Customer.Community: Unleashing the Power of Your Customer Base [Hardcover]

Drew Banks (Author), Kim Daus (Author)

Book Description

Series: Jossey Bass Business and Management Series | Publication Date: June 15, 2002

The Internet is the world's largest marketplace and provides businesses with the ability to interact with their market in a much more direct and tailored way than ever before. Customer.Community takes a new look at online communities as a source of value for both customers and businesses; it shows how to build an online "customer community" that gives customers a reason to stay loyal. Drew Banks and Kim Daus explain exactly what the customer community is and then reveal the tenets that will make it strong: sustainability, size and scalability, social connectivity, and soul. The authors show how to "communitize" commerce, build a solid base of repeat customers, and create value for the customer, and they explain how to manage a site in a cost-effective way. Customer.Community will help cultivate a mind-set to leverage the collective, untapped power of your customer base.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...I am quite impressed with this book...well written, easy to understand guide to the world of the internet and business..." (M2 Best Books, 3 September 2002)

Review

"EBay-like peer-to-peer marketplace dramatically increase the exchange off value between a business and its customers. Customer.Community shows how any company can leverage this dynamic to drive loyalty and profitability."
--Beerud Sheth, Co-Founder and GM of ELance

"The term "Virtual Community" carries so much baggage that many people forget that community, at its essence, is simply people interacting with other people. Underscoring some basic principles of community building, Banks and Daus show how paying attention to the interaction between your customers can affect the bottom line."
--Cynthia Typaldos, cofounder of GolfWeb, founder of RealCommunities, and president, Typaldos Associates

"Customer.Community is a great look at how online Community really works. I tell people that if you want to save the world, well, you don't get to do that, but improving customer service really helps. This book brings you far in that direction."
--Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist

"The concepts in Customer.Community present a way to understand what customers really need and want. The very existence of public discourse in commerce creates a discipline that results in happier customers."
--Scott Cook, cofounder, Intuit

"Companies who have focused on he individual customer in the past must also now focus on the collective-the customer-community-to be successful."
--Michael Lowenstein, coauthor, Customer Winback

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (June 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078795621X
• ISBN-13: 978-0787956219
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,407,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Drew Banks (www.drewbanks.com) is an entrepreneur, business author, and novelist. In his business writing as well as fiction, Drew deconstructs behavioral patterns in an attempt to explore causal motivations and deterrents. While Drew's first two books, BEYOND SPIN and CUSTOMER.COMMUNITY, examine organizational implications of various social psychologies, he is drawn to fiction (ABLE WAS I, ERE I SAW ELBA) as a more intimate medium for delving beneath the surface of an individual.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Online community & commerce relationship, May 10, 2002

By 

"apsrose" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Customer.Community: Unleashing the Power of Your Customer Base (Hardcover)

There is a growing body of knowledge on how an ebusiness (or any business online) can be a success (profit wise) on the Internet.
More and more successfull ebusinesses are taking advantage of the relationship between community & commerce. This book describes the relationship and why there are real strong business benefits to be obtained for designing community around any commercial website.
The are a number of benefits for combining community & commerce together. The authors point out increased customer loyalty, lower operational (support) expenses and an increase in direct revenue.
The authors provide examples of websites designed that take advantage of the relationship of community & commerce: ... A two page chart of all customer community pioneers is provided which ranks each site according to the 12 principles of successful community building. These 12 principles are:

1. have a clear purpose for the virtual community (vc)
2. Allow members to be able to identify each other
3. Allow for reputation to arise in the vc
4. Create a system of governance in the vc
5. Allow for communication between members
6. Allow for groups to form in the vc (smaller vc's)
7. Create an environment for members to talk
8. Create boundaries for the vc
9. Create a system of trust
10. Allow for exchange of knowledge & experience
11. Allow community to have character
12. Allow vc to have history.

In the book community is not seen as isolated from commerce rather as an integrated part towards providing increased knowledge for customers and increased revenue for an online business - in other words customers and the business collectively benefit.

The authors also draw on research from ... which supports the relationship of community & commerce online.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All you ever wanted to know about online community, April 10, 2002

By 

J. Huba (Austin TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Customer.Community: Unleashing the Power of Your Customer Base (Hardcover)

This book is a great resource on why and how businesses should use online community.

The authors outline the twelve principles for building community which provide a terrific foundation to understanding how people interact. The book includes many examples of best practices from companies across a variety of industries, from cosmetics to software.

Anyone needing to justify how an online community contributes to the bottom line will love Chapter 7. The authors include a full page chart on pg. 169 that breaks out how a community can contribute to customer loyalty, revenue, and lowering operational expenses.

A must-read if you are even considering creating an online community!