Customer care - who does *really* care?

My current focus is on customer support. Proactive customer support.
Pro-active: it means that I start doing something before somebody asks me. I do not react, I precede the other party. I would play the usual plot that shop assistants are so good at: "Hello sir, how can I help you? Would you like me to assist you?". This is acting before your customer (potential or acquired) falls into the pit of indecision.

Proactive customer support is going to be the future for online marketing, internet firms must be aware that they cannot lose more visitors on their websites. The definitive year 2008 resolution for online shops is: increase conversion.

OK, we are ready to give customer support, so we have equipped our e-commerce site with everything needed, our weapons loaded and shields up but...

(ahem, too much Star Wars during the holidays!)

...but what happens then?

Your customer starts a dialog with your "operator". Operator of what? Would she be just nice and well-prepared by reading the whole documentation about your products?
Does she know about all the possible technical questions?

Let's suppose you sell homebrewing products. Does Laura, your wery well prepared "online operator", have a passion for homebrewing? Is she the right person to talk to, when it comes to passionate technical questions? Would she advice adding hot acid water to the mash-out phase, to ease up the sparging phase and stop enzymes? There is somebody who takes it very seriously

Normally, she does not. But then, is she instructed to pass the call over an expert? What if experts were customer champions?

What if Dan, a passionate homebrewer and satisfied customer, agrees to offer expert advice (paid, of course) about your products for selected people? This behavior is overhyped, it would be called Web2.0, User Generated Content, WikiSupport. Fact is, human beings tend to cooperate. It's our nature.

Getting back to Dan... what if Dan does this expert advice job on his phone, without the hassles of installing CRM software or operator clients?

Sitòfono Social: because relationships matter

Sitòfono is undergoing a major restyling, these days.
We realized that relationships between a firm and a customer cannot be just "phone calls". After all, the phone call is just the medium to achieve a result.

In the Real world, customers notice you on a printed ad, look for you in the yellow pages, get your name by some friend's advice. Anyway, since customers are usually located in the same place, they are naturally bound to move within a limit.
Time passing by, they will notice you again, and get information which is persistent and durable. They will remember you, and you have somehow captured their attention.

But what happens on the Web? People move, literally flock from a content to another. The very same happens on e-commerce sites, or "online shops": customers are like a frenzy swarm, some bounce on your website and do not come back again.
Customers have to cross a lot of barriers on your site.

• The first "shield" is distraction: customers can go off track if they don't get a clear focus
• The second barrier is lack of comprehension: do they understand clearly what they are looking at? Can you assure them that they got the message?
  
• The third barrier is lack of persistence: will they come back the next day?
• The fourth barrier is mistrust: can they judge a book by its cover? Don't they need direct contact to be assured that you are a trusted person? Visual contact will be the best, but even voice contact can make the difference
• The fifth barrier is hesitation: when facing the payment form, they can get scared, or they need some more information that hasn't been found on the website. At least, it wasn't noticed before

People need direct contact to resolve uncertainty and to dissolve some of these barriers.
Sitòfono addressed very well the barriers that involve direct contact, like hesitation, mistrust and lack of comprehension.
But now, with the new "social" features, Sitòfono becomes a tool which engages your customers in a more social-oriented behavior: your visitors can give advice about your website to their friends, bookmark the call-back button for future reference, share the URL on the most common social bookmarking tools...
In word, they will remember you.

Luca Filigheddu published a great review of Sitòfono with the new social features, check it out!

If you want to discuss about the new features with me,
just call me


Technorati Tags: cernio, sitofono, social, marketing, engagement,
Luca Filigheddu,

Irrelevant corporate websites

Giacomo Vacca found an earth-shaking article on traditional SEO and Google ranking:
How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website

They use instant messaging, facebook, (and other social networks) and rarely directly type in a domain name to corporate website. If this holds true, then it’s assumed that prospects make decisions on other websites BEFORE they come to the corporate website to get factual information.

This is clearly true. Before going to visit the official website of a product I am interested into (let assume a digital camera), I'd go on a product-review website (just as an example, Revoo) and select the most appropriate comments to have a quick glance about the available products.
When I go to the official website, I already know nearly everything. In few occasions, I found a n official support forum that made me choose for that product: online support and general good feedback from users are key points in my consumer habits.

You’ll no longer only be the only one publishing to your website, customers, prospects, and other members of the community will have direct access to publish on your website.

To summarize: customer feedback and engagement. That's what Sitofono is meant for.
What if you can even talk to a customer? What if you can call him free and ask him a general review of the product?
Do you think letting visitors call other consumers is a valuable feature? Since it can be done as a special adaptation of Sitofono, my company product for customer engagement, I'd like to discuss with you the feasibility and the scenarios.

Technorati Tags: cernio,
sitofono, ugc, customer, feedback, engagement,