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Articles

• Planning a Theme Park Vacation around a Birthday

  How Easy (or Difficult) Is It to Accomplish on the Parks' Web Sites?

  by Ronni Marshak

  Planning a vacation and event? See how well the Web sites for DisneyWorld, Six Flags, and Colonial Williamsburg help you achieve your goals.
  Jun. 25, 2009

  Strategies

  

• How Visionary Customer-Centric Execs Keep Innovation Alive

  Take-Aways from Patty’s Visionaries' Spring 2009 Meeting

  by Patricia Seybold

  How do Visionary Customer-centric Execs deal with the recession? By continuing to innovate!
  Jun. 18, 2009

  Strategies

  

• Google Wave

  It’s “My” Design, but Will I Use It?

  by Patricia Seybold

  Did Google design Google Wave by watching customer behavior? If so, did they get it right?
  Jun. 11, 2009

  All Members

  

• Customer Service Company and Product Update 1Q2009

  After Seven Quarters of Growth, the Recession Catches Up to Customer Service

  by Mitchell Kramer

  The recession slowed KM-based customer service in 1Q2009. Customer growth and financial performance slipped for all but two of our suppliers.
  Jun. 4, 2009

  All Members

  

• How Customer-Centric Visionaries Make Information Valuable

  Make Information Actionable and Connect People to People

  by Patricia Seybold

  Visionaries—ebusiness leaders—take content very seriously. They don't just post it; they make it multi-dimensional and actionable.
  Jun. 2, 2009

  Strategies

  

• Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms, Version 3

  How to Evaluate Solutions that Enable Online Customer Communities

  by Matthew Lees

  Online communities can empower customers and strengthen relationships between them and your company. This happens via careful planning, sufficient resources, and using the right tools. This updated framework will help identify the one that’s best for you.
  May. 28, 2009

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• How Customers Want to Plan for Retirement with Financial Security

  Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in the “Planning for Retirement” Customer Scenario^® Pattern

  by Ronni Marshak

  Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It‘s valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so you can focus on how to differentiate the experience you offer. This report focuses on the outcome-based scenario of planning for retirement.
  May. 14, 2009

  Strategies

  

• Green Engineering: Cutting Energy Consumption in the Tropics

  Create a Holistic Model; Monitor and Manage Inputs and Outputs in Real Time; Provide Visualization Tools

  by Patricia Seybold

  What are the current best practices in green engineering? Travel with us to Malaysia to learn how to cut energy costs by 60% when cooling buildings in the tropics.
  May. 7, 2009

  All Members

  

• How Customers Want to Learn a New Skill

  Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in the Customer Scenario® Pattern of Acquiring a Skill

  by Ronni Marshak

  Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It‘s valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so you can focus on how to differentiate the experience you offer. This report focuses on the outcome-based acquiring a skill scenario.
  Apr. 30, 2009

  Strategies

  

• Business Week's Business Exchange

  A Good Example of Crowd Sourcing and Social Networking

  by Patricia Seybold

  Business Week’s Business Exchange is a crowdsourcing adjunct to Business Week. Readers post links to interesting articles and blog posts they’ve found on other publishers’ sites or written themselves. Business Exchange uses three best practices in social media.
  Apr. 29, 2009

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• Search Product and Company Update 2H2008

  Surprisingly Successful Second Half Caps Economic Challenge of 2008

  by Susan Aldrich

  Despite the U.S. recession, the search vendors on my watch list performed quite well during the first half.
  Apr. 16, 2009

  All Members

  

• Why Twitter Rules and What to Do About It

  The Six Best Uses of Twitter for Your Organization

  by Patricia Seybold

  Why should your company "tweet"? How and why should your team be monitoring twitter? Here are the six most powerful ways that companies can use Twitter to connect with customers and would be customers, along with plenty of real-life examples.
  Apr. 13, 2009

  All Members

  

• Customer Service Company and Product Update 4Q2008

  Still Growing and Going Strong!

  by Mitchell Kramer

  4Q2008 was the 7th consecutive quarter of growth for KM-based customer service. Customer growth improved and good customer growth resulted in good financial performance.
  Apr. 2, 2009

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• FiftyOne: Enabling International Customers to Buy from U.S. E-Tailers

  E-Commerce Services that Extend Your Reach into Canada and Europe

  by Mitchell Kramer

  FiftyOne, from E4X, Inc., is a software and services offering that extends your existing ecommerce system with comprehensive support for checkout, fulfillment, and customer service to make it easy for international customers to do business you.
  Mar. 26, 2009

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• Green Infrastructure

  If We Build It, Will They Use It?

  by Patricia Seybold

  Where is urban transportation going? Mobility on demand using green approaches is the next wave.
  Mar. 20, 2009

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• Smart Transportation: Mobility-on-Demand

  A Vision for CityCars and Smart Cities from MIT Media Lab's Smart Cities' Group

  by Patricia Seybold

  MIT Media Labs' Smart Cities' program is working on projects to reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gases by offering "mobility-on-demand" through a combination of mass transit and electric vehicle-sharing.
  Mar. 12, 2009

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• Ecommerce Search Evaluation: Omniture Merchandising

  Ecommerce Search, Merchandising, and Marketing

  by Susan Aldrich

  Omniture Merchandising provides a very strong search, navigation, marketing, and merchandising platform for retailers, that should be on your short list.
  Mar. 5, 2009

  All Members

  

• How Customers Want to Upgrade to a New "Model"

  Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in "Product/Service Upgrade" Customer Scenario^® Patterns

  by Ronni Marshak

  Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It's valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so you can focus on how to differentiate the experience you offer. This report focuses on a typical upgrade scenario.
  Feb. 26, 2009

  Strategies

  

• What Belongs on Your Customer Dashboard?

  Design Your Customer Dashboard to Monitor Performance on Customers' Moments of Truth

  by Susan Aldrich

  Tracking customer KPIs may be the cheapest bottom line boost available this year. Here’s what you should track, and why.
  Feb. 5, 2009

  Strategies

  

• RightNow Service, a Solution for Organizations of All Sizes in a Wide Range of Industries

  Review of RightNow Service November '08 Release

  by Mitchell Kramer

  RightNow Service, the KM-based customer service offering from RightNow Technologies, has been implemented by more than 1,700 organizations since 1997. We recommend current release RightNow November '08 to consumer-oriented organizations of all sizes.
  Jan. 29, 2009

  All Members