Why The Customer Is Not Always Right: Countering Competitor Disinformation

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Multifamily Tech Gurus Podcast series. I'm Kerry Kirby, the founder and CEO of 3605 Connect, along with my Steam co-host, Jimmy Lancaster, Software Engineering, Storden Air, and Chief Product Officer here at 3605 Connect.

[00:00:24] Today we're talking about why the customers not always right. And the fact that they might not be, maybe that they come loaded with a bag of disinformation. Jimmy, you see the emails. Sometimes

[00:00:41] they come loaded with the convincing report attached to them. And it's all kind of stuff in our space. We see things about, you got bad SEO, your websites not performing right all the way to who's maintaining your social media, all your pages are bad and not maintained correctly.

[00:01:07] What's going on out there? You see some of the stuff. What's happening? Well, I think this topic probably applies well beyond websites. It can include things like applications or your resident portal in the features that it has. But the websites for me is the most

[00:01:24] obvious and easy thing to talk about because they're so easy to attack. They're publicly available assets out there in the world. And so, yeah, so for website vendors especially it's a really

[00:01:38] easy thing to do to go run this report. You make it look really fancy and you use some technical jargon in it and you have everything in red and it's like bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And so at that point,

[00:01:54] you can be really be convinced that whatever my current vendors doing, this is not good and it needs to get fixed immediately. And the reality of the subject is, you know, so much trying to sell you something and it's in their best interest that that report says,

[00:02:13] bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. So that's kind of where we end up and then as you know it goes down around the whole of, you know, back and forth and really ultimately at that point having to

[00:02:26] educate people on what's really going on here. Yeah, it's debunking this information and we know the website of it because we're in that business so we know the public facing things are

[00:02:40] accessible and easy to see but I'm sure it happens with other things. I mean if I drop up to your property, your building is easy to see that it's not being maintained, your landscaping

[00:02:51] is going to be very visible. It's something that always catches my attention for some odd reason. If I walk around and see your pool, I have a pool, very easy to attack them on my, I don't know,

[00:03:03] third or fourth pool guy, you know, because I've never seen one not tell me the other guys not doing the chemicals right. That's why there's something wrong with it. Eventually you get

[00:03:15] to a good place and once you do stay there. Really? So, you know, part of me says okay is this just human nature to attack someone else's work? It's something I don't like doing when I hear of it,

[00:03:35] I'm more apt not to use a vendor that attacks other people's work. And sometimes people look at things and I think I told you this had some hedges trimmed and I went off course and didn't use my usual guy because I wasn't happy with something

[00:03:55] else he did and the guy was there and he's like, oh, trim all your stuff too. And he's the power trimmer and then eventually my other guy came because he still does my long and he's like, hey, whatever or whatever you cut this with, the edges are burning.

[00:04:13] You're burnt because it's I never cut with a powered trimmer. I always do him by hand because it'll burn them. I didn't think much of it until they grow out a little more and I saw the

[00:04:26] tips of them are burned. So, all I'm saying is sometimes a grass isn't greener on the other side when you buy in the summer of the information. The castes and greener pun intended. Right, or it's burnt.

[00:04:43] Got some burnt grass over here. Yeah, no and I think that's definitely the side effect of it, right? Here's a report. Here's everything that we don't like about it and I think a lot of it

[00:04:59] ends up being preference but it's presented as fact, right? And so it's like our preference is that you have a call to action at the bottom of the page. It's like, well, is there golden rules saying

[00:05:13] you have to? No, I think a lot of people do it. It's probably, but maybe maybe you don't have to have that or maybe you have something else that is a that accomplishes some other motive, right? And so

[00:05:26] but these things get presented as fact. Hey, you're not doing it this way. Therefore, it is bad and it's like, well, it's not really bad. It's just a different philosophy and it's producing its own

[00:05:39] results, good results. But this person has it in their best interest to pick out something that they think is wrong and that's so that they can help assist them in their process to sell you on

[00:05:52] their products. So I think at the end of the day, you got to look at somebody and say, what's their motive? Right? If they have, if they're doing it for free, they don't have a dog in the hunt,

[00:06:03] then you should probably seriously consider it. But if you're getting a report from somebody saying your website's bad and they just so happen to sell websites that will take care of all these

[00:06:14] problems, you probably need to stop and think about it a little bit before you just trust them on what they're doing. And there's a vendor in the industry that's pretty well known for doing that attacking other providers' websites and they just randomly do it and just happen to

[00:06:38] send you a report. Not anything you ask for, they may have never talked to you and they'll just generate a report and it's O.D. or O.M.I. we've seen some of those. They'll remain nameless but

[00:06:50] they know who they are and I just think it's a cheap way to go try to get business, right? Because look, everybody's using something so that's you know, no secret that somebody is going to want

[00:07:01] to need to make a change right for you to get that business. But you know, people go out and look at different things now and then and make those decisions on their own. I think feeding them

[00:07:13] disinformation is not the way to do it and we've seen some of these reports. There are disinformation because we've had to take a mapart and answer them and it's work we don't need would bad stuff

[00:07:30] in it but they send them in the customers like, oh, you know, well look at this, you know, and then you're answering it. I receive this thing, it must be true, right? Right. And

[00:07:41] and you know, I look at that and I know that's sales tactic that gets used even beyond our industry and I think if that's what it takes to sell, I will never survive as a sales person because

[00:07:53] me personally, I think, you know, if I see something and I see you're trying to do something and I know our product doesn't do it any better. Maybe different, right? Our product will every product

[00:08:03] is different and it has its own strengths and weaknesses and so it's like yeah, we do a different some things that I think are better but like overall it's not going to be better. I have to be honest

[00:08:16] and tell you that, you know, so um and so I think that's probably one reason I'll never survive as a sales person. I will my family will starve. You know the the problem with these reports was not

[00:08:29] only you know, you got it as a as the vendor of record to have to go, you know, take them apart and show them what's wrong and all this on them. It's also a hell of a way to get business because

[00:08:45] it's almost like defamation and you just put it in writing so a lot of these cases you see somebody said something bad about me and there has to be an effect for a defamation case to

[00:08:56] really have teeth like okay what harm did that cause you? So at the end of the road, how are you harmed is the million dollar question but if you send us stuff out and you do get some business

[00:09:10] you've harmed the other vendor with bad information if somebody just believed it on its face and in that vendor said well I'm going to go prove this wrong you've gone beyond defamation there's a thing called like restraint a trade there's torches in a fence that you interfere

[00:09:33] in the business relationship so if you're if you're dispersing a report that's harming another company and that information is false you've opened yourself up to some liability so my my

[00:09:50] thing is a is a friend of the vendor community is think twice before you do stuff like that because you could have some serious repercussions you send that out on the wrong vendor one day

[00:10:02] you know a guy with a legal mind maybe me you're you're you're you're one with too much of money that he's not a couple those wrongs yeah there is he might just take it a task

[00:10:16] yeah and you know the the other ones are the SEO firms I mean they're what I call the kings of disinformation we've seen some of those reports yeah so so that the SEO ones are it's

[00:10:31] it's it's kind of interesting to me because they they are that consultant type of approach you know they probably they I mean they might but they likely don't sell a website a lot of them aren't necessarily

[00:10:44] multi family specifics so they don't have that type of product but at the end of the day they have sold you on pain them a thousand dollars a month or whatever it is that they convince you

[00:10:55] to pay them and they need to show results they need to show that they bring value to the table and so a lot of them are gonna come up with things whether they're accurate or reasonable

[00:11:07] and or whatever it may be and I say reasonable because there's things like oh your your website doesn't look fast and it's like well yeah you have high res pictures of your beautiful

[00:11:21] community in here that you're trying to to display if you want it to look faster get rid of every image of this property you know so it's like well that's not the answer no yeah you're just

[00:11:33] you're gonna take a little bit of a hit and also the third party widgets that some people all put this on my soul man those really job a script and I'm just hangs yeah so if you put it in a

[00:11:46] system and that's a lot of these report you'll see it's like oh it doesn't load good mobile and even the website company I'm talking about that but I doesn't load good mobile yeah we know that

[00:11:58] because they made us put 10 things on here that we disagree with that's right but again it's a customer always right I can only tell them but I can't prevent them from using something

[00:12:11] and say oh I can't do that because it's gonna be a lot bad load mobile and then these guys over here are gonna send you a thing saying it loads bad you're gonna move all your business you know it's

[00:12:21] one of the things that pop up is always being too heavy that you should remove to get your score up Google analytics like that right because it's like every well who doesn't do Google analytics right

[00:12:32] because it's loading in the background yeah but but a lot of these things it sounds good in a report oh it's loading bad but you're seeing it right yeah site really

[00:12:43] probably loaded but maybe everything on the page didn't load yet and if you're good at it we do this because you know what's the thing now big long beefy home pages yeah so we might have a location

[00:12:57] map at the bottom I don't want to load that map to you get to it right yeah because I why put to pull on the site let's let it load slowly as we go down so if you go stick that in a you know

[00:13:11] a site load report it's gonna be like when's everything load on it right including that bad widget you gave us to put on there and then it scores bad yeah and that gets used against you

[00:13:22] and then you're trying to explain all this right and then you're spending unnecessary hours trying to explain something to a customer that believes this mysterious report they got and I like to think

[00:13:37] you know I think about an example that we dealt with once where we had somebody that went to an SEO firm and I mean I don't know how much they were paying these people but I'm gonna guess

[00:13:50] you know maybe let's call it a thousand dollars because that's probably what a lot of them go for and so they're paying a thousand dollars to this this SEO firm who's running SEO reports

[00:14:00] they're making SEO recommendations and they also as a value ad we're also doing a you know WebExecibility or ADA online ADA testing and so they came back and they're like oh here's

[00:14:16] a report of all these ADA changes that we need you to make and like hold up like we spin six figures a year making sure that we're compliant we go to we use a third party firm that is

[00:14:30] the one of the best in the industry and you have somebody that you paid a thousand dollars to that rena report that really honestly knows nothing about this and then they're given us you know

[00:14:42] a list of things to change and it's like hold up like we're gonna undo the certification that we had and you're just putting this on us and you're convinced that you need to do this and it's

[00:14:51] really just because you just somebody just swindled you for a thousand dollars and you don't want to feel like you were taking advantage of right and so now it's like well I spent this money

[00:15:00] I need I need to not look like or feel like I'm a fool for doing it because I you know it's taking advantage of so now I'm gonna go ask you 365 connect to go make these change and

[00:15:12] it's and we told them there's no way we're doing that you're gonna undo everything that we did we spin so much money on this. I was actually got on that call because I was

[00:15:25] I think we asked for the call because we saw the report and got on the call and it was two people from the CSEO firm and we're like you know I think I opened the call up what do

[00:15:38] you know about ADA and have you ever defended a ADA litigation lawsuit on a website if you have been involved in any of that etc etc and I guess at a point aggravated the customer

[00:15:57] with my line of questioning because I civil allow me to introduce myself. I've the only ADA certified sites in the industry start in 2018. Whole 12 global technology awards just for ADA consult what a law firm on ADA website lawsuits. I'm going down a list right let me just

[00:16:21] bury you in the ground right and you're telling me to go change some of my stuff in the customers like would you quit a tax and I'm just can you just do what they say and it's like

[00:16:31] now this is a platform I've run it for you and everybody else and I'm not doing that it's not what I do you know so I that that that that thing we did is for the good of the human race for the world

[00:16:47] it's beyond you and you know you get pushed back but anyway we couldn't change our stuff and I don't think they like that but who are you to come up with a recommendation on ADA? Play that

[00:17:00] on somebody else wrong yeah it's it's like I said earlier about the report be careful who you whose product you're attacking be careful who you attack on ADA. Yeah and you know that's something

[00:17:14] we know that we are hands down I mean we're so far ahead of anybody else doing that that I mean nobody can even like really talk or compete with us on that subject and so

[00:17:27] even with that it's like we're still getting in attack you you know and people are going to do it because you know whether it's the SEO firm or it's some other vendor competing looking for somebody's

[00:17:38] business they will come up with stuff they will try to you know they will give you things because their goal is to win your business and get your money right and what blows my mind is

[00:17:52] I mean like what motivates a customer believe this stuff I mean basically what they asked us to do is equivalent of hey can you come tear the handrail off of a handicap accessible ramp

[00:18:09] so I'll be out of compliance because you know I don't know somebody came by and said you know that handrail it's just kind of blocking my view of your landscape and it can't see the

[00:18:23] burnt tips on your plants and they're sure let's rip this handrail out you know who's going to do anything right there's no lawyers looking around for lawsuits and stuff like this yeah no it's it's

[00:18:41] crazy so yeah so I mean at the end of the day I think I think that's why it's important to look at the motive of the person you're taking um taking you know they're word on these things

[00:18:55] and say you know is this really a fact or is it an opinion do they are they really even qualified and then at the also you know if you go run some of the reports on these these other vendors

[00:19:08] their own sights out in the wild obviously you know the demo when they gave you is going to perform great but like when you go see it in real life on on other you know people out in the wild and

[00:19:20] you find out oh this thing's going worse than what I have you know and that's the other thing that you'll you don't see yeah we we uh no salesperson's gonna offer that up I think we

[00:19:31] when we had to refute one of the reports from the website vendor we actually did that ran one of their sights and said look it loads worse and what there's what they're saying yours does

[00:19:44] and then I think one of their things was about compressing images oh you should be using this a particular thing to compress images yeah but we use something that's better yeah yeah no

[00:19:57] it's it's a matter of opinion right but but we'll ding in the report because they're not using that one right but but it looks good in the report right it's a it's a red X yeah that's what

[00:20:10] you're always on those reports you're not compressing my images and this company would do that you know so yeah so Jimmy I think to bring this one home I think to take away on this as you know

[00:20:25] question the motive of those that are attacking a product or service use and then again I'm talking the property companies out there stay connected with the providers you trust because look time builds trust performance builds trust so if you have somebody it's been performing you know maybe

[00:20:43] it's the guy that's been handcotting all your you know hedges and not using a power trimmer and you haven't had burn edges until you tried somebody else you know talk to them tell them your

[00:20:56] concerns and and have those you know maybe hard conversations about hey I got this report I have some concerns so I'm reading some things can we walk through this and you give me your

[00:21:09] viewpoint on it and if you don't hear what you like or you think you know the grass is green on the other side and the tips aren't burnt then you know it's a good time to go somewhere else

[00:21:21] I would even add to that and say go see if you can get the opinion of somebody that doesn't make money based on this being one way or another you know go if you have some other people that you can leverage

[00:21:35] maybe in your network maybe they're on the innovation council with you or whatever it may be right you know hey I heard you know about S.E.O. I heard you know about this this subject whatever it may be

[00:21:48] what's your opinion on this and then they'll give it to you straight because they don't you know their paycheck doesn't depend on you believing one way or another yeah and Jimmy I think our closest when

[00:21:58] out would have messaged to our fellow vendors out there which is look build great products that that's at the end of the day that's what's gonna win that's what's gonna bring you businesses

[00:22:11] put your heart and soul into what you do in the words of iconic rock band Arrowsmith if you blow a little love in it it'll go a long way so I'm gonna close this one out on that note an Arrowsmith note

[00:22:28] thanks for joining us you can find us streaming everywhere and be sure to visit us online at multifamilytechgooros.com until next time I'm carry Kirby along with Jimmy Lancaster and we are the multi-family tech gurus