Sometimes it’s best to help your prospects understand what you offer that your competitors don’t rather than trying to highlight the inadequacies of your competitors. This is specially the case when the comments you make are in public especially when your competitors get angered easily and or have very deep pockets or in-house legal teams. This article explains what happens when someone is unhappy with what you say about them, how to avoid it and what you can do about it.
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I have a client who has produced software that is absolute outstanding and reduces the amount of time you and I spend waiting for organizations to answer our calls. It also reduces the number of staff call center require and I think it’s a product that provides everyone with a benefit. They have nearly 1 million subscribers to their app so they must be doing something right.
There was a time, before they appeared on “Dragons Den”, that they were looking to generate a buzz about their business. They talked to a marketing consultant and eventually persuaded to use a marketing expert who’s specialized in generating PR for technology based businesses. It all sounds great, everything heading in the right direction.
We didn’t say that did we?
The marketing expert had decided to seed the press and other relevant forums with explanations about the different waiting times that people experience when calling well known companies. In theory these companies were not competitors to our clients. They were irked even angered, to find them self at the top of a table highlighting which companies leaves callers on hold for the longest time. The angriest was a particularly large company in the health industry and they decided to issue a letter asking our client to explain exactly where they got their information from and asking them to remove any reference to that company from the public domain. This was an understandable reaction to an article that was supposed to improve the profile of this client yet it just sort to anger a party they didn’t needed to anger and caused many other problems internally. The initial panic should never be underestimated when you get a letter from a in-house lawyer because they have so much time on their hands to deal with such issues.
Naturally my first question to my client was had they actually made the points that the in-house lawyer objected to. Their answer was it wasn’t us. Yet when I used Google I found the article was credited to them. At which point they said it was an outsourced marketing expert who had put these articles together. I asked if the marketing expert had provided evidence of their insurance. Blank looks all round. I asked if the marketing expert’s research had been checked by my client. More blank looks. I asked if the marketing expert had used an specialist to research the details they were using. The blank looks continued.
Shall we tell them it wasn’t us.
This was the comment my client made next and I asked them if they thought that would send the complainant off towards the marketing company and they realized that was probably never going to happen. If that were the case, everyone would simply say someone else did it in our name and no one would ever seize or desist when the lining someone. Fortunately they didn’t need to have this conversation because we had already provided them with a legal defense if allegation of liable defamation or breach of confidentiality were leveled at them yet they still had learned a valuable lesson about suppliers. These days very few businesses are self contained. Nearly every company I know relies on a employee or another organization to help them deliver their product or services. However not all such businesses are as careful as they should be and you can either be guilty by association or considered guilty because something is done under your umbrella.
Top Tip
Check your suppliers carefully if they have insurance and it is fit for purpose you can give them a free rain, which makes your life easier.
Wrap up: If they don’t have insurance you shouldn’t be dealing with them. Because at best, your insurance premiums will creep up as your suppliers make mistakes. That’s like buying car insurance and allowing the worst driver you know and drive even though they are already banned.
