It’s no secret that I love Apple and I’ve owned many of their computers and accessories for the last six years and to be honest I simply don’t see the issue with pricing in SA. I also have to concede that the Core Group have actually done a fantastic job at distributing and growing the Apple market share in South Africa.

With the advent of the Internet and more recently the adoption of Social Media many people would have forgotten or are not contextualising what it was like six years ago in the SA market. I remember when Beeld bought an Apple computer for almost R500,000 because it was the super-computer that would take them to a new level in production. Today, however, pricing of Apple products have dropped considerably and the company has positioned itself away from publishing and graphic design to the more lucrative consumer market.

I also remember a time when the Core Group had a lot of competition. Many years ago Apple granted multiple licenses to companies in South Africa yet despite this open market the only distributor to survive was the Core. At that time gaining market share was near impossible yet despite it they’re still around to tell the tale hence why Cupertino decided to award the Core Group with the sole-distribution rights to South Africa.

Granted that the Core Group have benefited by Apple’s overall positioning and mass global adoption but irrespective they have seen the best and worst of Apple and stuck to their guns.

So what’s the point of all of this I guess you’re wondering? Well the point is that not everyone is Social Media hates companies or are out to hurt reputations. I’ve sat in countless meetings with potential Adgator clients where I’ve explained that when a blogger takes the time to write something bad about their company it generally means only one thing – they care about you.

In fact not only do they care about you but they’ve taken the time to write something about you in the hope that you will respond. Most of the time, no one ever does.

It is because of this that I encourage people to engage users, no matter how tough it may seem, because by turning a negative response into a positive you start to create brand champions for your company. These brand champions will take your company a lot further than any marketing initiative could ever accomplish because quite simply put, people value their friend’s opinions more than they value yours!

From my experience, dealing with the negative responses in the right way is sure to change perceptions however the issue is that most companies have no idea how to go about this.

The Core’s situation is a case in point. RJ van Spaandonk retaliated, via Twitter, to the angry lynch mob which really just fueled the fire even further. While he tried to highlight similar pricing strategies from countries outside of SA it wasn’t handled in the right way and his strategy, or lack thereof, backfired badly.

The bloggers now hate the Core Group even more and RJ van Spaandonk is now recommending that companies stay far away from Twitter, bloggers and Social Media in general. In the end everyone has lost.

Had I been the Core I would have sought help from professionals before publicly making statements and retaliating. If you don’t know how to deal with this medium, ask for help – there are many professionals today who can help and advise you on the right Social Media strategy and how to mitigate negative responses around your brand(s).

For any company the message is simple. People are having conversations about you all the time and you really can’t afford to not be apart of it. Seek help, build a good strategy and above all – #DLFS*!

* Don’t Look For Shit! (this is Afrigator‘s corporate motto and we stick to it, religiously! We learned our lesson the hard way.)

While I wasn’t expecting a response from the post in question I was extremely impressed when I received an email from Sean Carolan the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa on Tuesday.

Hi Justin

I am the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa. One of my colleagues in Germany sent me the link to your blog (what happens to fragile boxes).

I cannot view the clip, but judging from the text it did not look good, and I would like to get to the bottom of it and address the relevant driver/staff member regarding this.

Please could you send me the clip in, as well as advise in which area this delivery was taking place (and the time)?

We train our staff, and try and enforce good practices throughout the delivery process, and when incidents like these go by ‘unnoticed’ it is good that we do get feedback.

I immediately responded and sent all the relevant details to Sean who then, it seems, went on a fact finding mission and managed to get to the bottom of things.

Just this morning however I received another email, this time from Andrew Dinnie – General Manager of the Western Cape, in which he tries to address some of the comments in the post. I thought it relevant to post some of his remarks in the email as it addresses the issues quite nicely.

The delivery was a scheduled delivery to BMW parts dealership in Town. The boxes on the video which were planned for that delivery are robust automotive parts not TV screens. They happened to be very light (5-6kg’s) and hence the proceeding method of handling. We do not condone the method and have already addressed this issue with all our handling staff. We are fortunate that to date there are no recorded damages and we have confirmed with this dealership that they maintain their support for our services.

I would also like to remark on a comment made on your blog by Sean Nieuwoudt, who is incorrect when he says that our east London branch is under liquidation. It is 100% owned by DB Schenker and continues to trade healthily, as in the past.

Now I’m no rocket scientist nor am I a specialist in online reputation management (ORM) but the way in which Schenker Logistics handled this situation is exceptional. By all accounts this measly blog doesn’t attract a massive readership and it would have been easy for the guys at Schenker to simply ignore this yet they decided to tackle the issue head on.

Tim Shier, marketing manager for both Quirk eMarketing and BrandsEye, recently wrote about the SAA ORM crisis in which he details 10 points for companies to consider when dealing with ORM. I’m not sure is Schenker knowingly knew what they were doing but they’ve done a sterling job at managing their online reputation by dealing with this somewhat minor issue.