FNB vs ABSA

I've been on a mission this week to open two bank accounts for Cape Connect - one at ABSA, one at FNB.  Purely to make life easier for my clients who have accounts there.

Yesterday afternoon, after a morning spent rushing to Cape Town and back, I headed to the banks at the Mall to open an account - simply because they were close enough together to warrant less running around in the available time.  I went armed and prepared, all required documentation in hand.  But it's the holiday season.....

I tried ABSA first - only to discover their sole not-on-holiday business consultant was at another branch.  So I changed course and dashed over to FNB to join the queue for the only two consultants on duty.

Nearly an hour later I was at the desk asking questions and ready to open an account.  Unfortunately the consultant had his eye on the clock and the queue behind me.  He handed me brochures, gave me vague information without anwering any of my questions properly, and in effect told me to go away and come back another day, as he was too busy to spend the half-hour required to set me up.

By this time the town branch of ABSA had closed so there would be no bank joy that day...

Back home I went onto the FNB site to try apply online.  The form is there, but pressing any kind of Submit or Contact buttons throws up insane errors and gets no reaction.

So this morning first thing I headed off to the town branches. 

ABSA first.  Yes, the business consultant was on duty - but no-one had told me I had to make an appointment.  However, he may be able to fit me in, take a seat.  Which I did - and listened as the three staff members behind me gossipped for 45 minutes about staff, clients and everything else in full hearing of the people waiting to be attended to.  Not exactly professional behaviour.

Finally I got my chance, and to his credit Vincent at the Somerset West Main Road branch does everything he can to make his business client's lives easier.  It took quite a while to get through the paperwork, but an hour later I walked out of there with an account number, activated bank card, and a positive balance in my new ABSA business account.

To their non-credit, I also walked out with very little information on how everything works, no holder for my card (went back and asked for one) and no actual paperwork to show I had an account there - no price/fees list, no printed summary of my account details - I had to copy them off the ABSA application document or I wouldn't have known them at all!  Also to their non-credit, I had to apply seperately and am paying a large amount of cash each month for the privilege of accessing my account online, nearly 5 times more than the basic bank fee.  Surely in this day and age electronic / internet banking should be included as a matter of fact, free of charge?  Back at base, using the online banking was "interesting" - a lot more complicated than my usual Standard Bank procedure, less information on-screen, and the SMS confirmation of having logged in repeatedly as I tried to get it all right has started to get irritating.  No way to shut it off though.

ABSA done, it was on to the town branch of FNB, as I had a sudden onset of extreme aversion to trying to conduct business with the consultant at the Mall.

Again it was a case of write your details in The Book, take a seat and wait.  For the third time in two days I wondered if I should have dragged a book or a laptop along...

Once at the front of the queue nearly an hour later, I had my request down pat.  I need this particular account, here are the documents you'll need, please open the account.  The consultant first had to go verify my proof of residence, and then came back to say it's a few days older than the required minimum three months, so is unacceptable.  This, the very same document ABSA had just opened an account with.  Trouble is, this particular proof of residence now arrives electronically, and that was the last time I received a paper version.  But no, they wouldn't accept it - and yet again FNB told me to go away.

So I decided to try one more option.

Back at base, I filled out a "please call me" form on their website.  Many hours later, still waiting.

Then I phoned the call centre and asked them to please open an account over the phone as all other ways of doing so have failed.  They took my email address and phone number, said they'd send through documents for me to fill in and return (the originals of which would be collected by courier from me), and that a customer relations manager would give me a call within 48 hours.

Needless to say, I'm still waiting on the documents, and the phone has not rung.

This is starting to really piss me off.  Does FNB not want my business?  Are they trying to make it so hard to open an account that we all revert to keeping cash under the mattress?

I know I'm doing this for the good of my clients, but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth any of the effort I'm having to put in.

National Fall-Off-Roof Day

While the rest of South Africa was celebrating National Braai Day (or Heritage Day if you're so inclined), Some of us were Working. As in us three, at this place again:


Technically, it was a case of "not inside, it's on TOP!". See that little ledge to the right of the building? Favourite Man hung out there in a rather fresh north-wester today, running cable down the side of the building. And quite literally hung out with a rope tied to his waist while the other two of us watched in fear and trembling.

And then he did ballet on top of the wall you see above it - the one that heads across the top of the building toward our antenna. Again, running cable.. until he stepped into space. For one heart-stopping moment his foot went through the top of the wall where the local "handyman" hadn't done his job fixing a hole - and it was nearly a plunge 6 storeys down.

There are some jobs that are horrible. There are some that are dangerous. This one was both - and I can't put into words how happy I am it didn't turn out terrible frightening fatal.

We do have to go back again tomorrow - and this time that hole is not going to cause a heart-attack. It's getting closed up properly, like it should have been the first time.

Should "handyman" show his face, a snotklap may be in order...

The Honesty Policy

As I go about being self-employed / a business owner, I've had my eyes and ears open as to how the rest of the world goes about doing the same.

And some of it is far from pretty....

There are a whole lot of "skelms" out there, simply out to crook the general public and take as much money off them as they can before they're caught and taken down. In the wireless internet industry these are pretty thick on the ground. And they're not hard to find at the srapyard, the auto-electrician, the spares dealer (of whatever variety spares you speak), the corner shop etc. If they can find a gap, fleece an unsuspecting human and get them to hand over cash in return for basically nothing, they will.

Take one local company whose customers we've been signing up with regularity (and no, no names mentioned - the company's since been sold on). Although they charge a certain amount of money for an installation, the equipment that ends up on a pole varies widely - apparently according to whatever was in the bargain bin of the supplier at the time. We've come across some both interesting and horrifying stuff. And poor Joe Soap, who doesn't know UTP from Telkom cable, happily forks over his hard-earned dosh on what he trusts will be what was promised. Only to be dismally disappointed shortly thereafter, bound into a 2-year contract he can't exit.

Ah well. These things happen, you say.

Well - no. They shouldn't. Times are far too tough to take what meager cash comes our way and throw it at nothing.

And here's where the first part of the Honesty Policy comes in. From day 1 it's been a Cape Connect rule not to lie to the customer.

If you can't offer a service, say so up front - if necessary, direct them to a decent competitor who can help. If you don't know what's gone wrong with a signal or piece of eqiupment, say so - and then do your damndest to solve the problem. No sneakyness, no kak - just be honest and up front about who you are, what you do, and where your limitations are.

And then there's part 2 of this policy.

Virgin Earth. I'm not the biggest e-waste processor. I'm not the most kitted out. I'm simply a chick in a largely-male industry doing something that helps a lot of people.

And when it comes to Q&A time, I don't make up fairy-stories. How did Virgin Earth start? By accident - and word of mouth. Heavy equipment to process stuff in an industrial environment? Nope, but we either do the job by hand or pass on the heavier stuff to those who have the right equipment. Yes, I do the work myself and have the cuts to prove it. Yes, I do lift heavy equipment and have bruises all over. Yes, we often only just cover expenses trying to keep the service free - but no, we're not going to be charging for it anytime soon. And yes, you will get ME if you email, phone or meet up with Virgin Earth in person. That's who Virgin Earth is and it's how I operate.

And you know what? It makes a difference. I'm not trying to be something I'm not - I'm simply being honest. It's a case of take it or leave it, and some do choose to leave it to take their business elsewhere.

The thing is this. The Honesty Policy weaves a story of your business - of who you are, how you work and why. It's a basis from which everything functions, the smallest action to the biggest decision. It determines who you hire - or don't. Who you work with - or not. Who you buy from, who you sell to, how far you go in any direction.

There really is no other way to work.

Announcing...

Cape Connect now has a hotspot / access point in Strand!

Find us diagonally opposite the Pick 'n Pay centre near the beach or on-screen via your wireless device.

Experiment...

ThrownOUT

We're insured as Cape Connect Internet CC with Outsurance under a business policy. We're doing this one site at a time, as they're completed - starting with the high site that was recently sabotaged, and since paid out under their cover to restore. Getting that insured was a bit of a mission, as no-one could grasp the concept of "high site" - some tower up on a mountain. We never really got that particular point through their heads, but they happily covered it as-is, using the list of parts and equipment with their values that we provided, and photographs of the site. When we were sabotaged, an assessor came out and sorted out the claim within 24 hours - which was really impressive.

So now on to phase 2. Our next location for an access point is in the middle of Somerset West, on top of a building that houses (among others) the CSI division of the police. We emailed our usual contact at Outsurance to get the completed installation insured, with again a list of items and equipment, photos and total value. Easy-peasy, right?

Wrong. I had such kak from the guy who tried to draw up the policy that I nearly gave up. First, he couldn't understand that the antennas and pole outside were linked to the equipment box inside, and should thus be insured as a unit. Then he couldn't understand that this was at a different location to our headquarters. In fact, I'm not entirely sure he understands anything in general at all. So I asked for them to send an assessor out to see the stuff and put it in terms they could grasp.

Assessor duly turned up yesterday, went through the site and equipment with me, changed the info that needed it, and was very happy with the security, lightning protection, location etc. She handed the info over to Outsurance to add to our business policy the same day.

And then today I get a call from someone at the call centre. Telling me that we've been given 30 day's notice - the policy will be cancelled on the 17th of September, as we're too high risk for "vandalism, lack of security, lightning, fire" and assorted other nasties.

I was gobsmacked.

This site is ON TOP of the roof of the police building. No-one is getting through the two security guards, floor of crack detectives/fingerprinters/etc, locked roof (only two keys), locked room (only two keys), and then climbing up 10m to vandalize the antennas or breaking into a physically and electronically secure equipment box to destroy our equipment! There's a fire extinguisher right next to the box. There's lightning protection on everything.

And yet we're HIGH RISK!

So I fumed at a manager. Who then called me back later to say it's the underwriter's decision and he can't change it. So I said "check again" - and he did. And same story. They've made up their minds that we're high-risk and they're cancelling the entire policy - high site, this site and all.

"But we hear you have a data centre - can we insure that for you?"

Yeah, right....

In other words, they'll happily take our money each month to insure something that will likely never be broken into, damaged or messed with, but will not insure anything not physically attached to it!

To say that I'm pissed off is a mild understatement.

They say "you always get something OUT".

Today I did get something out. Me.

Fired

Would you fire a customer? Yes, FIRE A CUSTOMER. Especially in this economic climate?

Well this is one lesson I'm rapidly learning. As Seth says, 1% of your customers can cause 95% of your pain - and it's very very true.

A month or two ago I had a customer who was on my back every 5 minutes. Quite literally. She would phone over weekends, late at night, early in the morning, demanding things she actually couldn't get. So I fired her. Told her I would come take away the service and she could look elsewhere. Funny thing is, that turned her into a model customer. We sorted out our differences, I made a final last-ditch effort to placate her (and she knew it was my last effort), she got to see what it takes to do so - and now things are ticking over - no more odd-hours calls. She's become a customer evangelist instead.

There's another customer who fired herself. While I was busy solving a large sabotage-related problem, she took herself off to another service provider - but this one was not amicably done. Without going into too much detail, let me just say we agreed to disagree and part paths.

Now I've come to the stage where I may need to fire another customer. One that complains endlessly in spite of recieving the best service possible. No matter what is done, there's always some other problem. Trying to explain leads to brash brush-offs and simply not being willing to listen on their part.

The thing is this - it's VERY hard to fire a customer, especially a big one if you're a small business and times are tough. Many business simply put up with the 1%, spend all their time running around trying to please them, and end up not putting the effort into the rest of the customer base that they should. The 1% ruin the experience for everyone else. It's not that you want to avoid them or not help them, but simply that they drain all your resources, energy and focus - and keep you mired to one place instead of moving forward.

If you look at it like that, where would you want to aim your time and attention? On providing fantastic service for as many people as possible, or playing catch-up with those who are never happy?

Tough lesson, hard situation, but sometimes it's simply what has to be done.

Cape Connect does Somerset West Central

Read all about it here.

Sabotage: The Aftermath

It has been three weeks since our high site was sabotaged. And it's been weeks filled with a lot of very hard work. We initially thought we'd caught all the damage, replaced the cables and battery - and then fired up the high site.

Problem - the electronics were playing up. The more we checked, the more issues we found. And the more trips up the side of the mountain were required.

Of course, the Cape being the Cape, and it being winter and all, the weather closed in with a massive storm in the meantime. As is the habit with the things on the mountain, the wind takes out the dead and the dying. Meaning that Favourite Man and The Kid didn't quite make it to the site before their way was blocked by a large fallen tree! Two days and three icy-cold freezing-rain trips later, the tree was cleared... and the equipment off the mountain.

No, we didn't give up - but we did need to test it thoroughly in an environment that didn't mean clinging to the top of a tower in a howling gale. Though those who tried to put us out of business are probably rejoicing at the lack of antennas up there, thinking they've won :-) Not for long.

In the background we've been working on an insurance claim (BIG up to Outsurance Business for assessing and paying out within 2 days flat), replacing damaged items and comprehensively testing those that seemed OK, then working at getting our network up and running completely again.

It's still a work in progress. Today, while the weather holds, Favourite Man and The Kid are on a rooftop aiming antennas at places and working through electrics / electronics. We've replaced a pole taken out by a gale-force wind recently and decided to do our own crimping (who has ever heard of properly-crimped connectors simply falling off!?!). Tomorrow sees us back up the mountain to restore order.

We're definitely not out of the running - we're not going to go quietly nor are we going to give up. We may have had to deal with a speedbump, but we're not slowing down.

Sabotage

If you really want to piss me off, mess with my family, my home, or something I've poured blood, sweat, time, energy and every cent I can muster into.

This morning at 6:05 our system alerted us to the Helderberg high site having disconnected. When we saw the message and dashed up the mountain, this is what we found:


At 6:05, while it was still dark and no-one was around, some bloody idiot had climbed the 6 metre tower, forced open the equipment box and broken the locks, ignored the alarm and strobe light until they'd cut through the power cables, stole the backup battery, cut the main power, cut the antenna wires to every single antenna on the outside, and then attempted to set fire to the whole thing.

And I'm pissed off in a very big way.

It was obviously done by someone who knows that removing a radio card or router board will "call home" as soon as it's plugged in elsewhere - and lead us straight to them. Those weren't touched. Whoever did this did so merely to take out our service and disable us, a malicious attempt to put us out of business. They planned it for early on a Saturday, as we won't be able to get replacement parts from our suppliers until Monday. They planned it for a day where the next door farm labourers weren't around, and a time where folk were sleeping in instead of getting up for work. And one of our competitors is the chief suspect along with a potential partner in crime. It's a pairing of motive and opportunity - one feeds info and spies, the other tells him what to do.

Just after our tower went up, one half reported us to ICASA (the regulating body in South Africa) for having an illegal tower and equipment. ICASA did a site visit and found nothing amiss. The same half has given us endless kak and complaints, spied on us constantly and tried his level best to put us out of business. The second half of the suspicious duo has attempted using illegal equipment to blast our signal out of the sky, to spread the word that we're operating illegally, and to drive customers away from our doors.

And now this.

It's taken all day and 6 trips up the mountain to sort out opening a police docket for theft, sabotage and attempted arson, to get the CSI up there for fingerprints (got a real beauty smack-bang where the bloke climbed the tower), get the detectives up, and then fix what we can fix now. We finished the last task in the dark. Insurance claims kick in next, along with plans for additional security - although only our site was targeted, and it's more secure than most up there.

But I'm pissed off tonight - very pissed off. I have poured everything I've got into this business, as has Favourite Man. Even the kid's involved with helping out. We've had late nights, early mornings, midnight customer support and day-long plain hard work to grow this company. We've done everything more than book-right, tuned our system to perfection and given our customers outstanding service, support and help-on-demand.

Others are playing very dirty to get rid of us - but you know what, there's two ways to deal with this.

One is to give up and go away.

The other is to come back fighting, stronger than ever.

Guess which one they're going to have to deal with. They won't get rid of us that easily.

Good Fences vs Good Neighbours

Way up against a local mountain sits a Cape Connect high site. (Blasting forth uncapped wireless to everywhere from Gordon's Bay to Tygervalley, FYI :-) )

Developing this site has been a bit of a mission. First there's the obvious issue of it being up in the sky - with some serious offroading to get to, steep slopes to drag things up and down, weather to consider etc.

Then there's the neighbour. A few metres from everyone's sites (we're not the only ones up there) is the border fence with a flower farmer who has nothing better to do than watch his blommetjies grow and make kak. We first tried very hard to get along with him. We offered to share costs to put in power further up the hill which both he and we could use - which fell through. We had his permission to use his access road to cart sand/stone up. He even unlocked the gate between his farm and the property where our site is. All went well until he locked me in and wanted to know what I was doing on his farm. We had his permission to use the only source of water right next to the fence, on his property, to mix our cement (he, after all, uses electricity from a nearby site for his pumps without bothering to pay for it). Water permission went OK until he suddenly retracted and threatened violence. He regularly "visits his proteas" and "checks the water tanks" to sit in the bushes with binoculars and check out what we're doing. And when we're not there... well we've found footprints in the sand around our site.

So we've taken to ignoring him, using roads not on his property, bringing our own water, and providing solar power to our site. In other words keeping well out of his way and hoping he'd do the same.

Seems it's not to be.

Last week he upped the ante.

You see, many years ago a lot of high sites were on his land. He charged rent for each, but then started changing costs randomly, "felling" towers he didn't like etc. So everyone moved next door. And suddenly that source of income disappeared.

Now, being the off-season for flowers, he's got time on his hands and is plotting. There's a new, legal, very expensive tower going up a level below ours to provide digital TV to the area. Suddenly he's trying to get it stopped with court orders and trouble. He's complained to our site landlord that our new tower is "reflecting in their eyes" - although it's no more silver than any of the other towers around it. That the solar panel shines in his mom's eyes and she can't play tennis anymore - which is a physical impossibility as she'd have to be in heaven for it to do so at any time of the day thanks to its 30 degree pitch skywards and his location way below. He called out ICASA to report an illegal site - they scanned our signals and found everything perfectly legal. He wants an environmental survey - this on a site that uses solar power and has re-vegetated the surrounds. Heck, we even used recycled glass as aggregate in our construction!

Today Favourite Man headed up the hill to get a job done, which required a further trip later in the day. Between trip one and two, SOMEONE climbed to the top of the tower, removed a nut off of it, placed it very prominently on top of the equipment box at the top of the tower - and then attempted to rip the top off the equipment box so the (not cheap!) equipment inside would be ruined the next time it rains.

There's really only one suspect. But no-one seems to have the ability or the balls to do anything about it - YET.

But Karma is a bitch, and his time will come.