HYPERWARS by BRUCE JUDSON

Author:BRUCE JUDSON
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Free Press
Published: 1999-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Some Criteria for Effectiveness

Personalization, like any business initiative, should be used judiciously. There are real costs that accompany developing personalized applications: They range from the hard cost of development dollars to the cost of disappointing customers or prospects who expected a better experience. It’s important to assess whether a personalization effort will be effective and contribute meaningfully to new sales or customer retention before investing the time and money in bringing it to market.

The criteria for establishing an effective recommendation system are different for every product. The system chosen is dependent upon a balance of the following: (1) the nature of the product, (2) the amount of information needed from the potential buyer to make an effective recommendation, and (3) the likely willingness of the prospective buyer to share this needed information with you.

As you go through this process, be aware that we have entered an age in which consumers want to educate themselves about everything from which refrigerator to buy to how to get the best medical treatment. They no longer trust intermediaries—advice from dealers, brokers, agents, and even health care providers is being checked and rechecked by today’s consumer. A well-designed Web site helps meet this need, and the information should be as rich and informative as if the consumer were meeting with one of your top salespeople.

Wait a minute? Am I saying that consumers will trust information they receive from companies on the Web as much as (or more than) they trust sales representatives? All evidence to date suggests the answer is yes. People believe that no trusted brand will risk its good name by posting misleading information on the Web.

As you go about creating an online recommendation system, your overriding goal should be to make the online shopping experience better than what a customer might encounter in the physical world. Therefore, you need to ask yourself: “What can my company accomplish using this medium that can’t be accomplished in the physical world?”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.