|
Business owners of companies both large and small can achieve rich
improvements in their operations if they start to ask themselves
regularly, "I have just been handed a powerful new tool. It essentially
lets me costless communicate with anyone on the planet. How can I best
use it to my advantage?"
To focus, business owners must first ask themselves two questions: As a business owner, what am I trying to achieve?
Marry your answers to the diverse communications capabilities of
the World Wide Web; you will inevitably create some powerful and highly
beneficial new initiatives.
In exploring strategies for success in the developing environment,
it is essential to recognize a fact that is often overlooked: The
Internet is fundamentally a new communications vehicle. As a
consequence, a large part of its value arises because it permits
cost-effective communications — down the street or on a worldwide
basis—that were not possible before its emergence.
Why is this so important? Because many people have a very
different view of the World Wide Web. They will suggest that the Web is
an entertainment medium —something that has more in common with the
television than the telephone. This focus is easy to appreciate; the
typical person is more interested in the new offerings on the Web that
can entertain him or her than the less exciting details of enhanced
communications capabilities. In addition, Internet use is the first
activity in over forty years that has been clearly documented as
something that causes people to spend less time watching television.
It's therefore natural to think of it as a substitute for this medium.
Benefits of Internet Telephony to Your Business:
1) Availability Completely under Customer Control. With the
internet, visitors—potential customers —come to Web sites at their
convenience, making them far more receptive to what companies have to
say because the customers aren't being intruded upon (as happens with
telemarketing).
2) One-to-Many Communications Performed Seamlessly. The Internet
offers one-to-many communications systems without losing the privacy or
interaction possible by phone. A single posting at a Web site reaches
as many people as visit the site that day
.
3) Reduced Effort, Time, and Cost. The Web makes things easy and affordable.
Not all businesses are currently bringing in added profit via the
Web yet; nonetheless, every business needs to be working on it in order
to be competitive today.
The Web makes it possible for
companies both large and small to develop new communications processes
that save time and money while enabling faster responses to customer
needs.
Many industries rely on widely distributed field sales forces that
may consist of independent agents or company employees. In today's
fast-moving business environment, providing these frontline soldiers
with the most up-to-the-minute information and the best possible tools
and support is critical to success, and by using the Web, companies can
do so at far lower cost.
2) Availability Completely under Customer Control.
With the Internet, visitors—potential customers—come to Web sites
at their convenience, making them far more receptive to what companies
have to say because the customers aren't being intruded upon (as
happens with telemarketing).
3) One-to-Many Communications Performed Seamlessly
The Internet offers one-to-many communications systems without losing
the privacy or interaction possible by phone. A single posting at a Web
site reaches as many people as visit the site that day.
4) Reduced Effort, Time, and Cost.
The Web makes things easy and affordable.
The Web makes it possible to communicate regularly with a large volume of customers at virtually no cost.
Businesses can generally benefit by disseminating information; yet
up to now, there has not been a cost-effective, satisfactory way of
timely customer notification. Not only is direct mail costly, but the
timing of delivery is erratic and an overwhelming amount of it is never
even opened. The telephone is timely, but information disseminated by
telephone is also costly and runs the risk of alienating customers who
don't want to be bothered by solicitors.
Enter the Internet. The World Wide Web gives companies a low-cost
method to communicate with existing customers and to reach out to
potential ones with a timeliness that has never before existed.
The new capabilities created by the Internet far exceed what could
be accomplished with the telephone. Consider how a well-designed
Internet customer-communications system can work:
1.) Orders are confirmed by e-mail —first immediately after they
are placed, and again when they are shipped out. The shipping
confirmation notice includes an internal tracking number to help
customers locate the package if it fails to arrive on a timely basis.
2.) Customers can register for e-mail notifications of various
kinds. By filling out an online form, customers can request to be
notified about newly available products that are likely to be of
interest to them.
3.) "Missing" customers can be inexpensively lured back: If a
frequent customer has not made a purchase for some time, the electronic
retailer can send a $5 or $10 digital coupon to encourage a return
purchase. These types of ongoing efforts to build loyalty can be
triggered by well-designed automated databases, combined with virtually
costless e-mail, to create an inexpensive, potentially high-return, and
customer loyalty program.
This suggests a central strategy for any business today: Gather
e-mail addresses from customers (and permission to contact them using
these addresses), even if you don't yet have an interactive Web site.
Every business from a major manufacturer to a regional discount store
to the local plumber will find that well-designed e-mail messages can
be a low-cost, highly effective means of building profitable revenues.
In Strategy 7, I discuss how a local pest-control business might
benefit tremendously from an e-mail-based initiative.
The Importance of round the clock availability
Like a good catalog and 800 numbers, the Internet makes your
company accessible to customers worldwide twenty-four hours a day.
However, the “Web” is better than the world's greatest catalog."
Here's why:
Additional visuals as well as more written detail. Catalogs face
an inherent limitation: Paper and postage are costly. As a result,
details —other views of a product as well as more written
description—often have to be left out. So while the 800-number operator
can read to customers the special washing instructions, if the product
is offered on the Internet, the consumer can read the special washing
instructions for him- or herself, scroll through a more lengthy product
description, and in all likelihood, see more than one view of the item.
Expanded offerings. Today catalogs typically list only a portion
of a company's offerings, simply because more listings mean expansion
of printing and mailing costs. The Web obliterates this limitation.\
Remember too, that anything that can be accomplished online instead of
by phone is more cost effective. A five-minute call to order a $50
item, at a cost of $1 per minute, means that the call is a significant
percentage of the cost structure, and a five-minute inquiry—with no
purchase attached —creates a financial loss in addition to time lost by
personnel who might have been making a sale to someone else. This
contrasts with use of the Internet, where—to the extent that
communications cost exists—they are trivial, and consumers bear the
cost of company contact by paying their access service.
The Internet has now led to a new definition of what customers
have come to expect: In the emerging era, businesses are almost
required to provide twenty-four-hour Internet communications, so that
the consumer can shop from home whenever he or she wants to. Sites that
prosper will be more than order-taking vehicles; they will provide a
creative, educational experience that builds knowledge about their
products and services and engenders sales as well as ongoing customer
loyalty.
Whether your business specializes in Porche luxury cars
or temporary employment services , the Web offers you the opportunity
to find people who are looking for what your company sells. |