During our conversation at the Inbound Marketing Summit, we talked about writing engaging content for the next web and the socializing of information. One of the slides in my deck visualized the customer contribution part of content, which we said gives you permission to connect. I stack ranked the ideas in order of complexity - with the simplest being a "like" button.
I think many companies are not implementing that on their Web sites because they're somewhat anxious that nobody will like their pages. So why, oh why, is the site still static and displaying the same stale content? What if you were courageous and led with the information that makes your reader look smart with his peers and then built a path with her and for her to get to the technical stuff?
Ratings, universal opt in forms, on-exit surveys to give you an idea of how much your Web site meets or doesn't meet customer needs and a comment form, which is more commonly used in blogs or online publication formats are some of the interactive media you could test. Test lots of things based on personas, let people surprise you, don't assume stuff, especially at the beginning.
Customer contributions build preference - their story becomes intertwined with yours on your site, and a reason for them to come back.
Building a chain of participation
After you're done thinking about one interaction, you worry about the following one. You do know that it's seldom that a customer makes a purchase straight off search, especially if you're in B2B. How do you go about building a set of contributions from low commitment to higher interaction that keep the visitor coming back?
Bazaarvoice Sam Decker and Ze Frank just authored a white paper on how participation chains connect customers to your brand, which very much validates the power of connections formed through customer contributions. If word of mouth is powerful, so is word of mouse. One example from the how to section of the paper (emphasis and style mine):
A user comes in with the goal of sharing some photos with a friend. She begins by uploading files from her computer, then is offered chances to crop the photos, to scale them and tag them.
Once her gallery is finalized, she’s presented with the options of emailing them to a friend or posting them to Facebook.
Once that is done, she is offered the chance to make a calendar, do it again, or enter one of her photos in a contest.
As she enters the photo in the contest, she finds she can view, rate and comment on other people’s photos.
Participation chains are made possible by merchandising next steps and making participation calls to action very visible, compelling and convenient.
Wonder why games are so addictive? They're built so they engage players in achieving higher degrees of involvement by giving them higher levels of feedback - scores, comparisons to other players, challenge, etc.
How it works
From the paper (thank you, Sam):- Identify the most common goals that user might have.
- Identify a next contribution that best maximizes the value for that user and their context.
- Identify the actions that you (as a platform) are most interested in having the user participate in.
- Identify the most simple and logical “next step.” If people are using your platform in a way you hadn’t intended, embrace it and offer a clear path for them to accomplish their aims.
- Consider explicitly asking a user to explore another part of the site, or learn more about site functionality.
- Identify ways to push toward high-value content submission. Take that “like” or one-click star rating and convert it into a more robust review or story.
What does this mean for B2B service companies? Find ways to integrate off line with online and to let your customers decide when to jump off line under your expert guidance. Keep the value exchange meaningful at every step. Where do you start? Start by asking for the first contribution.
© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.
I think there are two very interesting parts to your post, but the one I'm most interested in, is in the ratings and review systems. The link to that whitepaper by Ze Frank stated in its opening paragraph "...while 74 percent are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product in the first place". We've heard about the power of "what others like me thought" in ecommerce and social ecommerce, but very few companies have executed on this properly. The two that most mention are Amazon and Neflix, but USAA is also starting to incorporate member reviews of financial products. Why do people care to learn what others thought first before they consider a product online? Because it reduces overall information costs - reputation systems when dealing with a seller (eBay) and rating systems when judging the quality of a product (Amazon, USAA, Netflix). Boxes and Arrows put together an interesting post on rating and reputation systems here http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/on-a-scale-of-1-to-5
Great post.
Posted by: Digitalinfant | November 16, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Forrester is telling us that the trends in social media spending (up) are all about consumer's desire to participate and connect with peers. For B2B that's all about introducing customers to each other, their opinions, advice, comments, etc. I would go even further than comments and ratings and actually introduce customers to each other. Let them talk, share, argue, debate, counsel each other and see where it goes. At worst case it's a chance to listen; at best they'll sell each other, solve each other's problems and offer wisdom that you may not get any other way.
Posted by: edward boches | November 16, 2009 at 12:38 PM
The most important 2 things about using customer feedback to improve products are 1) do _something_ and 2) make changes based on the outcomes customers need, not necessarily on what they say they want. (i.e. Part of our job is to translate wants into results.)
Henry Ford is said to have remarked, "if I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."
Thank you for the good post.
Posted by: Andrew McFarland | November 16, 2009 at 08:46 PM
@Digitalinfant - indeed, the stats offered by Sam Decker are quite interesting. Thank you for the link. Interestingly, reputation systems are very subjective. What is a 3-star performance for someone, could be 5 stars for someone else. Still, I agree with you, reducing information cost means going along with what others have done/are doing more often than not.
@Edward - you know I do that, right? That's the way I was built. My desire is to help people connect with others who they will find interesting and helpful. We organize face to face forums for this kind of learning and conversation.
@Andrew - taking action and communicating you've taken action are critical parts. I'm very familiar with outcome-based innovation and the body of work by Ulwick and Christensen.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | November 16, 2009 at 10:19 PM
It seems like collecting customer feedback and metrics is the easy part - it can be as easy as adding a plugin to your website.
The hard part seems to be staying on top of all that data and acting on it.
Posted by: M Kayan | November 18, 2009 at 04:12 PM