Comments on: Informing Purchase Decisions

By: Become a Finch « Brendan Hughes, talking about the Internet in business and society in Ireland

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:58:39 +0000

[...] to your online customers. Understand the steps they go through in informing their purchase decisions and what their expectations are of online transaction processes. Give your customers what they [...]

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:37:41 +0000

Hiya Paul. I think you’re right; the providers are monitoring what it going on, but feeling largely helpless because of the fear that if they engage all the lunatics will come out of the asylum for the party.

As you know, this doesn’t actually happen in reality. In most cases the lunatics are your customers that have been driven to lunacy by your poor customer service. They guys and gals at the front line don’t have to have all the answers, but you’re right, they should have the authority to go and act on behalf of the customer to see if they can fix things.

My own view is that it is a very powerful message to your customers to be seen to proactively respond to negative criticism and try at least to sort it.

By: paul

paul — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:30:33 +0000

hi brendan, good article. As I get to sit on both sides (consumer and marketer of broadband), I may have some insight into this. This is just my personal view but I suspect that most of the providers do listen and read forums and comments, although not in a a systematic and formal way – yet. But this will change. Hopefully.

When it changes, the challenge the companies face is how to figure out how much power / authority it gives the people on the front line to fix problems. It won’t be good enough to have an employee say sorry but not empowered to fix the customer’s problem.

By: Ten things you can do on Twitter « Brendan Hughes

Ten things you can do on Twitter « Brendan Hughes — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:24:49 +0000

[...] place to stay when you’re away? Ask your followers on Twitter. You’ll may be surprised how willing people are to help [...]

By: Brendan

Brendan — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:57:21 +0000

Hi Michael. Thanks for the comment. Interesting piece of data showing the relative weightings that should apply to the various influencers. Social media is the winner in that it is merely facilitating the number one influencer by making it easy and quick to gather recommendations from people we know already.

Online banner ads down the bottom of the list of influencers would make me question investment here. Are we all really that jaded with them? I certainly am.

By: Michael G

Michael G — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:43:29 +0000

Hi breandan

great post. here also is interesting research on how customer recommendations and reviews are now leading the field in terms of sources for making those informed decisions

http://www.whoseview.com/customer-reviews/?p=293