CRM - December 2008 - (Page 27)

basis anymore—thanks to the advent of communities, forums, and social networks, consumers are as transparent to each other as you are to them. Anthony Lye, senior vice president of Oracle CRM, offers a very simple view of the situation. During a presentation at the Oracle OpenWorld conference, he said, “If you have a bad product, it’s pretty much ‘Game Over’ whether you like it or not. Web 2.0 gives control to communities—and communities are a lot more aggressive than individual consumers.” In other words: They outnumber you. Transparency Is Tracking orders. Being able to see when something has been shipped, where it is en route and its estimated arrival time. Our beef comes from grass-fed cows that spent a happy life in upstate Maine. “Thanks for your phone call, are you calling about the email you sent us last Monday at 2 p.m.?” Viewing an organization as one entity—whether it’s through a catalog, phone, Web site, or email. Leveraging customer feedback for innovation and research and development. Transparency Is Not Give us your credit-card information and we will eventually give you something you paid for in return. “Mystery Meat.” A Web site with no “contact us” page or phone number in sight. WE’RE ALL IN THIS 2.0GETHER A hefty part of transparency is showing customers information in a convenient manner—even if it’s induced by local legislation. Step into any chain restaurant, from a Chipotle to a Starbucks, and you can’t help but notice a new set of numbers gracing chalkboards and menus—calorie content. Even if consumers know the new openness is the result of a new law, there’s a deeper meaning: “We want you to be informed about what you are eating.” An organization saying, “We hope you make the right choice,” is a powerful part of providing a positive customer experience. Web sites such as farecompare.com, Amazon.com, and Zappos.com have long offered resources for comparing prices. But customers now have access to community forums and reviews for usergenerated insight and feedback. (See “Power to the People,” December 2007, for more on that.) Auto insurance provider Progressive has its own approach—and uses transparency as a competitive differentiator. Within the confines of its proprietary Web site, Progressive lets visitors compare rates not just among its own offerings, but against the going rates offered by the competition—an idea that likely provoked some “are you crazy?” stares from coworkers. But the policy works for Progressive— and even provides a branding message. With social networking, online communities, and blogs, customers are going to find the information they’re looking for—your company might as well step up and be part of the process. Creating www.destinationCRM.com “Let me transfer you to Extension 4. Hold, please.” “We could get some real work done if it weren’t for all these customers.” your own community for customer conversation is a smart Web 2.0 initiative, but it’s not the only option. If you can’t facilitate, you can still participate. Size matters, too. Clate Mask, CEO and president of marketing-automation software firm Infusionsoft, says the need for transparency often goes up as the size of the company goes down. The “transparent” mindset, he says, involves relinquishing control. “There are some limitations. A vendor just can’t do everything,”he says. “Part of [transparency] is opening things up and letting other people provide value.” The focus, he adds, should be on information that the customer wants, “regardless of how you get it to them.” The corporate use of blogs and other Web 2.0 social media tools not only increases transparency, but helps customers see that the organization is more than one-dimensional or monolithic: There are actual people behind the products. Sridhar Vembu, for instance, CEO of AdventNet, the parent company of ondemand CRM solution Zoho, blogs on newsworthy topics and issues related not just to his company but to his neighborhood and his kids. And Zappos.com Chief Executive Officer Tony Hsieh, who has taken to Twitter like Carrie Bradshaw to a pair of Manolos, maintains a CEO blog (blogs.zappos.com)to communicate with customers, partners, and the world. Hsieh wrote openly, for example, about corporate decisions involving much-loved features such as free overnight shipping and a price-protection policy: “The only difference is that we made the decisions to not advertise or promise [free overnight shipping], because…we found that our customers were happier when they were surprised by the fast shipping. (Of course, if you’re reading this, it kind of ruins the surprise. So pretend you never read this.)” Much of the “open air” nature of transparency jibes with the trend toward cloud computing, both metaphorically and spiritually. In a recent presentation at a Gartner conference, Marc Benioff, the cofounder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Salesforce.com, focused a lot of his attention on cloud computing and what he called “Web 3.0” (much to the chagrin of the Gartner crowd). “Metadata is driving the active [Web] world. That’s what’s unusual. That’s not how they saw it three to four years ago,” Benioff said. “They [thought] the pieces never would come together in this way.” But as those pieces come together, companies are still responsible for taking 27 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DECEMBER 2008 http://blogs.zappos.com http://www.farecompare.com http://www.Amazon.com http://www.Zappos.com http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crmmedia/crm1207/index.php?startid=28 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crmmedia/crm1207/index.php?startid=28 http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Zappos.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - December 2008

CRM - December 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Rave Is Over CRM on Twitter Financial Frenzy Will Customer Experience Survive in a ‘Soft’ Economy? Holiday Humbug Empowered Consumers Are Ready to Flip the Switch Required Reading Transparency Spiff Up Your Site! They Aim to Please Mixing In a Little Sugar Sweetens the Deal A Newsletter Employs New Tactics A Site Stops Feeling Overtaxed Make ’Em Laugh—Personally Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - December 2008

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