MWEB For The Win

MWEB’s Facebook group is called “Free the Web South Africa“,  but their clever little reference to “FTW” is apt – I think they’ve done something pretty amazing.

The uncapped ADSL products they launched were not revolutionary in the sense that they were the first to market or had features never seen before, but MWEB managed to nail the right combination of timing, features and price to create a killer product that fired the imagination of consumers.

I realised this a few weeks back when I heard my hairdresser’s kid asking her for money to go to the internet café and I asked whether she had a computer at home and was considering getting her own internet access. She said that she had heard that MWEB were the ones to go for, that they were doing something special.

That sort of spontaneous awareness is the stuff marketing people dream about – unprompted recall of just one brand when asked about an entire industry.

Enough has been said about the merits of the actual products, but I want to comment on the brilliant way MWEB has embraced their Facebook group to engage with their customers and critics after the launch of their uncapped products.

The “Free the Web” campaign started as a Facebook group without any reference to MWEB, and built up to over 12 000 group members shortly before the product launch announcement. The groups description claimed the following:

The purpose of this page is to highlight the effect of high bandwidth costs on ordinary South African small and medium business owners as well as the man on the street.

Something big is on the horizon… the time for change has come.

It’s time to Free the Web! Be part of this movement for change!

On March 18, MWEB launched their new ADSL products and revealed that they were behind the previously anonymous Free The Web SA Facebook group. Some online commentators had spotted the setup and worked out that it was likely to be an ISP announcement, while others were deeply disappointed to discover that a large company with a vested interest was behind the campaign and set up a short-lived protest group to vent their irritation.

Within days many competing local ISPs had announced competitive uncapped ADSL products, a fantastic outcome for South African consumers – better pricing than we’ve ever had and lots of choice.

Unfortunately the whinier elements of our collective South African persona were quick to appear and knock the new products, with the usual comments made about how much better and cheaper broadband is in the UK, completely ignoring the fact that we don’t yet have our local-loop unbundled (i.e Telkom still controls pricing for the piece of copper between your house and the exchange), and we have only very recently had access to competitive pricing for wholesale international bandwidth with the arrival of the Seacom cable.

MWEB may also have unwittingly set the tone for the group by originally pitching it as a consumer lobby group aimed at addressing an uncompetitive industry, as it attracted a vocal group of dissatisfied internet users and gave them a platform to vent their frustrations.

At this point many companies would have had a round of high-fives with their PR and online marketing companies and left the Facebook page to rot, but MWEB instead put a team of facilitators into the group posting under the handles  “MWEB Guy” and “MWEB Business Guy”.

Unfortunately the honeymoon was short-lived and it didn’t take long for network issues to appear. Customers who were getting poor speeds (and random non-customers happy to throw a few free punches) started to leave brutal and angry comments on the wall.

The response from MWEB was amazing – the long-suffering “MWEB Guy” just kept slogging it out and responding to critics, and in the latest act of engagement, Rudi Jansen, MWEB’s CEO has started posting directly into the group under his own name, much to the confusion of some who seem to think he is another MWEB tech support person.

This particular individual does unintentionally get right to the heart of the matter when he says “I want to speak to a person, not voice prompts, that’s why I’m here”.

Whether this guy knows it or not, he is interacting directly with the CEO of a large organisation and being given the opportunity to comment on using their products and the frustrations he is experiencing with their service and support. Facebook is being used here as a platform to cut through all the layers that usually exist between customers and suppliers and allow them to communicate directly and publicly. There are a couple of CEOs who make great use of social media (notably Gian Visser, CEO of a competing ISP), but it’s the first time I’ve seen the top guy in a South African organisation the size of MWEB take the time to get involved, face his critics head-on, take responsibility for the issues and engage with his customers in a very direct and immediate way.

Comments like these show the power of this engagement to build loyal customers in the face of temporary problems:

Can you imagine this level of engagement from your bank? Your insurer? Your telephone company? And not only getting in touch with them and communicating direct as you might do over the phone if you got past the voice-prompts and receptionists, but in a public forum for all to see.

I’m impressed.

UPDATE: See below – one of MWEB’s vocal critics has been swayed by Rudi’s out-of-office-hours efforts to communicate with the Facebook group. Gives me the warm’nfuzzies.