Web changes rules of Customer Service

The web has changed the relationship between businesses and their customers. Consumers can find what they want, when they need it and, many times, at the price they want to spend.

The competition online is no more a matter of what you sell, but of how you sell it: "Online, you don't differentiate yourself by what you sell," says Jeffrey F. Rayport, a professor at Harvard Business School, "You have to differentiate yourself by how you sell - by the experiences that you create around finding, trying, and purchasing. In the actual world, providing a bad experience is damaging. But people will keep going to the same supermarket, because it's on the way home. On the Web, a bad customer experience can be fatal."

To compete in the web era, companies have to be re-thinking their relationship with customers. How well do you meet their needs? How smoothly do you solve their problems? How quickly do you anticipate what they'll want next? This article from Scott Kirsner gathers some case studies from companies that have based their success on good relationships with their customers. The examples are enlightening: if it is true that the web gives more power to customers, it is also true that technology enables businesses to serve customers in ways that were not possible a few years ago. The point, for a business, is to change the way it manages the relationship with the customers because of (and thanks to) technology.

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