Cool Webing is a social tech enterprise that provides digital solutions to small businesses and community-based organisations to innovate the way they communicate and interact with customers. Our digital solutions include the design and development of customised mobile apps in both Android and iOS platform.
We also design and develop mobile-friendly websites and ecommerce sites with a wide range of features and functionality aimed to automate processes and enhance users’ online experiences. By implementing our digital solutions, organisations are now able to gain better exposure and visibility, differentiate their products and services from the competition and provide their customers a more engaging digital experience.
We are built on the principle of giving rather than taking and has strong values: Service, Collaboration, Honesty and Integrity. These core values are the foundation of all our acts and decisions, bringing purposeful actions for the present and positive thinking for the future.
We are keen on supporting community activities of different kind that respond to a major cause as well as cultural activities that foster the well-being of the community members. We will keep participating and collaborating with community-based activities, such as ‘Polio vaccination’, organised by the Rotary Club; the ‘multicultural event’, organised by the Armidale Private Hospital; ‘New England Tech Fest’ organised by North Armidale Rotary; the ‘Indigenous world series: Peru’, organised by the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place; and ‘Dance with the Stars’ organised by the Cancer Council NSW.
Cool Webing strives to expand the social business model, a model in which businesses identify a social purpose that fits within their values and make real contributions to the society. In addition, we foster ‘coopetition’ in which businesses simultaneously collaborate and compete, bringing more valuable products and services to customers.
We want to inspire other small businesses and start-ups not to adapt to changes, but to create the change; not to look for alternatives, but to be the alternative. Yet, we want to inspire others to make a positive impact to the community we work in, to the environment we live in and to the people we work with. I need to highlight the fact that any digital innovation is not an end product. It constantly changes and those changes posed a challenge for us. We need to keep learning, be flexible, change quickly and respond faster to market needs in order to be competitive. Being flexible is not an easy task. It involves the ability to listen to new ideas and to consider new approaches even if it means to disregard work in progress or processes that worked for us in the past. It also encompasses the motivation to keep learning and to look for answers in other industries.
Another key learning is given by the relationship between communication and expectations. It is of paramount importance to communicate and explain clearly the process of getting a mobile app, as well as the features that could best fit specific business needs. We have learnt to listen actively and to ask as many questions as possible to determine the best way to provide mobile/web services. A lack of communication or miscommunication is likely to lead our customers to false expectations that could be detrimental for the business relationship.
Honesty is vital for a trustworthy relationship. For instance, when something goes wrong with our server that affects some functions in a customer’s mobile app, we are responsible to communicate this problem (and its implications) immediately to the customer, and let them know that we are working to solve the issue. We need to inform also an estimated timeframe in which we expect the issue to be solved. If we need more time, we need to communicate this again to our customers so they are aware of what is going on.
We have also learnt to be patient, to stay motivated and to persevere particularly during adverse circumstances. It has been a challenge to let businesses know the different ways in which they can benefit from having a mobile app. At the end, if they do not see a tangible benefit, they will not purchase from us. The average time for a customer to acquire a mobile app from us has been two months. It entailed building a relationship and trust with the customer. As this is a new technology, it takes time for businesses to understand how this technology works and to realise how they can benefit from them.
Teamwork is also a vital factor. It is very important for us to have a network of skilled people ready to act in a timely manner, either when something goes wrong or when we need to develop specific functionalities. Over time we found reliable tech savvy professionals who contributed with per project-based fashioned. We mainly rely on the work of software developers, network engineers, systems engineers and graphic designers.
