Customer Reviews

Customers.Com : How to Create a Profitable Business Strategy for the Internet and Beyond

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

This book has many good and bad reviews. It seems that you either like it or hate it. I believe that it all has to do with the expectations of the reader.

Customers.com is about the concept and relationships between E-commerce, business objectives, internal business procedures and customer/supplier relationship (all together: E-Business). I believe that Mrs. Seybold is doing an excellent job in analyzing implemented concepts, and explaining why they are important. The case studies are great examples for many executives who don't understand the technology, but like to focus on the business side of E-Commerce and E-Business. (Unlike the university teacher from LA, I believe that E-Commerce and E-Business are not the same.) This book will give the executive food for thought, and a starting point for discussing E-Business with their own staff and technical consultants.

It is also important to notice that this book is written in 1998. Around that time, hit counts were all that mattered, and the more visitors your site had, the better you were doing. Mrs. Seybold passed all that in her book, and focused on CRM, something that wasn't important then, but is huge right now. In 2000, everyone is talking about CRM, and it is a sin if you ignore it. Mrs. Seybold was ahead of her times, which proves her reputation.Customers.com is an excellent read, especially in 2000!

Don't read this book if you expect a manual on how to start your own E-Business. This book will not give you information on how to implement all the necessary technology; if you are just focused on the implemented Information Technology this book is not for you. The implemented technology is given to you in a quick 1 or 2 page(s) breakdown per case study. Customers.com will not tell you how to set up a Data Warehouse, or start Data Mining, however it will explain you how important it is and how the results of such are implemented.

A book that will discuss everything involved, in detail, has to have thousands of pages and does not exist.

If you never heard of the Internet, MAYBE this book would be helpful, but for most professionals who understand the dynamics of web strategy, this book is a complete waste of time. It is poorly written and presents arguments in a way that is not straighforward. In additional, the actual arguments are overly simplistic with no practical frameworks. If you want something that packs in a lot more practical knowledge in a concise way, check out "E-Business: Roadmap for Success"

This book is too thin and fluffy. I managed to get through a few chapters, skipped to the middle, and then gave up. It contains the same standard stories I hear about every day. If it wrapped up uncommon stories, even if they were common sense, it would have some value. Boil it down to a checklist for your operating officer and webmaster, and you'd have it all.

Seybold examines "the best practices for electronic commerce and electronic business today on the Internet and beyond" to enable her reader to "walk behind the scenes at more than a dozen pioneering companies -- companies that have committed themselves to doing what it takes to make it easier for their customers to do business with them." I was fascinated by her "insider" information about e-commerce, of course, but also by the correlations she suggests between e-commerce strategies and strategies for marketing and sales unrelated to the WWW. The strategies are often quite similar...if not the same. For example, greeting visitors to a website shares much in common with greeting those who enter a retail establishment in a mall. In both situations, ease and convenience are critically important to attracting traffic; hospitality gives customers a feeling of being welcome, indeed appreciated. Obviously, the website is a unique environment within which to establish and nourish customer relationships but customers in any environment are still human beings with certain expectations, requirements, and sensitivities. Those now involved or about to become involved in e-commerce will learn a great deal from Seybold's book. I also recommend this book to everyone else for whom customer loyalty is also absolutely essential.

Despite the previous negative reviews, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It takes a somewhat novel perspective on web technology by refocussing the reader on the raison d'etre of web technology itself: serving customers better. Ms Seybold puts web technology in its proper place from a manager's point of view: a means to an end. She drives her point home with numerous anecdotes and helpful advice. Her emphasis on fostering community on the web site to enhance the customer experience is revealing and refreshing. Having served as Customer Services Manager of a small utility company for 3 years, I can appreciate the importance of her customer-first, top-down, starting-from-the-outside-in approach to web design and development. Admittedly, a more indepth coverage of the underlying technologies used in the success stories covered would have been quite helpful. But the book delivers what it promises: it provides a framework for re-aligning organizational thinking along the proven lines of strategy before structure. After all, what's the use of having a web site that shows off the state of the art but forgot to leave room for the customer.

"Would you like to know how your organization can benefit the most from electronic commerce? Would you like to know how your customers can benefit from your electronic business initiatives? Patricia B.Seybold writes, "That's what this book is about. This book summarizes the best practices for electronic commerce and electronic business today on the Internet and beyond."

In this context, she identifies eight critical success factors in electronic commerce and e-business as following:

1. Target the right customers- * Know who your customers and prospects are. * Find out which customers are profitable. * Decide which customers you want to attract (or keep from losing). * Know which customers influence key purchases. * Find out which customers generate referrals. * Don't confuse customers, partners, and stakeholders.

2. Own the customer's total experience- * Deliver a consistent, 'branded' experience. * Focus on saving customers time and irritation. * Offer peace of mind. * Work with partners to deliver consistent service and quality. * Respect the customer's individuality. * Give customers control over their experience.

3. Streamline business processes that impact the customer- * Start by identfying the end customer. * Streamline the process for key stakeholders. * Continuously improve the process based on customer feedback. * Give everyone involved a clear view of the process.

4. Provide a 360-degree view of the customer relationship- * Provide one-stop shopping for the customer. * 'Remember' everything your company know about the customer. * Ensure that everyone in the company has access to the complete customer picture. * Put an underlying technical infrastructure into place to provide a 360-degree view.

5. Let customers help themselves- * Let customers help themselves to information and perform transactions on-line. * Let customers interact using whatever media they choose. * Give customers the ability to design their own products.

6. Help customers do their jobs- * Develop a deep understanding of how your customers do their jobs. * Continuously refine your business processes to make it easier for your customers to do their jobs. * Give customers direct access to your inventory. * Gve customers the ammunition and tools they need to make purchasing decision. * Prepare bills the way your customers need them. * Make it easy for your customers to satisfy their customers.

7. Deliver personalized service- * Develop a warm, personal relationship with each customer. * Let customers specify and modify their profiles. * Custom-tailor information presentation and offers based on customers' profiles. * Provide appropriate service and information based on customers' needs. * Give customers access to their transaction histories. * Encourage customers to 'leave something of themselves behind.'

8. Foster community- * Seduce customers into the fold. * Introduce customers to others with common interests. * Introduce and reinforce common terminology and values. * Let customers 'strut their stuff.' * Encourage customers to become part of the 'in crowd.'

Finally, she writes, "I strongly recommend starting with the first success factor, targeting the right customers. If you don't start there, the rest of the factors may be well executed, but you'll be wasting time on the wrong customer population. After that, however, there are no hard-and-fast rules to decide which success factor to work on next. Indeed, most of these factors are interrelated, and you'll find, as you begin to focus on one, that you've gone a long way towards finding solutions to others."

Highly recommended.

Although this book was written in 1998 (I read it in Dec 98) the main themes still hold true. The author takes bricks-and-mortar business concepts and applies them to the on-line world. Obviously some material is dated but in general her theme of identifying the true customer and focusing on what the customer wants can be used in any business environment. She cites numerous recent examples of how companies used the Internet to re-invent their business models. Most of the chapters are written in MBA-type case studies. Ms. Seybold however, was wise enough to remove the technical jargon and put it in a seperate section at the end of each case. The non-tech person can read this book easily without being bogged down by technical information. Likewise, tech people will find the actual details of the implementation strategy somewhat interesting. I would give it more stars but their have been a few books written recently on internet strategy that are slightly more timely.

Target the Right Customers
1. Focus your electronic commerce efforts on your most profitable customers.
2. In deciding what information to put out start with the most requested information your call centers put out.
3. Think about marketing offers you can make electronically that are not practically to do any other way.

Own the customer's total experience
1. Identify each step or business event where the customer is most likely to interact with your firm and streamline each of those steps.
2. Reassure the customer at each step
3. Capture the customers profile and off them the oportunity to change their profiles at any time and to select a set of profile defaults.
4. Give customers access to their entire transaction history.
5. Let the customer specify if they want proactive notification.
6. Recruit thousands of business partners who can represent your firm to customers
7. Make it easy for your suppliers to deal with you.
8. Focus on excellence in the customer experience.

Streamline business processes that impact the customer
1. Use online forums to overcome internal organizational barriers to success.
2. Use streamline electronic forms that are visible to all legitimate parties involved.
3. Make the right bets on technology

Provide a 360 degree view
1. Layout the groundwork
2. Start by focusing on the convenience of the customer
3. Target your most profitable customers
4. Use middleware to pull customer information together
5. Make sure the answers and information that your customer receives are identical
6. Don't let technology limit your vision
7. Begin by offerring information then transactions

Let Customers help themselves
1. Cooperation is the name of the game on the internet
2. Provide information on the web that helps the customer make a decision or answer a question
3. The best combination is where the person can access the information they want but get a person on the phone if needed.
4. Customers design their own products

Help the customer do his job
1. Make it your goal not to waste the customers time
2. The best website offer at least three different types of search engines
3. Keep track of what the customer looks for and does not find
4. Use electronic mail for targeted marketing
5. Listen to the customer tell you what they need to appear on their bills.
6. Make it easy as possible to help the customer help their customer use your product.

Deliver personalized service

Foster Community

I came across this book while doing an MBA course where it was recommended reading. While I kind of liked the book I thought it was a little superficial but didn't really have anything to judge it against. Since then, I've read Dalgleish's Customer-Effective Web sites and now I do have something to judge it against. Customers.com was good at it's time but it no longer lasts the distance - Dalgleish's book offers the kind of detail and thorough thinking people always crave from e-commerce books & never get. Do yourself a favor, buy Customer-effective Web Sites.

This book does not have any insight that would be interesting to anyone who is currently working on their internet business. If you are into doing business on the internet, experience internet service as a customer and have a marketing background, nothing in this book is new to you.