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Definition: The Elements of Success in Community Support |
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June 30 2011
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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Beginning around 1980, with the proliferation of threaded-message discussion forums on CompuServe covering a variety of hardware and software technology products and companies, to today’s multifaceted social media, the concept of tapping a customer base / community for customer support purposes has a long history. Some companies have been very successful, and others have seen the opposite outcome. Along the way, some vital lessons have been learned that have remained consistent despite the advances and changes in the underlying communication technologies. The key elements of success in community-based Support begin with a clear Strategy covering purpose, methodology/tactics and outcomes, followed by effective Marketing of the resource and setting of appropriate expectations, Management of all facets of the community interactions — and efficient handling of the aftermath of the conversations. As more and more companies accelerate product and focus to the SaaS/Cloud model, these elements are more important than ever before.
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Does Your Company Have a Customer Success Management Group? |
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June 23 2011
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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In the course of The SaaS & Support Project research, I began asking companies about two related roles that have been popping up in organizational charts of all sized firms for some time: Customer Retention and Customer Success. I’ve found that Customer Retention managers tend for the most part to be “firefighter” positions, called in when a customer is known to be at-risk or has actually announced plans to depart. Customer Success, on the other hand, is something different — with intriguing possibilities.
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Cloud Profitability and The Burden of Customer Success |
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May 23 2011
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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At the true beginning of the modern computing industry, when general access to computers first came within reach of small businesses and individuals alike, there often was a key phrase in the user agreement / contract of sale. “The software is sold as is, without any implied guarantee of merchantibility or fitness for any particular purpose.” While such crisply specific denials of any guarantee or responsibility for product suitability or value have mostly and quietly faded from view in the traditional perpetual-license market, the unspoken burden of responsibility for successful installation, implementation and use of the perpetually-licensed product still rests firmly on the shoulders of the customers.
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SaaS Profitability and The Strategy of Customer Conversations |
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February 17 2011
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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The basic economics of the SaaS model inherently push vendors to run “lean and mean,” which requires close attention to operational profitability in every aspect of the organization. Though the impact of that reality may be delayed by VC/investor funding, the elemental reckoning cannot be avoided forever. The cumulative effect of day to day operational profitability management will ultimately determine the difference between viability and failure. Unfortunately, effective financial management can be a challenge in the on-demand world. While a SaaS vendor’s infrastructure expenses are reasonably predictable, there is another significant cost factor that is not so easy to track. The necessity of customer retention demands active maintenance of the relationship, and every touch point of that effort carries a cost. If a company has no consistent strategy for effectively dealing with all of those interactions across all departments, the financial consequences can be substantial.
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Viewpoint Bright Ideas, Dim Prospects |
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January 01 2011
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| By: |
Christine Crandell - Serial CMO, author, speaker and blogger at NBS
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The old-fashioned suggestion box won't spark real change unless agencies follow through.
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Customer Experience Optimization |
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April 27 2010
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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Customer Experience Management: Customer-focused business process improvement and customer relationship skill development. Tips on customer hassle prevention for higher customer retention and profitability.
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Cloud Computing: Enabling the Customer Driven Innovation |
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January 19 2010
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| By: |
Surendra Reddy - VP, Cloud Computing at Yahoo, Inc
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For the past decade, businesses focused on the short term profit. Many businesses outsourced the customer service and/or moved toward self-serve models. This not only significantly reduced the customer interactions with the business but also reduced, if not eliminated, critical information flows from the customer to the businesses. Customers are now resorting to social networks for their product search as well as to share their product experiences. Though short-term focus and offshore activities helped businesses to improve their operational costs but what it did was eroding the trust and there is no or little effort to improve the customer satisfaction. Cloud Computing enables businesses to invest their resources in improving and streamlining the customer facing business process and eliminate costly IT infrastructure services.
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Loyalty is Not Just for Customers |
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January 02 2010
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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Customer loyalty is important to business success. Profitability of customer retention is pretty much common knowledge.
So companies do a lot to encourage customer behavior that favors their brand, to increase:
- Purchase frequency and volume
- Involvement and structural ties
- Recommendations of the brand.
Yet, like most things in life, loyalty is a two-way street. Who are you loyal to?
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Untapped Gold Mines in Customer Experience Data |
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December 11 2009
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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Interview with Theresa Kushner, Director of Strategic Marketing Customer Intelligence at Cisco Systems: How to go after the gold in your customer data, avoid fool's gold, and refine your customer data gold to make a difference in your business growth and profitability. Theresa is co-author of the book, Managing Your Business Data: From Chaos to Confidence, which guides managers in how to grow a data culture and make data work for them, balancing the use of hard facts and professional instincts to protect and grow a business. Prior to Cisco, Theresa managed marketing programs at Texas Instruments and IBM. She's listed in Who's Who in B-to-B Marketing, and her team at Cisco received the National Council for Database Marketing Award for Analytics and Modeling, as well as The Data Warehouse Institute Best Practice Award in 2008, for Cisco's new customer intelligence center initiative that integrates customer data for sales, marketing and financial applications. This initiative assisted in correlating over $500 million in customer bookings.
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Customer-centric Twist on Voice of the Customer |
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November 01 2009
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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What's the difference between the way customers volunteer feedback versus the way they're requested to give feedback? One revolves around outcomes in the customer's world, whereas the other revolves around customer satisfaction enablers in the company's world. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate customer feedback strategies for better alignment with the way customers see things.
Customer feedback re-assessment is suggested by the new CMO Council study, Service Invention to Increase Retention, which reports, "Creating brand preference and differentiation in a crowded market tops the list of challenges." Most companies are seeing higher rates of customer churn and higher costs to acquire and sustain customer relationships. "The rapidly changing and converging market ... is accenting the need for more adept and analytical customer data integration, listening, feedback and engagement systems."
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Customer-Centricity by Discerning Customer Satisfaction Outcomes vs. Enablers |
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October 23 2009
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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What's the difference between the way customers volunteer feedback versus the way they're requested to give feedback? One revolves around outcomes in the customer's world, whereas the other revolves around customer satisfaction enablers in the company's world. True customer-centricity requires primary focus and decision motivations be centered on the customer's world, rather than the company's.
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The Art of Listening: A Key to Customer-Centricity |
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October 23 2009
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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Curiosity is the key to great listening skills that improve customer experience. By improving your curiosity level with customers, you'll find that you enjoy your work more, and customers enjoy their experience with your organization. In the meantime your improved knowledge of your internal and/or external customers will enable you to develop a sixth sense, to anticipate customer needs and to consistently delight your customers.
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Cloud Enabling Rich User Experiences |
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October 12 2009
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| By: |
Surendra Reddy - VP, Cloud Computing at Yahoo, Inc
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Most successful brands create breakthrough ideas or innovations that are inspired by a deep understanding of consumer's lives. Customers are no longer tolerating the rushed and mediocre service offerings. Instead, they are demanding satisfying and rich experiences. Companies that provide it will evoke emotional bonding with the brand and win their loyalty
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The SaaS & Support Project Research |
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July 29 2009
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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As the Software-as-aService business model continues its rapid advance, the inherent changes for both vendor and customer are both substantial and significant. But once again, Customer Support is in danger of getting shoved to a back burner. If you'd like to be part of a smarter approach, you're invited to take part in a new benchmark research project that's aimed squarely at taking the best of what we've learned from the past and using it to create the future. The result will be best-practices data and better business & operational models for both SaaS and Customer Support.
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10 Tips for Innovating Customer Experience |
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July 24 2009
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| By: |
Lynn Hunsaker - Customer Experience Strategist at ClearAction LLC
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10 must-do's for customer experience innovation -- or any innovation intended to derive revenue from customers! Best practices for getting and using the right data from customers, priority-setting, setup for success and creativity.
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The Top 10 Myths About the SaaS Service Desk |
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April 01 2009
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| By: |
Vernon Palango - ITSM Consulting & Training Principle at InteQ
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While SaaS has become a common buzz word around the industry, there is still some skepticism regarding its ability to deliver a truly robust help desk application. In this paper, we will uncover and demystify the top 10 myths surrounding the SaaS Service Desk.
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The Role of The Channel in SaaS Customer Retention |
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February 16 2009
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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When 80% of SaaS customers never meet anyone from the vendor in person, what is the effect on the longevity of customer relationships? If there's a connection between lack of in-person interaction and the duration of the relationships, the customer retention rates of most, if not all, SaaS vendors are also vulnerable. Features and functionality are not long-term competitive advantages, they are too easily and quickly duplicated. SaaS is about selling a relationship over time, and the greater the involvement with the customer, the more that customer relationship is likely to continue. Therefore, if a vendor is not interested in extending the depth of the relationship by offering additional services in-house, then they should partner with those who are interested and capable of filling in the gaps.
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From Income Streams to SaaS River of Profitability |
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February 11 2009
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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Mikael Blaisdell, customer relationship architect and publisher of Customerium.com and The HotLine Magazine, presents a webinar session on how your company can: - Take full advantage of all seven + revenue channels available in the SaaS model - Establish an effective, scalable organizational structure to deliver what customers most want to buy - Build a management technology suite that delivers actionable business information about the customer. - Optimize your customer relationships for maximum retention and profitability.
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Make Your Service Desk Software History |
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December 01 2008
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| By: |
Vernon Palango - ITSM Consulting & Training Principle at InteQ
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The availability of SaaS-based applications within IT is still fairly new regardless of the fact that other key areas of business have been utilizing these types of solutions for years. Why now? In this webinar, InteQ's Principal ITIL Consultant, Vernon Palango and Sandeep Soman, SaaS Solutions Product Manager, discuss the evolution and ultimate collision of ITIL, the IT Service Desk and SaaS (software-as-a-service) that has enabled IT Professionals to now implement an on demand solution to satisfy their help desk application needs.
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The Redefinition of Customer Support |
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November 25 2008
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| By: |
Mikael Blaisdell - Writer, Analyst, Customer Relationship Architect at MB&A, Inc. and The HotLine Magazine
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It's time to profoundly reinvent the profession of Customer Support. From the beginning of the technology industry to the present time, Support has been the Department of Break/Fix, when something breaks, we fix it. As such, the profession offers no real economic value to anyone, it never has. What's worse, as we move deeper into the gathering recession and farther into the rapidly unfolding SaaS era, Support as it is currently defined has no future. There are two paths that lead away from this point. One is downward into obscurity, obsolescence and ultimately extinction. The other is towards an authentic profession based on the exchange of true economic value.
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