E-BUSINESS IDEA OF THE YEAR—GET MARRIED!
Added: (Wed Oct 31 2001)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Attn: Business Editor
As you prepare or adjust your company for e-business initiatives in the coming weeks, months and years, consider putting marriage at the top of your priority list. Divorce rates are skyrocketing between customers and e-businesses. Customers are leaving due to lack of attention, dishonesty and poor communication. To succeed online in today’s environment, companies need to create online partnerships with customers or “get married”.
Only by mirroring the stages a couple goes through—dating, going steady, engagement and marriage—can companies develop successful, fruitful and long-term online relationships with their customers.
According to Christopher Brya, author of “Peak Performance for E-business and Marketing Professionals” is president and CEO of Solavista Consulting Group, Inc. (http://www.solavista.com), a consulting firm with over 10 years experience in organizational, e-business and marketing excellence, troubled relationships not only prevent a company from beating their competition, but they also severely limit growth and increase costs and inefficiency.
“Like a marriage, a partnership between your customers and your firm is based on trust, communication and follow-through,” says Brya. “Similar to an individual looking for a spouse, your e-business efforts should revolve around criteria for choosing and keeping a partner. When beginning the partnership process, it is important to be patient and not to rush in.” Like romance, a relationship rarely succeeds when the couple goes straight from dating to marriage.
DATING: The first phase of the e-business-customer relationship concentrates on customer service. Like trying to woo another in a romantic relationship, your efforts online are putting your “best foot forward” in attempts to make your customer agree to pursue a future together.
GOING STEADY: At this level, both parties are actively involved with one another. They visit you. You respond in kind. You build the start of a trusting relationship, but like a romantic relationship towards marriage, it is still a long way from “a sure thing.”
ENGAGEMENT: Like a couple, this is the point where you declare your commitment. This is when you ask for your customer’s hand in business. If they accept, you are a lucky soul indeed. However, your commitment doesn’t stop after you “pop the question.” Now you must deliver seamlessly.
MARRIAGE: At this point, a true partnership has occurred. The culture between your firm and your customer resemble the commitment of marriage. This relationship should maintain some agreed-to flexibility, but is nevertheless, a binding commitment on your part to ensure the happiness of your customer. You don’t want to be married for a year. Your goal is in establishing a relationship that lasts through tough times.
“It is important to remember that a customer partnership is personal, emotional and unique in much the same way that relationships between couples are,” says Brya.
Despite all of the IT and software advances, success in e-business today is impossible without customers. Companies with e-business initiatives that abandon the traditional ways of “handling customers” and pursue long-term customer partnerships as a permanent way of doing business online are bound for substantial growth, profitability and stability.
So start today and make a commitment to get married…or at least start dating again.
·Peak Performance for E-business and Marketing Professionals by Christopher Brya, is published monthly and delivered via e-mail. You can subscribe for free by visiting: http://www.solavista.com/newsletter.htm
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