Firday was a bit a manic day for a couple of the teams here at the Customer Street contact centre.

The finishing touches have now been made to the RapidSite 3 software after a couple of weeks of rigorous testing by some BT technicians. Over the course of Friday afternoon our Support Team were taken offline to attend a series of presentations to formally introduce them to the finished product. Likewise the SEO manager and his team were doing the presentations.

I took the opportunity to sneak in and sit through one of the presentations to bring myself up to speed on what our customer will be presented with over the coming weeks.

Firstly I was amazed at how easy it was to navigate round and for the first timers faced with making alterations to their RapidSites there is the option to turn on or off the easy to understand help captions which cover all aspects of the software.

All the old sites can be imported into the new software and with a few minor amendments depending on what customers have done to their sites already they will be up an running in a matter of 30 seconds.  It really is as simple as that.

The software has impressed everyone who has seen it so far and I am sure our customers will be equally impressed. Despite the fact that the new sites can auto import the old information and generally achieve higher page rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN without having to lift a finger we have a SEO team who are actually working on checking each site individually to make sure that they are optimised as much as they can be before being published.

Our reputation for achieving results on the search engines is well deserved and we will continue to achieve resultsusing the new software. It is now only a matter of a few days away from general release and the anticipated customer upgrades will continue over the next few months, with all new customers automatically being put onto the new software from today onwards.

As the title says, the Customer Street Blog sees its 100th posting today.

On the 16th July 2007 I said goodbye to my old UFindUs blog and made my first posting on here. Up to this point I had spent the previous 10 months or so blogging about the exciting changes that were going on at UFindUs on various blogs. Some worked and helped us spread the good news quite quickly, like my Live Journal blog, others like the Xanga blog I had were rarely to be found anywhere even using very specific search terms.

The purpose of the blogs was to make sure that as a business we made ourselves a accessible to our customers and potential customers as possible, they also helped to create an open forum for anyone who had dealings with us to express their views, make suggestions or pass general comments. A big change for UFindUs at the time but definitely a change for the better.

On the whole I have achieved everything I wanted to with my blog. I have watched over the past 12 months as more and more people have found the blog, and through both blogging and my various excursions onto consumer forums, more and more people have become familiar with who I am and how to get hold of me if they need to. They have also become increasingly familiar with the values which both the UFindUs and CustomerStreet brands have come to stand for.

By the end of July 2007 the blog had attracted 151 viewings, by January the figure had reached just under 800, month by month my readership was increasing bringing us to today when it has ended up with approaching 1600 visitors so far this month. I often talk with other bloggers and we all seem to share the same passion for trying to beat our best day blogging. Mine was back in September when 144 people stopped by to see what was happening.

The success of the blog has spawned other blogs within the company which includes our SEO blog which has received some excellent feedback as well. Here’s to the next 100 postings.

Once again UFindUs.com are storming ahead of most of our competition with regards to Business Directory web traffic. But don’t just take our word from it, the official figures are from hitwise.

Yet again hitwise have confirmed UFindUs as one of the market leaders placing us directly behind Yell.com whilst Googleare in the number 1 spot. This steady progression through the rankings on the hitwise league table is testament to the strength of our product range and increasing brand awareness.

Having stood as a single directory for over 2 years UFindUs.com became part of the brand identity of Customer Street (July 2007) which also boasts around 150 trade directories as well as the national directories, More UK  and Smile Local.

I thought that it was probably worth while recapping on how to contact Customer Street and UFindUs. It’s easy for us to take for granted that people will immediately know how to get in touch but it is not always that obvious when you are searching for a number.
You can write to us at:
Customer Street
Lancaster Business Park
Caton Road
Lancaster
LA1 3RQ

By Phone:
0845 338 0500 – Customer Support

Individual Sales Offices:
0845 338 0500 – Lancaster
0870 757 0070 – Blackpool
0870 757 3366 – Barrow
0870 300 3377 – Chorley
0845 236 1010 – Huddersfield

01524 529000 – Corporate Sales

Email:
info@customerstreet.com This link takes you directly to our online enquiry form

Probably the easiest way to have all this information to hand is to bookmark the contact page on the Customer Street website.

However you contact us we always try to make sure that we get back to you as quickly as possible.

Customer Street deal with more SME’s (small to medium enterprises) than the majority of online business directories. If a business category exists then chances are we cover it, whether it is windows in Widnes, electricians in Edinburgh or  builders in Basildon we have it covered.

But what are the important issues that affect your businesses on a day to day basis? How do you see the changes in the current global credit crunch economy impacting on your bread and butter trade? No matter what your comments are we want to hear them.

To help our customers we have set up the Customer Street Forum where you can have your say on what’s important to you. It doesnt matter what it is, you can have your say on the forum on any of the threads that are there, or why not create a new one of your own. We look forward to saying hi to you on the forum.

I know that on a regular basis I will tell you how busywe are here at Customer Street. That is still very true indeed. We have been preparing form many months to launch the new Rapid Site 3 software, an intuitive on-line version of the old software which is fast apporaching the end of its useful life.

Likewise during the 6 months before the sale of UFindUs to BT Directories there was much behind the scenes activity which has kept all the management team busy. All this said I have noticed that in my role as the Accountability Manager here at Customer Street the last 6 months or so have significantly quietened down.

The issues which I used to be contacted about 18 months ago generally seem a distant memory. Our systems have been changed and improved to reflect better business practice and the needs of our customers are given paramount importance. Last summer UFindUs introduced a brand new product range under the Customer Street brand, increasing fourfold the power of the product we were selling by introducing other directories like Smile Local and More UK.

All these things have now really started to gel and general customer satisfaction is at an all time high, our systems allow our staff to respond to customers efficiently and in gneenral our customer s have any technical or support issues fixed first time round. Should things not go to plan, and lets face it you can’t cater for every eventuality with 100% certainly, we are able to move with speed to either fix it directly with the customer or if needs be alter our processes to ensure it can’t happen again.

Our philosophy is simple, but effective. We think like a business that wants to succeeed and be a market leader, and at the same time we also think like a customer and incorporate this to help plan our business strategy.

It looks likely that within the next two weeks Customer Street will be able to roil out the much talked about RapidSite 3 software.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been testing the sites functionality out with a small number of customers who have been asked to give their honest opinions on how it works. We have also have had our staff road test the software as well, their brief, to try and break the software and reveal any potential glitches before its release.

Things are going well and we have now extended the trial to a wider group of customers after making a few minor alterations.  It is likely to get high levels of interest from within the industry itself due to the ease of which customers can customise their own sites. BT Directories have already said that they too are seriously looking at using the software across the board as their web building platform.

Keep popping back for more updates on RapidSite3. The new sites will work in pretty much the same way as our original sites, that is they will be extremely search engine friendly therefore helping Customer Street and BT Directories keep their customers one step ahead of the rest of the competition.

It’ a couple of weeks since BT signed on the dotted line to finalise the purchase of UFindUs Ltd from Iomart Plc. The transition so far has been pretty much uneventful, and most of the work is currently taking place behind the scenes.

I’m sure that for a while this will continue to be the case as the senior management teamcontinue their hard work in making sure that new plans and strategies are discussed, developed and then put in place in order for Customer Street to go to the next level.

We are pleased to say that BT Directories have announced  that they are looking to continue their investment in our regional offices and have been announcing the creation of additional jobs.  Currently the Customer Street brand, which includes UFindUs.com, SmileLocal.com and MoreUK.com, are marketed out of 5 sales offices which also includes the Lancaster head office that houses the customer contact centre and development functions as well.

Local papers in all of our locations have been quick to pick up on the good news regarding the new jobs which will be created. In total over the next 12 months the plan is to create 90 new jobsin total which include 15 in Lancaster and 20 in each office in Barrow and Chorley.

Well it’s been a busycouple of weeks here in the Customer Street offices. If you have stopped by previously to check out some of my other postings you will already be aware that last week heralded the announcement of BT’s acquisition of UFindUs and the Customer Street brand.

This  week various staff members have been ushered into our meeting room, but for what? The staff were chosen for their various knowledge of pc software, or in some cases their innocence in relation to it. The purpose for their absence off the deck was to test drive the new online Rapidsite 3 software. Ideally we wanted them to find the glitches which we don’t want our customers to find. It’s not very often that we encouragee people to try to break something but there is a time and a place for everything.

The result left our senior management with a well deserved grin you could see from outer space. In fact Stuart Forrest has blogged about the success of the software already. Although it has taken since the start of last year to get this far the finished product has been an instant winner with all those who have seen it.

BT Directories have also arrived just at the right time too, they have got to see pretty much the end result and have even indicated that they are seriously considering using Rapidsite 3 as their standard website builder and content manager system.

I guess the software will never be “finished” and perhaps should be considered as a work in progress. As our customer needs change we will be able to update the applications online ready for people to download at the drop of a hat. The flexibility of the system has already been a hit with the customers who are using the trialing the Beta version. We are all looking forward to the next few weeks when we hope to be able to launch the software across the whole of our customer base.

When I arrived at work on Wednesday I think we all knew something special was about to happen. The day before all the department heads were advised that we were once more expecting visitors, this included our 4 other sales branches as well.

Over the last 6 months we have become accustomed to visitors the Customer Street office. Sometimes they would be seen from afar, sometimes they would be introduced to you before passing on to another department and sometimes they would stay a little longer to observe what was happening.

The purpose of their visits were known only to a few of the senior management team who would be directly involved in assisting with the processes involved in the separation of the business from our parent company, Iomart, and the preparatory work involved in the purchase by BT Directories.

It doesn’t take too long for rumours to circulate, some slightly more accurate than others, but the sadness is that for lots of legal reasons the City aren’t keen on us to be able to spread the good news until the ink is on the paper (when we broke the news to our teams the ink was still wet enough to smudge).

My email inbox has been in meltdown as the RSS feeds have poured in over the last 48 hours. The headlines have proclaimed that BT have spent £20M in acquiring UFindUs Ltd, owners of the Customer Street brand. I guess I always knew there would be interest in the sale as and when it went through, but, I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be reported from around the globe.

At 12pm as our staff were being addressed by Stuart Forrest and David Benjamin (the CEO of BT Directories) the both the BT and Iomart press departments simultaneously broke the news which was then, within minutes, being sent around the world. A short time after this the stories, now reassembled into a format suitable for their intended audience, were being sent back around the world again to break the news to whoever would be interested enough to find it.

I had no idea that there would be interest on this scale in the fact BT Directories had bought an online business directory. But it has gone to prove that despite the current “credit crunch” BT are really looking hard at their medium to long term business view and are prepared to invest in getting their resources right for the future. Why did BT buy UFindUs? David Benjamin is quoted as saying on one of the press releases I read that not only was our client base a big attraction but also our technical knowledge was a major factor.

There is no getting away from the fact that that the vision of people like Stuart Forrest in knowing what the market wants before the market even knows what it wants has been crucial in all of this. Likewise the ability of a very talented development and technical team to take these visions from drawing board to desktop have and will continue to play one of the largest parts in the success of the business.

Why not let us know your comments on the Customer Street Forum.