Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo

1
Chapter 13

• Considerations for Ongoing Customer
  Communications

2
The Value of Repeat Customers

• Retailers and wholesalers along with their
  suppliers are looking for new customers and are
  trying to determine what new customers like
• It is the retailer or services responsibility to
  produce products and services attractive to a
  niche market and then retain these customers
  through product satisfaction and customer service

3
The Value of Repeat Customers

• Marketers should consider spending a fraction of
  the marketing budget to satisfy and enhance the
  goods and services delivery to past customers
  who are satisfied with the product or service
• Electronic marketing provides excellent tools for
  focusing efforts on fewer persons, attempting to
  achieve a mutually beneficial relationship

4
The Value of Repeat Customers

• The Webs capabilities can
• Be programmed to deliver gratitude to longtime
  customers
• Congratulate new customers or encourage prospects
• Supply confirmations to existing clients orders
• Provide technical support for new product users
• Conduct surveys inquiring what changes the
  customer would like to see
• Expand communications to outside suppliers and
  the general community
• Supply associates with the latest company news
  first

5
Where Do You Stand?

• It is best to learn what customers think about a
  product or service before the marketer launches
  new, ambitious customer service programs
• The Web is well suited for conducting prospect
  and customer, supplier, and ex-customer opinion
  studies
• Many companies today strive for value-added
  customer service strategies

6
Where Do You Stand?

• Electronic marketing tools allow the customer
  extensive knowledge about a product or about the
  company through information on a companys Web
  site or through hyperlinks on the Web site
• The marketer should develop a full customer
  service plan and test it before putting it on the
  companys Web site
• Customer response or opinion polls can be
  conducted on Web sites or by e-mail to determine
  the advantages or disadvantages of the
  performance of an existing products Web site to
  gain feedback on proposed new product changes

7
Where Do You Stand?

• Companies are finding substantial cost savings in
  information transfer between offices that have
  heavy paperwork involving high sales volume tied
  to customer service records
• Companies with extensive human resources records
  also benefit from electronic tools

8
Should It Be Called Customer Communications?

• The value of positive customer relations is
  glaringly apparent from these customer research
  findings
• A company loses half of its customers every five
  years
• Two-thirds of the reasons for customer
  displeasure is breakdowns in communications
• One-third was attributable to actual product
  failure or poor service

9
Should It Be Called Customer Communications?

• Customer relations are vital for the long-term
  benefits of both parties, and never before has
  customer communications been as expedited and
  rich as with todays electronic vehicles
• Studies have shown that dissatisfied customers
  will tell at least 10 other people about their
  bad experience (which, of course, is bad
  word-of-mouth advertising for the company)
• However, with the Internet, that figure could
  potentially be multiplied by thousands

10
Should It Be Called Customer Communications?

• Sites should develop or utilize some form of
  auto-knowledge that responds to all incoming
  reports stating that the question was received
  and estimates a time frame for how long it will
  take to respond to the question
• It is the marketers job, therefore, to initiate,
  nurture, and improve the customer service program

11
Establishing the Electronic Customer Service
Program

• The marketer might begin establishing an
  electronic customer service program by asking
  himself, How would I like to be treated if I
  were the customer?
• The marketer might then investigate competitors
  customer service pages and programs, particularly
  the successful competitors

12
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback

• In any plan for commerce, online or traditional,
  these listening posts must be identified and
  ranked so that appropriate communications
  mechanisms can be set to gather opinions, either
  positive or negative
• Source 1 Customer complaints
• Source 2 Direct customer contact
• Source 3 Your own e-mail
• Source 4 The formal customer survey

13
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback

• Listening posts continued
• Source 5 Suppliers and manufacturers
• Source 6 Employee and associates sessions
• Source 7 Your neighborhood
• Source 8 Community involvement
• Source 9 The online community involvement

14
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback

• Delivering services as a number one priority
• Sometimes the only concrete proof of an
  e-commerce firm is its performance in customer
  service
• In organizing a customer service program, two
  ingredients create a winning effort
• First, the marketer must insist on hiring
  excellent representatives
• Secondly, superior training of these
  representatives must be undertaken

15
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback

• These two steps can be followed up with the other
  portions of the customer service program
• Setting standards for customer service
• Time-lapse elements
• Activities schedule to solve problems

16
Making Web Forms

• Forms are one of the most popular features on the
  Web for conducting business
• They can add a flexible connection of
  interactivity to your Web documents by allowing
  the marketer to conduct surveys, take orders,
  sign up users, gather feedback, even administer
  tests
• Forms can be very simple or highly complex
• A form is a graphical user interface (GUI) that
  uses text entry fields and areas, buttons,
  checkboxes, pull-down menus, scrolling lists, and
  other specialized graphics

17
Making Web Forms

• The ACTIONS attribute points the form to a URL
  that will accept the forms information and
  perform some task
• The form script is typically called a CGI
  (Community Gateway Interface) script or a CGI
  program
• The CGI script performs some manipulations of
  data and composes a response that is typically
  sent back to the users browser as an HTML page

18
Making Web Forms

• The METHOD attribute tells the form how to send
  its information back to the script
• The most common type of method is POST, sending
  all the information from the form separately from
  the URL
• The other option for METHOD is GET, tracking the
  information from the form to the end of the URL
• INPUT is a single tag option for gathering
  information

19
Making Web Forms

• Different input types vary greatly and are quite
  important to creating the perfect form
• Most input types require a NAME attribute that
  sets a unique name for the information being
  passed to the server
• Input tags also use the VALUE attribute to
  assign an original or default value to the input
• TEXT type displays a simple line of text
• TEXT can use the LENGTH attribute to specify how
  many characters will show in the input box
• MAXLENGTH can limit the number of characters that
  can be entered by the users

20
Making Web Forms

• Types of input continued
• The VALUE option would be used to provide text
  present in the field initially
• The PASSWORD type is a modified text field
  displaying bullets instead of the characters
  actually typed
• The HIDDEN type attribute uses NAME and VALUE
• The CHECKBOX type is a valuable resource for
  surveys and order forms
• Radio buttons are grouped together using the NAME
  option

21
Making Web Forms

• Types of input continued
• FILE type provides a file upload feature
• The FILE type uses the NAME, VALUE, ACCEPT, and
  DISABLE attributes
• The IMAGE type is used to create an image-based
  button
• The SRC attribute tells the browser where it can
  find the source image file for the button similar
  to the SRC attribute in the IMG tag
• The ALT attribute provides a textual alternative
  to the image in case the user does not have a
  graphical browser
• ALIGN can be used to control how the image is
  aligned to the page

22
Making Web Forms

• Types of input continued
• USEMAP can be used since it is in a regular image
  map
• DISABLED will disable the button
• The VALUE attribute specifies the text that will
  be on the button face
• The ONCLICK attribute is set equal to the name of
  the script to be executed
• The SUBMIT type displays a push button with the
  present function of sending data from the form to
  the server
• VALUE can be used to change the text on the
  button

23
Making Web Forms

• Types of input continued
• The RESET type displays a push button with the
  present function of clearing data from the form
  to the original values
• VALUE can be used to change the text on the
  button
• If DISABLED is used, the buttons will be turned
  off
• TEXTAREA tag provides an area for multiple-line
  text entry
• The SELECT tag shows a list of choices in either
  a pop-up menu or a scrollable list

24
How to Make CGI Scripts Work

• For the forms that you create to work, each must
  have an accompanying script, a small program that
  deals with the information to and from the form
• This script is placed in a cgi-bin directory over
  the Web server
• A script for forms is usually created in a
  programming language
• The script and the form must match up in order
  for the script to handle the information the form
  is passing