Author: Geoff Ebbs

Business Queensland warns business owners to be sure they understand their obligations under the consumer laws. The key message is that you need to understand the nine guarantees you make just by selling a good to a consumer. Business to business services are not exempt either.

Business.qld.gov.au contains a range of resources on guarantees and warranties and the implications for small business which are summarised below.

There are two potential traps for business owners and operators in the current consumer laws stemming from the guarantees and warranty clauses that many operators are not aware of.

The first trap is that by selling the goods you are declaring them fit for purpose. If they do not do what you have advertised them as doing, then that is your problem. Literally. You need to make good to the consumer. There are none consumer warranties that apply to goods, and three applying to services. It is worth your while making sure that you understand them.

The second trap only applies to those companies that sell extended warranties. “Here is your washing machine sir, would you like a five year warranty on that for an additional $120.”

There is nothing illegal or problematic about the warranty, or selling it, the problem is that most of the terms in most extended warranties are exactly the same as the guarantees offered to consumers under the law. The customer who says to you, “No thanks I don’t need to pay for that, you have guaranteed all of those things by selling me the goods,”  might be a smart-arse but they are, in fact, correct.

Business Queensland refers proprieters to the specific area of the Fair Trading website to deal with that specific issue.

All in all, this is an area that affects all of us, whether we are selling goods or services and whether we are dealing with the public, or other businesses.

To review the full range of information collected by Business Queensland head over to the Legal Obligations area of their website.

This post lifted from http://www.voiceforindi.com/_indishares

The eyes of the nation focused on the Indi electorate during the 2013 Federal election campaign, as this previously safe seat saw a nine per cent against the national trend and elected an Independent candidate backed by the Voices for Indi community movement.

Voices for Indi has since been contacted by many community groups, NGOs, advocacy and activist groups, unions and election candidates of varied political affiliations who wish to learn about the simple and effective process that gave voice to the people of Indi and created such extraordinary electoral change.

In response an IndiShares forum will be held at the Oxley Hall on 14th June.

Cathy McGowan MP and key people from her campaign team and Voices for Indi and will be there to share and discuss all aspects of building participatory democracy and how to conduct an innovative and successful election campaign.

IndiShares will take the form of round table conversations, hosted by a V4I member with a maximum of ten participants. These round table conversations will be for thirty minutes and there will be an opportunity to attend up to five different topic conversations throughout the day.

The forum will end with a plenary session for general questions and discussion.

To ensure quality conversation for participants IndiShares numbers will be limited, so please register early.

Session themes will be:

• Voices for Indi: how to build values based participatory democracy
• Kitchen Table Conversations: the process for giving people voice
• Social Media: new platforms for engagement and crowdfunding
• Website/Nation Builder: communications and managing the data
• Young People: inclusion and embracing new ideas
• Volunteers: signing up to values, belonging and training
• Branding/Marketing: creating identity
• Innovative Campaigning and Events : flashmobs, pop up events
• Electioneering: creativity, fun and logistics
• Being an Independent Candidate

Tickets cost $180pp and will be limited.  To request a registration package or to make further enquiries, please email voiceforindi@voiceforindi.com

For media comment: Alana Johnson, V4I President – 0427 624 214

The Queensland Goverment’s Business portal promotes customer service as one of the keys to building your business effectively.

In February, Westender published a piece titled Customer Service is still King, singing the praises of the West End KwikKopy who had gone the extra mile and won our business loyalty.

Business.Qld.Gov.au provides a range of tips on their customer service site. The summary is provided below.

Customer service is about giving customers what they want, when they want it, in the best possible way. If your business provides good customer service, you have a greater chance of keeping and increasing your customer base.

Research indicates that it costs up to 10 times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer.

Good customer service can help your business grow by increasing:

• customer numbers through favourable word-of-mouth advertising
• the dollar amount spent per customer per transaction
• the frequency of customer visits.

You can establish a culture of excellent customer service in your business by planning, developing and sustaining a customer service program. Train your staff to give your customers the highest level of service.

I always recommend to other business owners that they go as far as using the ISO9001 approach, even if you are not required or planning to be certified as a quality assured business. The thing is that if you do not formalise your process for dealing with customer (and other stakeholder) complaints, you are unlikely to improve.

When the time is write, Westender will publish some of the horror stories that local businesses could have avoided by paying better attention to customer service. The best time will probably be after those companies have folded, because bad news always travels faster than good news and so anyone with a reputation for poor customer service is not going to last long.

One very important thing to remember, however, is that this does not mean that the customer is always right.

What it does mean is that you have to make sure that you are listening to your customers and responding to what they are actually saying rather than simply trying to avoid them and the challenges they can represent.

To find out more about the ISO9001 customer service standard have a look at the official website of the International Standards Organisation. There is nothing like getting it from the source.

There are also many local consultants specialising in the area, and the general advice available from services like Bsuiness Queensland or your local chamber of commerce or the CCIQ.

The Draft New City Plan increases the residential population of 4101 from around 10,000 to around 30,000 people.

Most businesses assume that they will automatically get a share of this increase. But the impact on your business warrants careful thought.

Have a good look at the plan here. (Click on it for a larger version)

Everything north of Vulture Street and west of Montague Rd is going to be high rise development. Most of that will be new. It is difficult to imagine that those developers will not be taking some advantage of the retail opportunities that offers.

That could mean that there is much much more competition for the retail dollar and while the existing residents go and explore the new retail opportunities those new residents rarely if ever head into the old village straddling Boundary Street. it is not likely to be that extreme, but it is equally unlikely that all those residents are going to come shopping in the existing village, so it warrants some careful thought.

Where are the Westfield and Woolies going to go? Among those new developments are probably going to be some significant retail developments. We have a major Aldi store under construction on Montague Rd (have you been down there to have a look recently?) what other retailers are going to nestle in around it? What is going to happen on the 2.6 hectare, that is 26,000 square metre, site on Mollison and Boundary. If that became a major shopping mall, how would that affect your business?

Parking, shoppers and transport hubs. While West End currently has the highest percentage of cyclists inBrisbane and a very large number of people who walk to work, what will the new residents be like? They will have parking in their new apartment blocks, will they drive to the shops. Where will they park. If the new retail outlets in the new buildings have parking, how will that affect your business?

Westender has been following the arguments about the New City Plan with some interest. Read our backlist of articles to catch up. What is surprising, though, is that there is no real discussion of the impact on small, local businesses.

The assumption has been that if developers are making money and more people are coming to live here, that is good for the rest of us. Retailers in the semi deserted strip shopping centres of Alice Springs and Albury (just to include two starting with the letter A) have a different experience to report. Some times new development can make a ghost town out of an existing shopping strip. Existing businesses need to engage with the planning process to ensure that the characteristics that full the streets of West End with shoppers daily do not disappear overnight with the rapid development of the peninsula.

As part of its relentless counter reformation campaign to eliminate all forms of community service and put the corporations and churches in charge of all aspects of our daily lives, the Federal Government is proposing to cut all funding to Community Radio.

West End community radio station, 98.9 FM is an integral part of the local community, especially those who like Country Music. Brisbane’s famous 4zzzFM is not just a great supporter of live music and local culture, it has a long and powerful tradition of bringing down governments and exposing corruption, oppression and wrongdoing.

It is the effectiveness of community radio that has it firmly in the government’s sights.

A year ago, a strong grass roots campaign reversed a proposed decision by the Gillard/Rudd  Government to cut funding to the program to make community radio digital. This government is planning to cut funding altogether.

In response, the Community Broadcasters Association is calling on you to take action.

Our community radio stations are at serious risk.

The Commission of Audit last week recommended that funding for the Community Broadcasting Program be scrapped.
The Government is set to hand down its Federal Budget on Tuesday. If the Government adopts the Commission of Audit’s recommendation in the budget, we could see community radio stations across the country forced off air.
Will you help protect our community radio stations by emailing the Treasurer now?
We have less than five days to ensure cuts to community radio stations don’t end up in the budget.
Take a minute right now to email the Treasurer Joe Hockey and tell him that our community radio stations are too important to be put on the scrap heap.
We know that community radio is an integral part of the Australian broadcasting landscape. Community radio provides vital content for so many different communities, especially Indigenous, ethnic, seniors, youth, the vision impaired, religious, and the arts communities.
We can’t afford to lose any of the stations who provide local content that commercial and public broadcasters can’t or won’t cater for.
Help protect our community radio stations by clicking here to email the Treasurer.
Thanks for your support,

Adrian Basso,
President, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and the Commit to Community Radio team

www.committocommunityradio.org.au