How to Increase Business Value in 2009
Driving customer engagement with social Web technology can help software companies maintain and expand their customer ranks.
By Lyle Fong, Lithium Technologies
Feb. 02, 2009
As businesses began re-focusing on 2009 goals, many software executives added "maintaining and expanding their customer base" to the list of top priorities for the year. Yet, too many companies struggle with how to engage customers effectively in today's increasing global and competitive environment. The good news is that the proliferation of the social web has helped make it easier for software vendors to connect with customers.
In the past, customer engagement entailed talking to clients at an event or in a meeting, sending the occasional customer service survey or sending out a newsletter or email. But today, with the help of new solutions, customer engagement is a measure of how close your customers are to your brand, your products, and subsequently how loyal they are to your brand. It is also now a direct means of driving tangible metrics such as retention and up-sell rates.
In short, these new solutions are a must-have in today's software business environment as they allow companies to drive up customer touch points exponentially, while reducing the cost of doing so by a similar rate. With that in mind here are the top ways that business can leverage new tools on the internet to engage customers:
1. Give customers reasons to return to your site
As people spend more time online than ever before, corporation's online presence has become critical to success. However unlike the past, in which a company's website was the primary place customers would turn to learn information about an organization, consumers today are turning to blogs, forums, communities and even social networking sites to learn and read reviews about the products and companies they are interested in. As a result, it is important to provide your customers with reasons to keep coming back to your site, instead of general searching for information.
There are a number of ways to do this - create a customer community, provide interesting videos, tips or even coupons - but in my experience the most effective approaches are the ones that invite your customers to become part of the brand.
For example, myFICO.com, the consumer division of Fair Isaac, provides consumers with FICO scores as well as products that help people understand how to protect their financial health. While millions of customers have visited the site, regulations prevent the organization from including information to help improve FICO scores. Rather than sending its customers to an outside source for information, myFICO.com decided to host a community that would enable its users to interact with each other, answer questions, share advice and exchange stories about their experiences. In just one year over 850,000 customers joined and remain active in the community. The customers are providing the information and content while remaining engaged with the company. This sort of engagement then leads to dramatic improvements in upsell and other revenue benefits for the company.
In the past, customer engagement entailed talking to clients at an event or in a meeting, sending the occasional customer service survey or sending out a newsletter or email. But today, with the help of new solutions, customer engagement is a measure of how close your customers are to your brand, your products, and subsequently how loyal they are to your brand. It is also now a direct means of driving tangible metrics such as retention and up-sell rates.
In short, these new solutions are a must-have in today's software business environment as they allow companies to drive up customer touch points exponentially, while reducing the cost of doing so by a similar rate. With that in mind here are the top ways that business can leverage new tools on the internet to engage customers:
1. Give customers reasons to return to your site
As people spend more time online than ever before, corporation's online presence has become critical to success. However unlike the past, in which a company's website was the primary place customers would turn to learn information about an organization, consumers today are turning to blogs, forums, communities and even social networking sites to learn and read reviews about the products and companies they are interested in. As a result, it is important to provide your customers with reasons to keep coming back to your site, instead of general searching for information.
There are a number of ways to do this - create a customer community, provide interesting videos, tips or even coupons - but in my experience the most effective approaches are the ones that invite your customers to become part of the brand.
For example, myFICO.com, the consumer division of Fair Isaac, provides consumers with FICO scores as well as products that help people understand how to protect their financial health. While millions of customers have visited the site, regulations prevent the organization from including information to help improve FICO scores. Rather than sending its customers to an outside source for information, myFICO.com decided to host a community that would enable its users to interact with each other, answer questions, share advice and exchange stories about their experiences. In just one year over 850,000 customers joined and remain active in the community. The customers are providing the information and content while remaining engaged with the company. This sort of engagement then leads to dramatic improvements in upsell and other revenue benefits for the company.
