The Eternal E-Customer: How Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces Can Create Long-Lasting Customer Relationship [Hardcover]

Bryan Bergeron (Author), Ray Kurzweil (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2000

The Eternal E-Customer focuses on getting e-businesses to the next level of customer loyalty. In the competitive world of e-commerce, the winners know that the key to success is customer appreciation and retention. Emotionally intelligent interfaces (EII) are driven by data from previous customer interactions, explicit customer preferences, and based on customer profiles. EIIs build trust and customer loyalty by offering shoppers the intimacy and individual attention they expect from the corner store. In this groundbreaking book, Harvard professor Bryan Bergeron provides a roadmap to get readers up to speed on all crucial business and technology aspects of EIIs, and explains how to create the information infrastructure needed to support EIIs tailored to their businesses.
-- Focuses on achievable results using current technology
-- Includes a companion Web site with links to examples of state-of-the-art EII technologies

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a masterful job. He presents a roadmap for the next generation of Web-based service delivery." -- John P. Glaser, Ph.D., Vice President and CIO, Partners HeathCare System

"...brilliant and entertaining... Bryan Bergeron has provided a comprehensive and insightful roadmap to this e-revolution now in its infancy." -- From the Foreword by Ray Kurzweil, Author of The Age of Spiritual Machines

"A very readable overview of the strategies and technologies used to convert clicks to loyal customers...a must-read..." -- Aaron Kleiner, Cofounder, MIT Enterprise Forum

"If you're a manager in an organization that's trying to figure out a carack Web strategy, this book is for you..." -- Peter Leyden, coauthor of The Long Boom and former Maaging Editor of Wired magazine

From the Back Cover

For anyone involved in developing, specifying or managing the Web component of their business, here is a strategic plan that will work! Harvard professor Bryan Bergeron clearly and compellingly explains how to take advantage of current e-commerce technology to convert "clicks" into "sticks" - loyal, delighted customers who keep coming back for more!

"How do you win consumer loyalty in today's economy? Merely satisfying a customer won't result in a loyal customer. It's not enough to meet or even exceed a consumer's needs once and then slack off into business as usual. Loyalty is the fruit of a focused, continuous, well-executed plan of relationship building." -- Bryan Bergeron

Whether you're a traditional brick and mortar Fortune 1000 company with an evolving presence or a dotCom startup, the number one challenge in this era of consumerism is building consumer loyalty. Today, consumers are armed with more and more Internet-fueled information and newly acquired sophistication. Make no mistake: they are not predisposed to loyalty. They are drawn to convenience: lowest price, shortest time to delivery and highest quality service. You can't expect customer loyalty - you have to earn it. Fortunately, every customer contact is an opportunity to improve upon a customer relationship and to learn more about customer needs.

So asserts author and Emotionally Intelligent Interface (EII) designer Dr. Bryan Bergeron in this groundbreaking book that explains why EII's are such a critical factor for eCommerce success - and how to take advantage of today's EII technology to more effectively build long and lasting customer relationships.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 261 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 1st edition (October 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007136479X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071364799
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,698,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for e-business managers, December 18, 2000

By 

cityhawk "cityhawk" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eternal E-Customer: How Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces Can Create Long-Lasting Customer Relationship (Hardcover)

As a software developer who develops websites, since reading this book, there have been many times I've sat in a meeting wishing everyone else around me had read it as well. While reading it, I found myself nodding in agreement with much of what Bergeron says. Technical people and management as well as web designers should read this book (not to mention anyone who's in business at all, whether you consider yourself an e-tailer or not). There's a lot of insight that goes beyond web technology that should be useful to anybody.

The material is presented with humor and ease such that you feel like you're having a conversation with the author. Beware that if you don't read this book, it's possible that your competition might have read it and could already be implementing some of its suggestions.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars eternal ecustomer review, December 14, 2000

By 

Terry Tracy (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eternal E-Customer: How Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces Can Create Long-Lasting Customer Relationship (Hardcover)

The web is a constantly evolving metaphor for electronic, people-less commerce. As the recent dot com bomb has illustrated, there's nothing magic about a web site. You have to treat customers like customers and provide a service. Customers don't care if you have trouble setting up a database or links between your phone lines and your ecommerce site. What they expect, they get -- or they go away, never to return. The Eternal Ecustomer does a masterful job at peeling through the layers of jargon and hype that cover the web and exposes the bare nerves of the business-customer relationship. After reading this book, you can't help but "get" why the latest downturn in web stocks was inevitable. IT also illustrates why the winners will be playing by the rules defined here.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for B2C, December 18, 2000

By 

J. Obeid "food critic" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Eternal E-Customer: How Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces Can Create Long-Lasting Customer Relationship (Hardcover)

Excellent analysis of a complicated subject matter. I think the authors have made understandable and enjoyable reading out of a technical and complex subject, and that is why I think this book should be essential reading for people in this field, from execs to developers.