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By Bob Williams, | Posted January 2nd, 2012 in Customer Focus | Tags: customer service, Facebook, Google, twitterFacebook rolled-out a feature for Asia based admins of business pages to allow them to send private messages with fans writes Jon Russell of cmo.com. The communication must be initiated by the customer. So it’s an opening for a customer service touch-point first rather than private marketing blasts.
With this move, Facebook is giving companies another email like inbox for conversations with customers. It’s a bit more feature rich than just an ordinary email inbox though because it’s integrated with a fan page. The Fan page can enable messages, discussions, video, applications, etc.
Most companies already list email addresses under the “contact us” section of their internet or eCommerce sites. Will they adopt and allow Facebook as a touch-point for customer service as well? One advantage email has is the ability to use list management tools for sorting, screening, auto-replying, filing, etc. That’s there from years of growth and maturity as a messaging platform. Companies with high volumes of customer interaction may find managing messages within Facebook difficult.
What about other platforms for customer service and interaction such as twitter or Google+? Twitter is already used by many organizations to interact with customers and Google recently announced they were adding features to Google+ Pages as well.
One thing is for sure. Customer service is becoming a puzzle with more pieces. If companies want to meet customers where they are and provide convenient service options then they’ll need to consider more than a phone number and email inbox. Customers have choices about how they communicate and where they see brand information. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and mobile applications are all viable and now very real platforms where customers spend time.
Over the past several years we’ve a large amount of information was published about how marketers and PR groups can use digital media to reach customers. 2012 may be the year where the media and industry thinkers start to publish thoughts on using digital media more for customer service.
By Bob Williams, | Posted December 31st, 2011 in Career, Ideas | Tags: book reviews, career agility, career game, seth godinPoke the Box by Seth Godin is a quick and easy read. While some may confuse it with a motivational type book, Godin’s points are a bit deeper. The two word summary is
Start Something.
Godin says “I’m merely encouraging you to start. Often. Forever. Be the one who starts things.” Starting things is like poking the box to see what will happen.The manifesto is a call for people to shed excuses, fear, and procrastination and to pursue their ideas. That’s certainly not a new principle. But Godin states his ideas in a clear, concise, and easy to understand format that worth your time to read.
He gives examples of individuals and organizations to backup his statements that people need to push forward with their ideas. One such example was the first Starbucks didn’t sell coffee and wasn’t the company we have come to know today. It sold coffee beans. But Jerry Baldwin’s idea to get started led to the suggestions from Howard Schultz to offer traditional espresso beverages. Godin’s point is that “Poking doesn’t mean right. It means action”.
This leads to the argument that one of the top reasons that people don’t initiate work is fear of failure. People and organizations let the fear of failure paralyze them because failure is viewed as a negative event. Again, not a new idea, but tolerating failures because we can learn from them, because it makes us better, or because we can adjust and move forward is usually just given lip service in our society.
Godin goes deeper into the idea of initiating work by touching on cultural norms of conformity. From schools, to churches, to corporate america, we are trained, encouraged, and rewarded for staying within set boundaries. I could directly relate to this concept and previously wrote about it in a post entitled are you crazy enough to create change?
I recommend this book for your library. It’s a simple concept, yet can be so difficult to master. If you are a manager of people, encourage them to poke the box. If you are an team member then start your ideas. Godin says “soon is not as good as now.” Go!
By Bob Williams, | Posted December 30th, 2011 in eCommerce, Ideas | Tags: cloud computingLast week I wrote a post about why cloud computing is important to more than Information Technology groups. My main position was that people today are becoming connected to the internet with more than a single device. Gone are the days of a single PC. Today, many consumers are connecting to data and other people with their PC/Laptop, Smartphone, tablet, iPad, etc.
So the availability of data is becoming more relevant to consumers today. Over the past year I’ve been transitioning myself to the cloud and trying services for documents, music, photographs, passwords, videos, and social sharing. I’ve come to the point that now my default thinking about data storage is somewhere online. Our society needs to rethink the meaning of “get your head out of the clouds”.
Initially I was concerned about security of my data and privacy of the contents. Let’s breakdown security first. Is a data center of an operating entity more secure than my house or my computing devices which tend to be mobile? For physical security that’s a resounding yes. I performed backups and archiving at home, but might forget to get the local copy off-site to a storage location or in a safe. It’s nice to know, or maybe a peace of mind, to know an organization is doing this for me.
But what about privacy of the contents through soft access by data system hacking? I decided to reduce password exposure by creating different passwords for each service. If the provider is hacked then I guess I run the risk of exposure along with thousands of others. Same risk holds for any place that has personal information about me though (doctor’s offices, IRS, credit card company, bank, etc.). I guess my point is that this is a risk for everyone unless you go off the grid and move to a cabin in deep Montana. I’ve had exposure to a service from a well known company that aggregates public records. Trust me, your life footprint is large and available in public records for others to see.
That brings us to usability. With data “in the cloud”, I pull it whenever and wherever I am. It’s not something I have to think about. It’s just there. People like simple. People use simple.
Oh make sure others know where the data is and how to access it (your passwords!). One day you hope to reside in the clouds. Orphaned data is a lonely place.
By Bob Williams, | Posted December 23rd, 2011 in eCommerce, Ideas | Tags: cloud computingIs IT moving to the cloud?
Cloud Computing is one of the IT industry buzzword these days for computing services. Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring says, “It’s become the phrase du jour.” But why is it so attractive? To answer this let’s start with a definition. Wikipedia defines cloud computing as
“the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network(typically the Internet).”
For IT groups it gives the potential to reduce costs and increase speed of service (every CIOs dream). They aren’t burdened with hardware maintenance, software release deployments, disaster recovery, or physical access to data for an increasingly mobile workforce. The need for those types of services is still relevant. But with cloud computing much of that is outsourced to a third party that solves these types of business needs as part of their solution offering.
But the cloud computing model is about more than B2B services.
The idea has already started to make it’s way into news articles, television commercials, and service offerings for consumers. Microsoft has a campaign theme using the phrase “to the cloud”. Apple and Google have cloud based media storage and retrieval with iCloud and Google Music. Drop Box and a slew of other companies offer cloud based storage to take care of backups and additional capacity needs of a consumer.
The real benefit to consumers today is that data is accessible from multiple devices. In the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s most people used a single computing device. The data they needed was local to that one device. Programs such as GoToMyPC and Citrix Server were developed to give you remote control to your main device (home or office). But for the most part, software and hardware was purchased for that single device. Consumers had to deal with specification and compatiblity concerns (i.e. USB 2.0, Windows Compatible, Firewire, IDE, SD Disk, etc.)
But today, many consumers own multiple electronic devices. Many, if not all of them, with access to the cloud: Desktops, laptops, netbooks, smart phones, tablets, and televisions. The value of cloud computing to the consumer is that they have access to their data and computing services wherever they are and from whatever device they have with them. Consumers no longer have to worry about software verions, upgrades, cable compatibility, etc.
As I write this post, I’m use Google Docs to compose the draft while listening to Google Music play my library of music. I’ve pretty well converted all of my home computing to some cloud service because I use multiple internet connected devices. Whenever, wherever, and with whatever device I use, the data is there.
Oh, I should mention that cloud computing is a “sticky” service. If you become unhappy with your service provider in the future, the cost and complexity of moving to a different service provider may keep you in the unhappy relationship. Choose wisely.
What’s the most powerful step in a software development process?
It’s not uncommon for analysts to label steps in a process. The critical path, bottlenecks, waste, and non-essential steps come to mind. So I would say that common wisdom agrees that all steps in a process do not hold equal weighting of importance. Maybe there isn’t a single most powerful step in the software development process you follow or maybe it depends on the context of the situation.
For what it’s worth, a few weeks ago it occurred to me that the act of estimating was perhaps the most powerful step. Estimating is completed at the ground level, by those that do the work, not by the executives or managers. Most decisions to do or not to do a project are within the hands of executives and managers. But it’s those closest to the work that influence the decision with their estimates for cost and return.
Mike Cottmeyer, a leading Agile development thinker and trainer, acknowledges that estimating for numbers is a tough step in software development in his post The Real Reason We Estimate. But Cottmeyer’s main point is that “Estimating is about creating a shared understanding of the requirements, and a shared understanding of the solution. When teams have problems estimating, its almost never an estimating problem, it’s a shared understanding problem.”
I like that line of thinking and agree that estimating provides the benefit of shared understanding. But most shops I know use estimates to determine if a project will even exist.
Estimating determines if work will begin
The power of estimates is clearly visible when a large estimate for work cancels a project or a particular solution to problem before it’s even started. To be fair, that’s part of the purpose of the exercise. If a work effort to bring a solution to a business problem is so large that it doesn’t make sense to do then you would want to consider alternatives or move on to the next business problem. That’s just sound financial discipline.
But I’m thinking so much about the extreme estimates as I am about the typical project. The number of hours estimated is eventually turned into a cost and the cost is compared to the dollar figure from the estimate of benefit. That’s basis for the return on investment calculation. Bottomline, estimating is used as a decision point if the project will begin or not.
Estimating determines the budget
If the project is considered to be a good business investment then the estimates are used to set the budget. That’s important for obvious reasons of people payments or equipment purchases. But the budget also determines if additional work is required in the future. If the team goes over budget it triggers other processes, meetings, and decisions to get in alignment with a budget. That’s additional work, which while necessary, is also expensive and not directly related to creating the solution for the customer.
So that’s my case. Estimation is the most powerful step in the process because it directly influences if the project will exist and if it does exist it influences the budget.
Let me know if you have any other thoughts on this topic.
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