Has anyone else had a bad experience at @onealfredplace?

followed up by …

Yes, the staff at @onealfredplace have been spectacularly rude to me twice in a week. Will be making formal complaint shortly

and evolving to other tweets from the person who was clearly annoyed by a poor level of service from the private business/leisure environment called One Alfred Place.

I’ve never heard of One Alfred Place before but I see from their website (http://www.onealfredplace.co.uk/) that they’re on Twitter.  I wonder whether they’re picking up on such tweets that are spreading negative publicity about them?  Sadly, as with so many companies, they may not be.

So the negative publicity tweets about them, coming from someone who is pretty well respected in business, and has 3,015 followers himself, is spreading outwards.    People like me have picked up on it as a subject to blog about.  Other followers will just make a mental note that One Alfred Place is somewhere to be wary of.  Others, of course, will retweet it onto others in their network.

Bad news spreads faster than good news and while most people will give a supplier of a service a chance (as I know this particular tweeter would have done), there comes a time when the knife goes in.   What would it have taken for the staff to have provided a good service and so avoided the negative publicity via Twitter.  What will the management do now, having found out that the negative publicity is out there (and will likely be visible in Google as well)?

Above all, when will companies start to realise that the offline and online worlds do not exist separately and an offline problem within a business can spread like wildfire online and have a significant knock-on effect?

As I said, I’d never heard about One Alfred Place before but now that I have and the viewpoint was negative, then that’s something that will stay lodged in my brain for awhile.

The lesson here is that at a minimum, companies should be monitoring online talk about their name/brand and be appropriately responsive so that any negative publicity is addressed, which will include handling the issues that caused the negative publicity in the first place.

I’d set up Twitter so that I was picking up on anyone tweeting about Hadrian’s Wall, a few weeks before going.  It was set up to get a feel for what people were experiencing.  Within those tweets there were some retweets from advancedtaxis, apparently picking up on when people discussed things to do with Hadrian’s Wall.

During the actual walk I tweeted a comment along the lines of ‘Day 1 of Hadrian’s Wall walk – incredibly tired’.  That got retweeted by advancedtaxis and I thought “Wow, that’s forward-thinking!”.   There was me, exhausted, potentially in need of a taxi during the week (IF giving up of course!) and a local taxi firm had put themselves right in my line of sight.

During the rest of the week I kept an eye on their tweets and noticed that they weren’t retweeting everything to do with Hadrian’s Wall but just tweets that could have been from people who may feasibly need taxis.  It would have cost them nothing to do that and anyone could have been a potential client.  In terms of brand awareness, even before leaving the comforts of home to go on the walk I was aware of that taxi company so if there was such a need it would have been relatively easy to get the taxi service.

Contrary to the last blog, this example shows that there is a bit of innovation happening, and there may also be others promoting their businesses in a similar way along the Hadrian’s Wall trail route (I just didn’t notice them).  We’ll probably see a lot more of this in the future as businesses get to grips with the opportunities that the web provides, and it’ll be fascinating to see how things evolve.

Although most people doing such a walk will be quite well prepared, many people (myself included) will become a mass of blisters and leg pain.  Both online and offline there appeared to be little to cater for such needs along the way.  Key gaps needing to be filled were:

1. Lack of refreshment facilities within huge ranges of the trail.  At one point the (innovative) coffee truck man was practically mugged for a much-needed drink after several miles of nothing.  I can’t remember what he charged for the coffee but it could have been well above the norm and it wouldn’t have mattered.
2. Lack of first aid provisions.  It took 4 days into the trail to find a place that sold Compeed – much needed for blisters.  Although it was overpriced, it could have cost more and would still have been bought by those in need.
3. Lack of supplementary services.  What does a leg or foot massage cost in everyday life?  Whatever it costs, that fee could have been easily raised to capitalise on walkers who would have been willing to pay the price to have legs reinvigorated to give them a better chance for a fresh start the next day.

What should have happened along the Hadrian’s Wall trail?  Or, in fact, any form of walking trail where there will be needs for goods and services …

A grasp of where the opportunities are. 

This applies to both online and offline.  Offline, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work out where there are long stretches of any walk where facilities are poor (for example, refreshments), and to capitalise on the needs.  Online, just being aware of what people are saying on Twitter can raise opportunities.  Last week was a typical example …

I did tweets that included the words ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ and other words such as ‘aching legs’, ‘blisters’, ‘compeed’, ‘pain’, ‘leg massage’ and more.  Someone innovative, picking up on such tweets, would be in a position to capitalise.  Let’s say that someone saw a tweet that referred to Hadrian’s Wall – something along the lines of:

Day 3 of Hadrians Wall today – legs aching like hell!  Running out of compeed.

If that person offered leg massage services then they could respond to that tweet accordingly.  At the same time of giving such a service they could sell Compeed (at an inflated price no doubt) and also build a relationship with the guest house/hotel being stayed at, to capitalise on walkers who may need such services in the future.

Better than that, where’s the innovative person who is monitoring numerous types of tweets and bridges the gap between suppliers of products & services and those who need them (for a commission fee)?

Hadrian’s Wall was built in the first century.  If Twitter had existed back then there’s a pretty good chance the Romans would have been using it, along with all their other efficiencies.   Fast forward to the 21^st Century and we have a simple issue of supply and demand and the opportunity to capitalise on it by being more ‘online aware’.   In any situation where people need something and have no alternative options (whether that be relief from leg pain, refreshments, or something else), then the lack of supply or competition means there are opportunities to gain higher than normal revenues for what’s supplied.

Like local political party reps at election time, they come out of the woodwork expecting to gain business.  To be frank, it’s insulting, opportunistic, and in today’s climate, just plain stupid.

The winners in business in the future will be those that create an ongoing, but non-invasive awareness of themselves.  Does Custwin want to buy new exhibition popups etc. for Kent 2020 this year?  No.  Would we need to next year?  Possibly.   Would we be adverse to getting a blog feed, Tweets, or an occasional email newsletter from companies who supply such products, over the months?  No, we wouldn’t be adverse.   In fact, it would help to build up trust, it may even lead to us meeting the suppliers at some point, and it’s got a much stronger potential to turn into business for the suppliers at some stage.

Taking another subject, a company was pitching chocolate fountain hire for the Kent 2020 exhibition.  As a cold introduction to 100 people it’s possible that very few may respond.  But as a warm drip feed over a longer period of time, the percentage of buyers will increase.  HOW that drip feed is implemented is a subject all of its own but it’s not rocket science.

The focus here happens to be on an upcoming business exhibition but the principle applies for any type of business that wants to gain new clients, particularly at times of the year when those potential buyers are more likely to need such services.

Those businesses that don’t embrace the concept of drip feeding their message into potential clients will soon find themselves losing out to their competitors who understand what makes potential clients tick.