Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service (Knock Your Socks Off Series) by Chip R. Bell & Ron Zemke

Author:Chip R. Bell & Ron Zemke [Bell, Chip R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: AMACOM
Published: 2013-04-30T14:00:00+00:00

Be Inclusive

Buy a book from Amazon.com once or rent a movie on Netflix once and on your next visit to their site, the computer will suggest other books or movies you might like. “Customers assume that when they make a purchase, the record of that purchase will be readily available regardless of the channel it came from. All systems have to be synchronized,” notes best-selling author Robert Spector.28 Take a look at how many online companies have gone to “My” as the prefix for their personalization—MyFedEx, MyOfficeDepot, and the like.

All of us take that customerization dimension to be table stakes today. We have been taught by Internet providers to expect that they will remember us from previous encounters, know our history, recognize our IP address, and populate screens quickly when we transit from online to Web chat to live chat. We assume there will always be a trap door giving us easy access to a real person. Log on to landsend.com and the bottom left side of the home page offers an 800 number, a chat online, or a button to click for “call me.” The “all about me” customer expects to be included in ways beyond, “Would you like to complete a survey at the end of this transaction?”

Service providers are answering that expectation with enormous creativity. For example, according to a blog on www.1to1media.com:

High-tech networking giant Cisco recently tested the power of social media outlets with the launch of myPlanNet, a downloadable video game that allows players to assume the role of a CEO and solve business challenges using Cisco products. Although introduced using traditional live events, myPlanNet quickly gained widespread appeal among IT professionals who turned the simulation game into a B2B social media juggernaut spanning various channels worldwide. According to Cisco, the award-winning social media campaign for myPlanNet has been downloaded more than 35,000 times and has attracted more than 55,000 fans on its Facebook page.29

As Cisco and other innovative service providers know, collaboration is the core of partnership. Threadless.com invites their website community to vote on the coolest t-shirts designed by fellow amateurs. The winning entries become their product offerings, providing great exposure for budding designers and a sense of ownership by the community. Jackdaniels.com has a fan club called the Tennessee Squire Association. They asked squires in Texas to vote online for their favorite color (red, white, or blue) for the Jack Daniel’s–sponsored race car to be run in the annual Texas 500 race. Mountain Dew created a user-generated movement to launch a new product. The process (called Dewmocracy) involved more than three million customers in various phases of the design, development, and marketing of a new drink ultimately called White Out.30 Kodak has a digital media team including a chief blogger; a chief listener; more than a dozen full-time staffers who cover the Web, search engine optimization, and social media; and a network of part-time bloggers and tweeters around the world who represent different departments of the company.31

eBay is another great example of an organization that views customers as partners.

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