Blogs Enhancing Customer Experience

Yesterday , I had an opportunity to be part of a short lecture session delivered by Prof Venkat Ramaswamy co-author with the celebrated CK Prahlad of "Future of Competition " . I had met Venkat before and was fascinated with his concept of Experience Co-Creation . The central idea of Experience Co-Creation (as i understand it ) is :

1.Businesses build processes to service the customer better , ...however these processes often become so rigid that instead of serving the customer it becomes counter productive .

2. Customer engagement is important in all businesses , its important to recognize it and proactively engage the customer to create pragmatic processes which are contextual and customised .

3. Customer surveys generate a lot of data , but not necessarily insights , and therefore its imperative to build direct channels of communication with the customer

The theme of this post is based on point 3 above , and elaborates how blogging is a great medium of creating a channel of communication with the customer

Jeff Jarvis and the Dell Story

In early 2005 an irate Dell customer Jeff Jarvis resorted to blogging to tell the world about his harrowing experience with Dell .His quest to fix his US 1600 Dell machine , included countless unanswered e-mails and lengthy phone calls to the Dell helpline . An agitated Jarvis started his blog Buzz Machine in July 2005 to tell the world his story and build support for his cause against Dell. As you would expect a large and successful corporation like Dell would believe that this would be one of those freak cases which would they could get away by simply ignoring it . The blog stuck a chord with other Dell customers and according to Intelliseek by August 2005 his blog had approximately 10,000 daily visitors .Matt Gallaway documents the extent of blog bitching in his post after Jarvis complained about his Dell experience . He got a refund August 22 , but from then on Dell started in its journey of transformation using blogging as a tool .

The Dell Blog

Dell realised that for a custom build product , its important to have a structured channel of communication with its customer community and launched its own blog called Direct2Dell. The blog is a process where Dell understands its customers better and uses the data received from its customers to enhance the customer experience. It has appointed a Chief Blogger and has also invited Jeff Jarvis as part of their advisory committee.

The Take Away

Most organizations do customer surveys and brand studies and at the end of it all build processes to delight the customer . Unfortunately these processes become rigid over time and do not produce the desired results . Venkat talked about a very simple experience which many of us must have had with Jet Airways . Often when I take late night flights back to Mumbai , I prefer taking a close nap after dinner is served , its a personal preference ...However within approximately 5 minutes of dozing off , I am woken up by a air-hostess saying "Sir , tea or coffee..." and there goes my hope of a peaceful nap . Now if Jet was sensitive to the fact that some of its customers may not like to be disturbed in night flights , they could simply ask and leave the poor customer alone......but alas the in flight customer service process does not give that freedom to the crew.

As I mentioned earlier customer data often gets misrepresented in surveys , and surveys are not good to capture qualitative feedback......blogs are journals of real experiences of customers which are frank , forthright and direct. Blog entries are not like numbers which can be interpreted in multiple ways ....in most of the blogs you will find customers giving the company , pragmatic and easily implementable solutions ....so the company gets free consulting . In addition , the company creates an engagement process with the customer community which helps build brand loyalty and brings in more customers ........blogging makes great business sense .....India Inc are you hearing ...!!