It's the Third Thursday of the month and we are both in the office!

A focus group for our Clever Kids iPad Puzzle Game

Other links referenced...

• Our 'Responsive' Learn Apps Website
• Clever Kids First Puzzles Learning Game
• Building Trust Online - Airbnb User Safety
• Tuborg Promotion with 4Music
• We are seeking a Project Manager - know anyone good?

Is user verification an essential part of your business?

Many websites rely on their users' identity to be verified in order to create trust, especially when it comes to the exchange of money or even to ensure physical safety.

If you follow any of the major tech blogs you will have heard about the nightmares that Airbnb, the highly valued online marketplace for peer-to-peer travelling, have had recently. Airbnb enables people to earn money by renting out extra space, and offers travellers a viable alternative to hotels and hostels. However, after one blogger’s flat in San Francisco was ransacked by a “guest” concerns over safety and security were raised by the community.

Airbnb have rapidly added a load of new security features to their platform, including our very own Webcam Snapper app to help validate user identity.

Snapper is just one ingredient though so I thought it would be interesting to list the forms of verification they are using to build up a comprehensive user trust profile.

1. Webcam Photos
   This is ideal for helping you build trust that your users are who they say they are. A webcam photo taken whilst the user is logged into their account is far more likely to be authentic. Photos can also be date stamped and you can also request the user holds up an ID cards, driving licenses or passport to add further proof.
    
2. Validating a Phone Number
   Entering your mobile number and being sent a code automatically via SMS to input is pretty simple but very effective. Of course not all mobile numbers lead to trackable contracted folks but having a verified contact number is helpful.
    
3. Connecting your Social Network Profiles
   Over the past couple of years we have seen the rise of social logins where users can create accounts on websites and apps by authorising facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. to act on their behalf. Originally this was designed for convenience and end user security. However this use case is all about extending the digital footprint of a person for trust verification purposes. LinkedIn is an especially interesting use case here as an account on this platform very much places the user profile in a real life context.
    
4. User on User Reviews
   The power of comments from total strangers has meant big business for the likes of Amazon, Apple, eBay and Trip Advisor and this is no different. Over time the web has built up a degree of community, camaraderie and social responsibility amongst total strangers with a unified goal. The principle being that if we collectively share our thoughts and experiences we can all benefit from better products and services, as well as avoiding disasters!
    

Taken one by one none of the above (sadly even Snapper) can realistically say they crack the issue of online trust. However as a collective they build a compelling picture of a person that would be very hard to fake. Dodgy users are clearly not going to try and follow these steps which will weed them out as potential people to avoid.

In that regard Airbnb can say with some conviction that home owners enter into deals at their own risk. The vast majority of good apples won’t have any issues with that.

In creating the new 4Music site recently we ran into the age old problem of how to best crop uploaded images. Traditional cropping tools tend to be clunky, especially when you need to crop a single image in different ways as we did.

We hit upon the idea of just allowing editors to pick a focal point on the image and having some clever little bits of mathematics sort out all of the details.

It worked incredibly well for the 4Music project so it's a technique that we plan on using on all of our sites in the future. When we get a bit of spare time we are going to release the source code so that others can make use of it in their projects too.

Check out the video to see it in action.

It's not the Third Thursday of the month but there is a good reason: 2 major exciting launches today!

The team in Singapore at the Echelon2011. launching Dash

Other links referenced...

Echelon
Get Dash
4music

Research by eBay recently revealed that mobile shopping could receive a £4.5bn boost in the UK by 2016, rising to as much as £19bn by 2021, if nurtured correctly. The rapid growth in smartphone penetration has clearly helped mobile commerce to gain increasing acceptance amongst both users and retailers.

Smartphones represent 24% of all mobiles sold worldwide between January and March – up from 15% a year before - and the 50% tipping point may only be a year or so away (via The Guardian). This is an exceptional opportunity for retailers to speed up their mobile efforts and drive more sales.

However although mobile commerce’s popularity is growing and the majority of retailers are convinced that it will eventually become as popular as e-commerce, just 16% have a strategy in place, and 28% have no plans to implement one (Vanson Bourne survey of 100 marketing and IT directors at UK retailers, and 1,000 consumers).

Smartphones are taking a central position in our daily routine, not just to make phone calls but to access the web, look for recipes, check our Twitter, Facebook, find a restaurant, read news... Now users are also showing an increasing appetite for carrying out transactions on these devices; however their expectations of mobile commerce are pretty high so when jumping onto the “m-commerce” bandwagon you need to make sure you do it well. There are 10 million UK consumers using mobile commerce but 83% say they have experienced problems. (Tealeaf survey)

Below are few of the important things to think about when developing your mobile commerce site that will help you mitigate against potential problems that some mobile users experience.

1. Mobile site or Native App. What is the best?
   

   First let’s define both terms: a native application is a piece of software designed and developed to run specifically on a computer, smartphone, or tablet. So for example a native application developed for the iPhone will need to run on its proprietary iOS platform. The mobile web refers to the browser-based Internet experience on mobile devices. Mobile websites have the ability to run across essentially any platform with a built-in web browser.

   There is no “best route” and you can’t just pick and choose which channels to support without a bit of research as it mostly depends on who your customers are, what devices they use, what they are trying to do and when. You need to be there when the customer is ready. 

   In a report revealed at the end of last year, comScore’s MobileLens indicates that nearly twice as many smartphone users accessed online retail via a website rather than a native app, BUT some other reports seems to show higher conversion rates for native iPhone apps versus typical mobile websites. 

   My recommendation would be to start with a mobile site, and then upgrade at a later stage to an application. This is actually a very good way to first test on mobile web what works or not, take learnings, customer’s feedback from their experience and then use that as a foundation to build applications for iPhone, Android or other mobile platforms.  

   So why should you start with a mobile site? Well, a mobile site has a greater appeal to customers across a variety of phones. Basically you don’t need to design multiple apps and anyone with a web connection can access your mobile site. It is therefore also a cheaper option! If you opt for an app you will restrict your mobile customer base to users of compatible handsets. In the case of Apple you will also need to wait for approval before release and before you can make tweaks to your app. 

   Having a mobile site means you are freer, in control and users always get the latest version as you can push updates whenever you wish! Another good thing about a mobile site for commerce is that users looking for a particular product can come across your mobile optimised site using any of the search engines and via links from other websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and those embedded in emails. Whereas with an app, users will have to actively search for it and then download it to their phone. That sounds like a lot to ask of your customers, especially if they are new ones.

   Additionally, there are several apps stores gathering tons of apps. Unless you are a large retailer (and even so), it usually takes a lot of effort to feature in the App Store charts and you will need a very well defined strategy to break into the top list for your category in order to not get lost in the crowd. (Find out more about app store optimization)

   One argument for apps over the mobile web is the additional functionality that apps can offer but the next generation of the web language HTML5, although the completion is expected in 2014 and its implementation on mobile devices is still both fragmented and incomplete, is able to offer many features that make it possible to create web based applications that behave like native apps (geolocation, access to the phone’s camera, offline storage, video/audio streaming...). HTML5’s advantages of cross-platform compatibility, channel freedom (not being dependent on the app stores), enhanced discoverability due to better search engines etc. provides the opportunity to develop both faster and cheaper, with a wider audience to sell to. The Financial Times just launched a HTML5 Web App that enables readers to access content across tablets and smartphones. 

   Please don’t think I am against apps, I’m really not! I love apps and they should be developed when there is a need to provide functionality that goes beyond what HTML5 can offer (richer experience, photo function, games, augmented reality...) but when it comes to retail I truly think mobile sites are great. This is even truer if you are a small business, as it will end up being more financially effective. However if you already know that a large percentage of your visitors are iPhone or Android users, then you might want to look into developing dedicated mobile apps. Finally if you really want to do a massive push in the mobile area, why not try developing both a mobile site and an app like Ebay has done? 

   In case you want to read more on the recurring subject:
   Will HTML5 Replace Native Apps Any Time Soon?
   HTML5 Is An Oncoming Train, But Native App Development Is An Oncoming Rocket Ship
   HTML5 vs. Mobile App. The Winner is…
   Mobile commerce: should you have a site or an app?
   Mobile commerce: ten reasons to choose the web over apps
   Native App vs. Web App: Which Is Better for Mobile Commerce?

2. Redirect mobile searchers to the mobile version of your site.
   

   This sounds obvious but detecting which type of device a user is browsing with and redirecting to the correct version of the site is essential. You made the effort to build a mobile site so promote it! This will provide a great user experience and it will likely make your users stay on the site. In addition, if you are going to develop a mobile site, it is important all pages deliver the same user experience – i.e. sending users to pages non-optimised for mobiles is a no-no. 

3. Keep your mobile site simple, but not too simple.
   

   Your mobile site should be a “lite” version of your desktop site, first of all because it needs to load very fast but also because of the size of the device. Any funky and flashy features should be left to the desktop experience. However, there should be no real disadvantage to using a retailer’s mobile version and users expect the same sort of browsing and buying experience as they would from their laptops and PCs. Consumers want to find the exact same products and the same product availability as on the main site. Therefore you need to provide full product specs, quality photos, videos and reviews.

   A few tips:

   • Provide obvious buttons and call to actions that stand out by using different sizes and colours
   • For users who know what they are looking for offer them a search function
   • Think of users who are likely to make mistakes whilst typing a search term from a smartphone and add an autosuggest to your search box
   • Consider slow connection speeds and ensure you are minimising the amount of data each of your page uses (ie: reduce the size of your images, limit the quantity of text)
   • Provide an effective filter option
   • In addition to all the various information about the product (price, photos, details...), display delivery details on your product page as the user will certainly not take the time to go up to the checkout to find that information. You will most likely lose a sale. 

   It seems paradoxal, but you will have to find the right balance between making your mobile site simple and very quick to load whilst still maintaining as much functionality as possible. The M&S mobile site is a great example, you can browse their entire product range, yet the navigation is very simple, you can sort items and search. Their mobile commerce site has generated over 1.2m unique users and taken single purchase orders exceeding £3,000 since its launch in May 2010. Pretty impressive! 

4. Don't make registration compulsory and offer mobile payment options.
   

   First of all, don’t force your users to register before you actually close a sale. That is something I explained a while ago on a blog article: how to build an effective sign up form. Let your customers purchase first and then let them deal with registration afterwards (if they want). This is even more important on a mobile with a smaller screen and keyboard as you want a very smooth and pain-free process. By making users register before the checkout you are adding at least three fields to fill in and most of this information will be asked during the payment process anyway!  

   When it comes to entering credit card details on a smartphone, it is likely many customers will abandon rather than try. So try and work around that barrier and really make the purchase experience very friendly.  The aim is to reduce as much as you can the number of clicks to make it really easy for existing customers to shop and keep shopping on your site. The Amazon model is one to follow. It is so easy to buy on their site that it’s no surprise to me they have such large mobile sales figures.

   If you are a recurrent Amazon user, they already have your payment details stored and in less than 6 clicks you are done with your purchase on the mobile. At checkout, they ask your email address and password to generate a page asking you to choose a delivery option. Then on the next page you will be asked to select your payment method, all the cards you have previously added on your Amazon account will appear with their expiry date. Consumers can then either enter a new shipping address or opt to send to one already linked with their account. Once these choices are made, the consumer clicks on the checkout button and the transaction is completed. Pretty easy and even easier with their 1-Click order option.

   By storing credit card details in the registered account profile of existing customers you are removing the laborious process of entering the credit card number, expiration date and delivery address on a small screen. You probably think saving customers payment details on your site is adding a bit more PCI compliance hassle, but it will turn out to be an excellent way to attract repeat business from mobile users and most third party payment platforms have this functionality freely available to be integrated with.

   Some users will prefer using other payment options such as PayPal or any other alternative payment (Google checkout) that they know as secure and legitimate. The payment process is reduced to entering a username and password. These options reassure customers that are concerned about entering their card details via mobile and they also eliminate the need to fill in lengthy forms.

   Another good idea is to offer phone support to sceptical users who need more reassurance to get involved. Make sure you always have a phone number available on the product details page and on the checkout page so customers can complete the transaction by phone. 

   Finally, you could look into offering “collection in store” rather than mobile checkout options. The famous “reserve and collect” from Argos is an excellent method of generating sales from offline shoppers, but to make it work, keep the time between reservation and collection to a minimum. 

5. Location, location, location.
   

   In mobile, location is context so it is important you know where your users are when accessing your mobile site. 

   Apps and now HTML5 employ some of the smartphone’s most advanced features and functions, such as the GPS system, to fetch the user’s location.  This is such a great thing to customise a mobile site experience to a consumer’s location.  It often grinds my gears to see that some global retailers are not able to direct me straight to the right local version of their site and ask me to choose my location... (I am particularly looking at you Ikea and there are so many others). I think it is important not to forget users are using a mobile which means small screens, smaller keyboards but are still in the need of information quickly without too much effort! Inflicting a bad experience on consumers who are nicely trying to connect with you on your mobile site might end up in you never seeing them again. 66% of consumers would be less likely to buy from a brand following a poor mobile experience (Tealeaf survey).

   In addition to locating where your users are and directing them to the most appropriate local site, it is also a good idea to offer a store locator.  Surveys show that it is amongst the most popular features of both mobile sites and apps. Sometimes consumers just go on your mobile site to look for an item or stock levels (Argos) but would rather buy it from the offline shop. Store locators are a great way to drive traffic in store and provide distance, store facilities, contact details, opening hours and directions. Argos and Tesco are 2 retailers that do this very well. 

   It would make sense to detect a user’s location by using smartphones’ GPS to present the nearest offline stores rather than having the users to type in their postcode (especially sometimes it might be tricky for them to know the postcode of the area). Only mobile sites developed in HTML5 and apps can offer that feature. Rightmove mobile site in HTML5 is a great example. 

   So as much as you can try to make the most of these location-based tools as they improve your consumers’ mobile experience and they also appeal to users who are shopping locally and looking for particular products and services. 

What are you waiting for?  Hopefully not for your competition to take the advantage! Get involved NOW.

Many retailers are waiting to launch their optimised mobile website until mobile commerce becomes more significant, but all the current stats show that the opportunity is now.  

The longer you wait to launch your mobile site, the more time you give your competitors to establish a successful mobile presence. Mobile commerce might be in its early stages but it is quickly gaining popularity as a way to shop.  I would use this as an opportunity to take the advantage, test what does and doesn’t work for you, create a "WOW" factor amongst your customers and give them something about you to share with others.  It can only raise your brand awareness and simply differentiate yourself from your competition.  

Do you need help? Codegent’s Mobile division might be able to give you a hand.

If you want to talk to us about your mobile commerce strategy, then please do get in touch.

Source: Tecmark

The time for waiting is over

Back in September 2009, when mobile was being heralded as the next big thing, the amount of web traffic that actually came from a mobile was still only a measly 0,02%. Most of us thought, let’s just wait and see.

• By September the following year … it was just above 3%. Still… wait and see?
• By January of 2011, it had grown to 8.09%. Erm... that’s getting significant.
• Predictions are that it will reach about 15% by June 2011.

So how do we feel about the experience that 15% of people who access your website currently have?

There are 3 key considerations when it comes to thinking about mobile traffic:

1. User experience. We determine how the user is accessing the site and render in a way that the user experience is a rewarding one based on their device. There shouldn’t be any horizontal scrolling or the need to be constantly growing and shrinking the page.
2. Consistent. Your mobile site should use the same database as your standard site. If content is updated, it should be updated everywhere at the same time.
3. Use case. This one is a bit trickier, but think about your own experience. When you are browsing a site from a mobile, chances are you are doing it on the move and you have a different set of requirements than if you are browsing from work or at home on a regular computer. This means that the type of content you surface might be different across different platforms.

Some examples:

Codegent
Well, maybe we need to put our money where our mouth is. We created a mobile version of our site over a year ago. And we applied the three considerations above. We believed that anyone accessing our site from a mobile was probably doing so because they wanted to get in touch with us. So we ensured that they could call us straight from the homepage and that a map was easy to find.

Illy Issimo
This is a very simple site. But there is no need for horizontal scrolling and the use case is that people will be online if they want to either find a store when they are out and about, or possibly even buy online there and then. The regular website focuses more on the products themselves and the store locator function is given less importance on the page.

About.com
With About.com, the use case didn’t change drastically between mobile and computer interfaces. The site gives people information that they need to do the things that may enrich their day-to-day lives. So, this information could be relevant at home or on the go. But their site does make best use of the space a mobile platform provides. There is no horizontal scrolling and all the same content is featured attractively, with the hierarchy laid out in the same order as the main site: whereas on the main site hierarchy is broadly arranged left to right, top to bottom and large to small, on the mobile version, the more important items are featured nearer the top of the page.

What about apps?
Obviously, with the rise of mobile browsing has come the rise of mobile apps. Apps can either be free or revenue-generating in themselves.

Whilst apps can pull in location-based information and data from online, some companies are using apps as a means of giving people their content in a simplified way without the need to always be online. This depends on how immediate the content needs to be of course: there isn’t much point in having a social network or news site sat on an app that doesn’t need internet access, however if your site contains information that doesn’t change that often but is useful for users for regular reference, then an app might be the route.

The issue with apps however, is that people will only ever want a finite amount sat on their phones. So, if your site is primarily sales information, unless it somehow supports the end-user regularly, then an app might not be the route to go.

Winston Churchill – Official Wit & Wisdom
We developed this app in association with The Times newspaper and the Winston Churchill Estate. An app which gives people access to the quotes and writings of Sir Winston Churchill was ideal content for an app.

Inside Ferrari
Meanwhile, photographer Jon Nicholson, recognised that the iPad was a great device to showcase his work. We started with a project he did behind the scenes of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team.

We’ve written more about the business of apps for those who want to explore this further:

App Store Optimization
App Payback - What Business Model Works Best?
Publishing on the iPad - Where's the Paper Boy gone?

It's the Third Thursday of the month and I am all alone :(

The mobile team working from the garden

Other links referenced...

• Our first Chinese site for Skechers
• UPDATE: Our Learn Chinese App for iPhone
• British Library Out of this World Exhibition

How do you make money from mobile apps? With all the hype that has surrounded Smart Phone Apps in the last few years it all seems so simple. Design and build a killer app, release it to the various market places and then sit back and watch the money roll in. For some lucky punters this has been the case but the psychology and tactics for successfully making money through apps is nuanced with a few key factors to consider.

Straight Purchase

I won't linger too long on this as it is a pretty simple concept to grasp. Build an app people want, then sell it to them. A word of warning though. Unless your app generates a lot of marketing hype, favourable blog or in-store reviews or charts on the best selling lists for your category then be prepared for fairly barren sales, especially if this app is not an extension to an already established brand. Mobile users do not speculatively part with their cash unless there is some sort of validation that this is the app they are after, normally from ratings from other users. So in order to make money you better be prepared to spend some on advertising and promotion.

Additionally as competition intensifies between app developers a price war has also begun and the Average Sales Price (ASP) of apps has been steadily decreasing over time. Nobody wins in a race to the bottom though so what other options are there?

Make it free?

It does seem counter intuitive to put all of that effort and budget into a mobile app to then just give it away for free, however there are still some benefits to doing this. Apps are frequently bolt ons to existing web services that make it easier for mobile users to access and consume. There is a school of thought that people will start to access the web purely through apps rather than directly through the browser as the quantity of content and noise proliferates users will want some form of filter to it all. There are more than 200 million (of the 600 million total) active users accessing facebook through mobile devices and those that use facebook on their mobile are twice as active as non-mobile users.

So a mobile app is a natural addition to your existing web presence if you want to keep your user base engaged and active. Unsurprisingly free apps also get downloaded a lot more than paid ones, especially on the Android platform so you could also consider this an exercise in brand building as well as facilitating user consumption.

Ad Supported

Including adverts in your app seems like a pretty simple revenue model. There are established Ad platforms such as AdMob (owned by Google), iAd (Apple's own advertising platform) and InMobi which dominates the Asia-Pacific market. However the revenue cuts are not great and in order to really sustain a decent income you need to have a lot of active users for your app. There is no real harm in supporting your free app with Ads aside from a bit of user distraction and the fact they may well click off your App completely if lured in by the marketing (although iAd has the benefit of being completely in app). You could also consider offering a premium service that removes the Ads which your most engaged users will want to take up.

In-app Billing

In-app billing has long been lauded as the answer to the free versus paid debate. Essentially the download of the app is free (which helps maximises the potential user base) and then the app either becomes chargeable for certain features or content. This way users get to try the app out without cost and if they like it can pay for more. It is essential to provide just enough functionality in the demo version to entice the user to try it and then advertise just how much more the user will get when they upgrade to the full version.

Sounds great! But take up of this option has been very slow so far. Bango reported that a mere 5% of the sales it facilitated in 2010 used this method however they also forecast that by the end of 2011 In-app billing will account for 30% of mobile payments as technical limitations that have encumbered developers are gradually resolved.

In-app purchase falls broadly into two camps:

1. Unlocking content and features in the classic upgrade model from a light version.
2. Building in micro transactions to buy things like digital goods in a game. For example a new bird charcater in Angry Birds or a facebook badge.

Subscription (The Holy Grail)

Marketers often cite subscribed users as the most attractive as income is predictable and regular (although naturally there is attrition). Each user that comes on board adds to the bottom line created by the previous. The sales cycle is gradually upward rather than peaking and troughing.

Not all apps can warrant a subscription model but if your app provides an ongoing level of service or is a source of valuable fresh content then it should be on your radar. I have heard anecdotally that users are also more open to it rather than a high one off purchase as they feel they can leave at any time and might not spend as much even though they normally end up spending more.

In February Apple and Google raised the stakes by announcing two different “one-click subscription models”, with the key difference being the amount each party will get for each subscription sold. Apple will get 30% for each subscription sold. By contrast, Google's “One Pass” system is a flat 10% charge (i.e., the publisher keeps 90%).

Previously subscriptions were handled externally to the app through a web interface but the ability to do this easily in-app is potentially huge. However the heavy cut that Apple have demanded has prompted a lot of unrest as the 30% cut eclipses many profit margins and Apple have said that there cannot be any "Apple Tax" (where users subscribing through their platform get charged more than anywhere else). This effectively stifles the competition unless there is a complete withdrawal from the App Store. Additionally the subscribing user's data is not released back to the publisher in the same way it would had they signed up direct. That argument needs more time to full play out.

Despite the negative issues Apple now offers an operating system that controls over 100 million high-value consumer accounts all connected to credit cards. Google and Microsoft are also both investing enormous resources in this area as well and are showing more willingness to be flexible to both publishers and advertisers.

The only downside is that users are only happy to manage around 6 subscriptions at any one time so get in quick before the gold rush!

Either way now might be the time to start thinking of your future app business model.

It's the Third Thursday of the month. 3-2-1 go!

We are looking for a new developer. Click here to find out more.

Other links referenced...

• Learn Thai iPhone and Android App. "Head and shoulders above the competition..."
• The Tepilo Nokia App launches
• Introducing our new Creative Lead Bjorn Jansen
• We got jobs for Developers and Project Managers

Your website is your marketing tool and should reflect what you do and who you are. With that in mind do you like the image that you are projecting to the world? If no, then probably it is time to start reconsidering your options. You don’t necessary need to overhaul your old website; it might be only a matter of tweaking your existing one. To help you to make a decision here are 4 reasons that may mean it is time to change.

1. Your current site doesn't allow you to communicate with your audience

Sorry, this is another social media stick to beat you with but it’s the world we are now living in. It doesn’t apply to everyone but increasingly users expect to be given the opportunity to interact with your content – share it, recommend, express likes and dislikes or comment. But it isn’t just about users, social media will also benefit you. Properly optimised sites can increase your conversion rates, SEO and help spread the word – all for free!

2. Is it stuck in 2004?

If your site was developed in and built for older browsers and on old kit then you might want to try using it on big screens and modern browsers because that is how the lion’s share of your users will see you.

3. Does your website still represent who you are and what you want to say?

As an agency what we offer our clients today is not what we offered them 2 years ago, let alone 6 years ago. We are beginning to think about v5 of our website because, although v4 (released in 2009) is great, it no longer communicates everything about our offering today. We have evolved and therefore so has what we want to tell the world. You would think that as a web design agency this would be pretty straight forward, but as is all too common, making time for ourselves amongst our clients is tricky to say the least. But make it we shall because if we don’t no one else will be telling clients about our usability experience or brand work or… you get the picture. Take a look at what you are saying about yourself but don’t be surprised if you don’t recognise yourself any more.

4. You might be the same old dog but has your audience changed?

How much has your online behaviour changed in the past few years? Are you reading this on your iPhone? (I bet it is a 4). Your audience and their expectations are developing as the technology does and your site should reflect those changes. Is your site optimised for a mobile or tablets or have you even considered what people coming to your site on those devices might be after?

Hopefully you are not feeling too stressed out reading the above. Get in touch for a cup of tea and a chat with us if you need a bit of therapy!