Yesterday, Hector Sants, Chief Executive of the Financial Services Authority, warned that banks will have to change the way they do business. For finance fans, he specifically said that banks will have to keep more of their loans on their own books rather than selling them on- which was one of the causes of the [...]
Filed under: current affairs, finance | Tagged: banks, credit, credit crunch, finance, lending | Leave a Comment »
I’ve just got back from a very pleasant few days rest and respite in the Canaries, and very good it was too. And for the first time in ages, my flights were seamless (thank you Monarch). My flying history is not spectacular. Last week, I had to cancel a meeting in Vienna thanks to fog [...]
Filed under: marketing, service | Tagged: BA, flight, monarch, service, supplier, supply chain | Leave a Comment »
For some reason, some companies don’t want to talk to me, or you. It’s pretty abysmal customer service. Most of them do have some sort of customer service telephone number, but keep it well hidden. So I hope to keep this thread occasionally updated with these hard-to-find telephone numbers: please feel free to add your [...]
Filed under: retail, service, tips | Tagged: customer service, IVR, telephone numbers | Leave a Comment »
Like most people with any interest in business, I have watched the Northern Rock fiasco unfold with some interest. I need to admit right now that my political leanings are conservative, that I support laissez-faire economic strategies and despise the current trend towards micromanagement. I am hugely worried at the wasteful public purse, which as [...]
Filed under: current affairs | Tagged: markets, northern rock, shares, virgin | 1 Comment »
So I have been writing about technology for small businesses for about fifteen years now, and I ought to- just occasionally- follow my own advice… For some six months now, I have used a chunky network hard drive for storing a bunch of stuff- articles, podcasts etc. You know- the things that I actually get [...]
Filed under: technology, tips | Tagged: backup, hard drive, IT, Lacie, network drive, online storage, RAID | Leave a Comment »
This year’s January sales began in, er… December. In fact several stores, whilst obviously closed on Christmas day, used their 24/7 web marketing capacity to launch online sales on Christmas Day. Why the manic push for retail sales? Well, what with the credit crunch and an obsession with shareholder value, big retailers spent the last [...]
Filed under: marketing, retail, sales, tips | Tagged: dsg, john lewis, marketing, paul dunn, retail, sales, service, seymour pierce, virgin | Leave a Comment »
