CVDSTL

Archive for September, 2009

Okay, I won’t drag out the Federal Express example and tell you how it saves $3.00 or more each time someone uses the Web to track a package instead of calling its 800 number and having a human do it. Nor will I roll out Amazon’s searchable database of over two million books, or the U.S. Post Office’s ZIP code locator, or Visa’s ATM finder. “Been there, done all that,” you say. While these are very good examples, there are others coming online now that can show us new things to learn from. It’s well worth your while to dig deeper into using the Net as a tool for customer support. In the survey of the American Marketing Association referred to earlier, 19 percent of respondents said they are currently using the Net for such purposes, while 53 percent plan on having some component of customer service on their Web site by the end of 1999. You may not be planning on utilizing your site for such activities; however, the chances are good that your competitors are.
Very often, there’s friction between the manufacturer of a product and the existing sales channels when that manufacturer opens up a Web site that speaks directly to the end user. 3Com has gone in the other direction. It uses its site to support its sales channels, even for complex network configurations. The Network Designer (which I had the pleasure of critiquing while in beta) lets end users put together their own network with all the different options and variations. The site then directs customers, using their newly customized network, to a nearby reseller.
3M is a very good example of a company that has designed a customer-focused Web Site. With the use of a search engine that accesses relational databases, visitors can easily find their way to over 50,000 products that 3M offers in nearly every industry imaginable. 3M had the good sense to look at itself from the outside in, rather than the inside out, which is a discipline any company needs to consider when designing its Web site. We will discuss this further, “Your Brand Image and the Internet.”
As we know, answering Customer service questions that can be answered on a Web site instead of by an actual person saves significant amounts of money. But simply slapping up a bunch of help files and product offerings will not induce the customer to use your Web site rather than the telephone. The challenge here is to make your Site not as effective as the alternative phone call, but more effective. One solution that I respect a great deal in this category is the step-search feature ofTered by Saqqara. Step-search asks you only a few questions at a time. Based on your answers, step-search will come back and present you with an appropriate array of options. This solution goes a long way toward avoiding the user frustration found at many customer service sites on the Internet. Here’s why: Very often, customers are asked to fill out lengthy forms on a site and then submit them. Imagine if you take 20 minutes to fill out one of these long forms only to find at the very end that “You cannot get the red Chevrolet Lumina with manual transmission and air conditioning. Please start over!” Step-search avoids both wasted time and frustration.

Another way to keep customers hitting your Web site instead of your 800 customer support phone lines is to have a discussion group in the customer service area of your site. This discussion group can have many “threads,” or discussion topics. It looks something like a Usenet group or a bulletin board. Each thread may represent a particular product of yours. Thereunder, you might find subthreads, where customers can discuss various aspects of that product. You’ll most definitely want to moderate these discussions and interact with them often. There are many free and reasonably cheap software programs that your Webmaster can put up on your site that run very easily managed discussion lists/bulletin boards. Take a look around, and discuss your needs with your site designer. Make sure you use a program that either you or an assigned employee can learn quickly and easily, since you’ll want to update it regularly to provide fast customer support.
This solution has an upside and a downside. The upside, as previously mentioned, is that it can save you money. You’ll also be delighted when customers answer questions to problems other customers pose. Some of these answers are ones that you might not have even thought of. You can simultaneously collect more solutions about your own products from your customers, while not having to answer those questions yourself: additional input with less output—a powerful combination. The downside is that you might find irate customers trashing your product on your own Web site. To your horror, you may indeed be sponsoring a revolt aimed at yourself! If the complaints are legitimate, then you’re going to have to face the music sooner or later. Isn’t it better for you to see this happen on your own site rather than in an open Usenet newsgroup? Most definitely. At your “home,” you can handle the “spin control” much faster and more effectively
If your public relations people start squawking, tell them this is a policy of containment. If you deal with the problems in a forthright manner, it will be seen as such, more often than not. If you try to squelch the complaints in a heavy- handed manner by editing them or replying in an arrogant manner, you’re opening up an online can of worms that is best avoided. If the complaints are not warranted, and they’re posed by a few persistent cranks out there, the rest of the discussion group will typically see this and appreciate it for what it is. There is something to be said about dealing with your vulnerabilities in an open and upright manner. It can add luster to your credibility and that of your products.

Many business-to-business purchases involve large dollar volume. When that sort of volume is changing hands, the seller wants to be very sure that you are who you say you are. Rather than each seller developing his or her own standards to authenticate and run a credit check on you, in order to process payments in real time or near real time, a single system is being devised to make it easier for both buyer and seller to transact large purchases online. This is similar to the SET standards that are being developed for online retail customer buying, which is covered in Chapter 6, “Retail: Setting Up Shop on the Net.”

This business-to-business system is called Open Buying on the Internet (OBI). American Express, wanting to play a pivotal role in this process, was heavily involved in the initiation of OBI. Big players on both the buying and selling sides, such as Ford, Microsoft, Oracle, GE, and Office Depot, are participating. This process is particularly helpful when dealing with a vendor or supplier from whom you may buy various services or products over the course of a month on an ongoing basis. Among other things, OBI is designed to have purchases that take place in different buying sessions consolidated and reconciled. The amount of bookkeeping is reduced substantially on both sides of the transaction, and the single payment at month’s end can be transferred quickly.