Allchorn Blog

Does your website solve a business problem? If not, do you feel that your monthly/annual hosting fees are justified? Perhaps it’s slight financial drain on your business as opposed to actually providing either more revenue, or streamlining some otherwise time consuming business process.

Having teamed up with SAWD and worked in their offices for the last 6 months, I’ve learnt a lot about solving business problems through the effective use of the internet. It’s not all black and white, and through brainstorming on various projects with them, our differing skills have complimented each other’s and we’ve managed to provide some seriously effective strategies for some of their and my clients.

Last night I was sitting at a braai (BBQ to non South Africans) and there were two business owners amongst us (three if you include myself). One of them owns a successful dairy distribution company and the other a thriving, upmarket Italian restaurant. Thankfully we were all in the mood to talk shop to some degree, and since we were all in different industries, it was quite an interesting discussion.

The reason I mention this is because in our discussion, my mind kept moving into “problem solving” mode. Since thats a majority of my work, it’s a natural state of mind for me. While listening to their gripes about various business difficulties (theft, client & staff problems, logistics etc.), I was ticking over ideas that can solve their issues.

Got milk?

An example of one of these solutions was for the dairy distro. business. While a successful, thriving business, she is still inundated with rude phone calls from clients (mostly noise) and due to the size of the company, she is no longer able to provide the level of personal service she used to when the company was smaller.

My internet based solution for this is from an automated and analytical standpoint. A facility whereby an unhappy client can log a complaint online with a list of possible gripes. Perhaps:

• Late delivery
• Milk was off
• Wrong items delivered
• Driver was rude
• Delivered to the wrong branch
• Too expensive
• etc.

Then of course, you could include an “other” field where the person can put their own gripe if it’s not on the list, and all the data then gets injected into a database, and an email notification can be sent to the company owner, and an email thank you note sent to the customer.

That data can then be analysed, and my friend can see what are the major gripes amongst the lot and begin to address them accordingly. Communicate with the client, and let them know (via email) that in an effort to improve service levels, they will start addressing the following problem areas (listing the top three or five problems).

Of course, it’s a task to create something like this, manage it and implement the changes, but in the long run -which is the term most small business owners are in for- it’s a solution to a problem that will otherwise persist.

Well, thats all I have to say for today, and it’s -I think- a good theoretical example of how you can use the internet as a tool rather than merely providing a digital brochure with your contact details.

As a last note… I did not mention this solution to my friend, because I don’t like to sell my business offering at a social function. Thats not my style. If people want to do business with me, I’ll gladly discuss during business hours. I did however email her the link to this article