TayoSolagbade.com is back online! [In case you didn’t know it went offline, read the story at the bottom of this piece]
As the late Nigerian Yoruba musician Orlando Owo once sang “What has happened has happened”, I accept this latest experience of my website suffering avoidable downtime of about 40 hours, as yet another lesson to guide me in deciding who to trust, when and for what.
The WHO could be a person, or group of people or organisation. In this case, it was an organisation. But I’m done talking about it (see text of Facebook update I did yesterday about it).
What I will say here though is that it was VERY inconsiderate of the bank to NOT go out of their way to alert – repeatedly too! – ALL their card users who they could see (from their records) routinely use the Naira cards that got roundly declined by Paypal.
Instead they quielty left us to discover it individually – even when it meant potentiallt serious damage to perception of our brands.
I think a Farm CEO client of mine who called me today, and got to know about it, got it right when he said:
“They probably chose not to broadcast the news about Paypal discontinuing use of their cards, because they felt it would be a dent on their image!”
My response was:
“So they were more concerned about protecting their image than they were about protectingn their customers’ brands, that PAY for them to maintain that so called image?!”
That’s a typically Nigerian warped attitude to customer service.
Now don’t get me wrong.
Nobody is asking them to commit brand suicide by announcing a setback that makes them look bad, compared to rivals.
My argument is that:
1. they could, at the least, have discretely sent us email or SMS messages WARNING us that the NAIRA cards no longer worked, and advising us on new platforms to switch to.
2. Even if they did not want to use email or SMS, they could have gotten our individual account managers to check our profiles and call us up to brief us on this development which had such serious implications for our business lives.
I say this as one who lives a 100% digital lifestyle.
Virtually everything I do is based on the web, so I depend HEAVILY on the use of my card.
What I did not know was that the fact that the card still worked locally, did not mean it still worked everywhere else, especially internationally.
After 5 years of depending on my NAIRA card, and having it work perfectly for me both on and off the web, just as the bank had assured in various promotional messages, how could I imagine such an extreme reversal of functionalities could occur?!
Least of all to me – someone with so many people I serve using my ability to make payments for solutions they benefit through me!!
I am deeply disappointed that GT bank could let this kind of experience happen to ANY of her customers.
They need to do better in future.
They MUST learn to think and act with MAJOR Emotional Intelligence in handing the affairs of their clients – especially those vulnerable to mishaps of this nature, due to Nigeria’s shaky Naira exchange regimen.
In other words, they need to put themselves in the shoes of their customers – and TRY hard to feel what their customers feel, so they know what matters to EACH one and then act to help them on the basis of insights gained.
When you do that, your customers are more likely to do better, and YOU will ultimately benefit!
For now, I’ve taken a cue from what has happened, and I will henceforth control my bragging about what can or cannot go wrong with their web based solutions. Sorry.
1. My Excel Heaven Spreadsheet Automation Website located at excelheaven.tayosolagbade.com – BACK ONLINE
2. My Flagship Performance Improvement Website located at TayoSolagbade.com – BACK ONLINE
3. My Multidisciplinary Self-Development Nuggets (SDNuggets) Blog located at tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets – BACK ONLINE
4. My Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas and Farm CEO Newspaper Website located at iff.tayosolagbade.com – BACK ONLINE
5. Screenshot of auto-notifications confirming payment completion for both TayoSolagbade.com and Tksola.com 
Below: Screenshot of what visitors who visited TayoSolagbade.com or any of its subdomains would have seen from about post-midnight yesterday (Tuesday 9th May 2017 till about 12:30p.m today, Wednesday 10th May 2017)
Below: Text of Facebook status update I published yesterday, on my wall, after I’d established the cause of my inability to make renewal payment for hosting of my domains…
Choi!
See as GT just fall my hand online today. Na wa O. No wonder they say never put your trust in any man – or in my case: in any BANK lol!
Come see as yours truly begin dey do investigative phone calling to find another way to make payment for web hosting renewal.
After many failed phone conversations – I’ve finally found someone (referred by a client) who has a Dollar card and is willing to help me fund my reseller account online.
But the price is steep. To transfer the $34 I need to my reseller account, I have to pay a total of $45 USD.
I don’t mind that however.
Instead what really irks me is that I NEVER got email or SMS from GT alerting me to the fact that Paypal no longer recognised their Naira Mastercard. They left me to discover it at the point of renewal!
As a result, TayoSolagbade.com is now currently offline – due to my inability to fund my hosting account to renew it for another year.
Even worse is the fact that a client’s website may also go down by Midnight today – as the alternative payment option I’ve found is not likely to be active before tomorrow.
This is so not cool, as the Americans would say. Over here we say: Dis wan na yawa O!
But here’s the irony:
As I type these words a GT bank SMS has already popped into my message inbox alerting me to the multiple benefits of getting myself a GT bank Dollar Mastercard that has no li
mits!
Isn’t it funny how they so readily thought to send that, but never thought it necessary to warn me that the Naira card I was depending on would no longer work for most purposes I’d gotten used to using it for?
This is a reflection of the quality of minds manning the areas where the above are handled in GT.
I know some great GT bank personnel. Very diligent about doing their work.
But I believe there are many more who do not put their hearts into the work they do.
They do not care how their lack of proactiveness hurts the client or his/her business. They only care about themselves and looking good on the job!
A sad shame.
Anway, work continues for me. I’ve been down this website downtime road more times than I care to remember. No be today. Each time I simply focus on finding a viable solution and putting it to use.
That’s what matters most: Kicking adversity out of the way so as to move forward to newer and better things!