted to know that people didn’t hate me and my company even if we had disappointed them to the point that they virtually had to look elsewhere. I put up with a lot - deadbeats, assholes, gurus, power users, knowitalls… because my reputation was on the line whenever the company reputation was on the line.

But at this point, in 2008, as I am about to go on a leave, this company is about a lot more than me. This company is about the people that work with it, some around the clock, to make sure we and our partners can take the clients businesses to the next level. I have to, ethically, balance the equation of pleasing the partners and creating an environment that is not stress-oriented and driven by the whims of difficult people.

The primary question is - is this fair to the customer, is it fair to the partner, is it fair to OWN employees and is it fair at all?

In 2007, we solved the issue of unreliable SMB email with LiveArchive, nothing else on the market does quite the same thing with so little effort. In 2008, we aim to arm our partners up with the tools and skills they need to flourish. We look towards creating a scalable two-factor authentication offering that can be acquired and managed on demand, from one employee to thousands. We look to help the community of professionals around OWN so we can help serve more people where they are. We look to give advantages to the partners in the countries that have traditionally been overlooked.

So is it fair? Is it fair that the small group of people ruin everyone’s support experience because they crank out tickets instead of reading the documentation? Is it fair that partners cannot behave ethically, and cause us to restrict and limit the functionality of the product that could help those that need those features the most? Is it fair that partners can behave like dickheads and ruin the day of the individual that is trying to help them, so that the next person doesn’t get the spectacular support they deserve? Is it fair that my partners don’t get the kind of attention they deserve because it is being eaten up by people who are in trouble because they didn’t do their job and tried to pin it on us? Is it fair that we are spending time, money, resources and effort on dead ends instead of being open and welcoming and actually building instead of trying to find ways around stuff?

No, it’s not fair and it’s not fair to anyone involved which makes today a particularly tough day. It is hard to say goodbye to people that would rather stay and pain it through, even if we both know they would be happier elsewhere. So we’ve opened the door.

Not all business calls are easy, not all business transactions are fair. Thats life, thats entreprenurial spirit, that is the reality of any organization that looks to do better things for more people. If we have done that, and if I have to sacrifice some short term happiness to make sure we are posed to do that in the future, I will sleep very easy at night indeed.

I’d rather feed the hungry and empower the ambitious than beat myself down trying to change the minds of those marching towards their doom. In fact, that is our mission statement.

So today, I got rid of 20 service providers we used to work with, because we were no longer working together, we were working against one another. If you recall, this was the negative sentiment towards Microsoft that I took to Redmond as well. Truth is, these 20 partners accounted for majority of the support nightmares and demotivating events for my staff, and I would like to publicly thank Mark Crall from TechCare Team who took the time to help me come to this decision back in November when I first turned to him for advice, and for my homies in Karl Palachuk, Erick Simpson and Dave Sobel who always have my back and beat me up when I’m going in the wrong direction. Thank you guys.

On a brighter side, if you were looking for an asshole duel, today is a great day.

P.S. Life is too f’n short and Chris had it right when he talked about ego’s - some people really make themselves out to be 90% of the problem, even if they only represent 0.0001% of the solution. No great business gets built on trying to please that. Despite what opinion some of you may have of me, businesswise, I think we’d be a lot better off if I hired an evil sidekick that was just a complete ass. I’ve been too damn nice to far too many people and I apologize to my staff, my partners and our collective client base for having misprioritized our attention. I am trying to fix it.

After two years of pushing this stuff forward by myself (and a few thousand partners) the time has finally come to put the Own Web Now monster behind The Monkey and The Weasel and let it out of my direct control. What this basically means is that I’m in for a week of documenting, explaining and selling the idea of the entire OWN enterprise, everything we run and support, tying together with everything and everyone we work with.

What this means is more money, more time on development and yes, phone and full support for the Monkey. Unfortunately, it is going to take all my time as well as everyone you know and work with at OWN so expect the things to be a little slow at OWN this week. I will not be available on the phone, no blog, no IM and if you have a big issue that you email me about either use the portal or you’ll get a response in a week.

See you next Monday.

This is how I actually talk to my clients:

Vlad Mazek, Direct CEO Line

As you may remember from our last newsletter, we have put in a lot of effort into the communications, support and documentation of all Own Web Now Corp products. As we grow, and as we scale, it is important to get good documentation and to back it, 24/7 when problems come up. We now have more people working in our helpdesk at support.ownwebnow.com and during December we have both decreased the time to ticket response as well as the time to full case resolution. We have provided more options for support, far better documentation if you wish to do it on your own and our blogs for NOC, Help and Company have all had a number of posts to help you stay in touch, at all times.

However, as we grow and scale and you work with more and more new names, the personal rep that has been built up over the years of business doesn’t extend to the new people you see handling your issues. While I am proud to say that our support today is better than it ever has been before, and that our satisfaction ratings are at the all time highs, I too have seen some complaints from people that miss the old fashioned way of dealing with issues when they come up. We know everything that isn’t working 100% is urgent, we know you want a response right away and we know you want a quality response. Trouble ticket responses are dry, lacking any wit and body language that comes when you’re working with someone you know.

So if things are ever getting out of hand, if you are just not happy with how your issue is being handled, if you have a recommendation that you think would help us, I am here for you. I want to hear from you. We have worked very hard to establish our reputation, to partner with you, to deliver these phenomenal products – and sometimes emails and support tickets can lead to a misunderstanding.

So please, give me an opportunity to make it right. Feel free to call me direct and leave a message if I am away from the desk, I will call you back within 24 hours: xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Things have been going well, very well at Own Web Now. I’ve blogged previously about some of the issues and complaints we’ve received and we’ve done our best to correct a lot of these items.

Still, we struggle with the perennial one man “I can fix anything by myself in 3 minutes” that just can’t comprehend how things work in larger organizations, that the purpose of helpdesk is to provide an answer as quickly as possible, that there are policies and procedures in place to handle things and keep the playing field leveled for everyone. When we ran our profiler to match the complaints to the system users, I believe something like 80% of the complaints came from the one man shops. It was also ridiculous to see that the same percentage of people accounted for over half of all the support cases. Anyhow, I have worked my ass off to make sure our support, documentation and communication are top notch.

I’m kind of the top of that food chain. The big Mayor McCheese if you will. If my clients are not liking the answers they get, if they don’t feel like they are treated with respect, if they aren’t getting the support that they want… well, now I’ve given them a direct line to me so we can handle things before they spiral out of control.

Personal service doesn’t have to fall to pieces just because the company has grown beyond the single person rendering that service.

2008 Will Be The Year of KPI

No, not a calendar featuring Karl Palachuk, though I’m sure now that I mentioned it, one will be in print tomorrow.

For 2008, my major area of focus will be improving the crappy key performance indicators we currently have in place for our service metrics. I literally have 10 numbers I look at (newest ticket, oldest ticket, tickets closed today, tickets opened today, number of tickets with multiple updates, urgent tickets covered by SLA, high tickets covered by SLA and something else) or basically not enough. So stepping it up, big time.

Are you ever surprised by how difficult it is to spend money, even when you want to give it away? In this “web 2.0” world that we’re in with friends and workers continents apart, I’m surprised how difficult it is to send someone something as simple as a gift card.

In my humble opinion, we (own) are copying the wrong company and we have a lot of companies many magnitudes larger than ours making the same mistake: too much bureocracy. We’re all copying the wrong people – remember the famed video where Microsoft Marketing team did a parody of iPod packaging and explained what it would look like if Microsoft designed it? Same concept. Glengerry quote: “People are waiting to give you their money! Are you going to take it? Are you man enough to take it?” – I wonder how many people we outright turn off from doing business with us just because there is no flashing buy now button.

So if you’re looking for a global gift, Amazon is your friend:

Thats all it takes, five fields to give a gift of a few DRM-free MP3’s to enjoy around the holidays… Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You want to know what the Starbucks gift certificate purchasing process looks like:

That’s right, buy-a-gift-card in 852 simple click steps and more places to enter data than a home mortgage application. All you need is a minor in computer science with specialization area of UI design and an uncle that hunts next to you so you can hit the right options as they slide around at 500px/sec. Geeez. Worst giftcard site, ever! Check it out.

P.S. If you’re on my blogroll and have updated your blog twice over the last month look for an email from Gift Certificates Redeemable at Amazon.com [mailto:gc-orders@acigiftcards.amazon.com] in your Inbox or junk.