Banning the BB Messenger

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Blackberry+phone&iid=2320188″ src=”7/5/0/f/Blackberry_Bold_Launch_4390.jpg?adImageId=10962429&imageId=2320188″ width=”234″ height=”351″ /]If the news about CITC efforts to ban the BB messenger service turned out to be true (here in Arabic), then CITC should be really honored for their great efforts in making the most bizarre and unexplainable decisions ever.

People are still not totally recovered from its earlier decision to stop the free roaming services (read about it here) to be shocked now by this out-of-no-where kind of decisions. The common ground between the two decisions, or the approaches to make these decisions, is that they both lack logical reasoning and clear explanations. CITC is now developing this talent of surprising everybody with strange news and not feeling likely to support their decisions with clear, solid justifications.

It is really strange to see that such kind of behavior is widely used in the Saudi business scene. While modern PR and communication concepts are encouraging transparency and openness with customers and end users, Saudi organizations are doing exactly the opposite; they do not care telling anybody about their decisions, they do not provide adequate justifications, and they simply feel that they are above questioning!! (in addition to CITC bright examples, you can read a similar approach used by Pepsi and Coca Cola here.)

Despite all that, I am wondering what could be the reasons that made them think of such a decision. I really hope it is not about boys and girls chatting more freely now! I know many friends who adopted this application in their business interactions and it is a major part of their daily business routine. The only acceptable reasoning that we could argue with them about is if they found some national security issues related to using such application. In that case, total banning is not the answer, I believe they could work closely with the application operator to reach some kind of arrangements. After all, this application is not only working in Saudi Arabia, is it?!!

Finally, let’s hope that this news piece will not turn into reality and, who knows, it could be even a rumor!! Learned lessons, can sometimes come from rumors!!

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CITC and The Hatred Campaign

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=talking+on+the+phone&iid=7292561″ src=”d/b/4/e/Business_executives_talking_a1f9.jpg?adImageId=10333919&imageId=7292561″ width=”380″ height=”253″ /]

The anger campaign, or you could call it ‘the hatred campaign,’ currently running by both media and customers themselves against the Saudi CITC (The Communication and Information Technology Commission) is a very interesting case study for a classical public relation failure.

It is not only that they could not construct a logical reasoning to explain their strange decision of asking the three local companies to stop providing free roaming services, they are arrogantly responding to criticism by blaming the companies they are supervising beside keep acting like they are bigger than explaining themselves to anybody!

Building your case on keep repeating that customer should be charged in order to save the market from fair competitive environment temperament does not make a lot of sense to be honest. It could be arguably accepted if one of these companies is not able to compete with the others because of some external factors (i.e. political, economical, legal, etc), but when the whole three companies are happily willing to provide the free roaming services, your reasoning is just brought to its knees!

Nevertheless, imposing such kind of legalisation is deeply affecting one of the three operative companies that built its entire strategy on the idea of being available as a roaming free operator across many Arabic countries.

All in all, the conclusion is straight forward. Whether you are a private or a public organization, you should really embrace modesty whenever communicating with your customers. You could have your own way; your own style, your own brand image but you better be there to explain yourself whenever needed. I hope CITC realizes that we are actually its customers; may be we are not paying it anything directly, but its mere existence is based on a main purpose; ultimately, serving us!!

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