A bad day for Optus...

The last edition "When the Going Gets Tough" got so much momentum in the local community that by the weekend it had garnered the attention of the national media in the Sunday Telegraph! Just goes to show that supporting small businesses is a topic very close to our hearts in Mosman, especially in such tough economic times - and that's something we can all agree on.

You know who else is getting a lot of attention in the media, only for all the wrong reasons...Optus that's who.

Hands up if you're an Optus customer affected by Wednesday's record breaking nationwide mass outage? Extra points if you're an Optus business customer trying to make a living without internet, emails, payments or mobile reception for 12 hours.

These are some of the basic services that were shut down yesterday because of the Optus failure: Lifeline, Uber, BankWest, CommBank, ANZ, The Australian Tax Office, Westpac, the Department of Home Affairs, NSW Health, Service NSW, The Poisons Hotline, dozens of public and private hospitals and Sydney Airport...the list goes on and on and on.

But interestingly it's not the outage itself that has everyone so riled up...although that was bad enough. It's the woeful communications to their customers (there was no communication), lack of humility, or any willingness to even consider compensation to those affected.

Ahh Optus....imagine if we all ran our businesses like that? I don't think I'd have many clients left!

The irony of this whole disaster is that Optus is a telecommunications company!!! Their whole business is built on communication, yet in a crisis they failed to communicate efficiently, transparently and with humility, until it was too late. The damage was done.

If there's anything I've learned about communication in business over the last 19 years is that it's vital to be transparent and direct with people (I know shock, horror in real estate!). When things go awry or if you've made a mistake this strategy is even more important. A genuine and heartfelt apology and backing that up with swift actions to fix things goes a long way with your loyal customers.Not a delayed apology, but an effort to take responsibility and make things right as quickly as possible.

Real Estate is a tough gig to get communications perfect, my wife Jo says I talk too much and sometimes I'm too direct. But (and I tell my team this all the time) we'd rather be clear about expectations from the start, over-communicate with our vendors to make sure we're all on the same page so there are no surprises and we will never, ever sugar coat anything when it comes to someone's most prized asset, their home.  

I know that's rare in real estate. But it's true.

Before I go, I'd love to invite you to SAVE THE DATE for our end of year celebration/belated 41st birthday party/welcome to the neighbourhood BONEHAM PETERS OPTOMETRIST.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR DRINKS AND CANAPÉS

WEDNESDAY 29TH NOVEMBER

6PM - 7:30PM

O'GORMAN & PARTNERS OFFICES

130 AVENUE ROAD, MOSMAN 2088

Official invitation to come but we'd love to see you there to cheers to the year that was!