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Articles

• Leading an “Issues and Vision” Discussion with Customers (and Partners)

  Tips for Gaining a Lot of Customer Context in a Short Time (and How to Kick Off a Customer Scenario® Mapping Session)

  by Patricia Seybold

  What’s the most effective way to capture customers’ current and ideal requirements about your business, about current or potential products and services, about your processes, about the brand experience you offer?
  Sep. 15, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Primer

  Understanding an Important Component of SOA and Integration Strategies

  by Brenda Michelson

  Interested in BPEL for service orchestration? Integration? Business process development? Read this primer to get a handle on the basics: what BPEL is, what it's good for, how it works, and what it looks like.
  Sep. 8, 2005

  All Members

  

• Survey: How Companies Apply Software to Improve Customer Service

  Companies Want to Deliver an Effective Customer Experience for Customer Self-Service

  by Susan Aldrich

  In March through May of this year, we surveyed 194 business and technology managers to identify the business and technology drivers behind customer service.
  Sep. 1, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Why the Buzz About Google Talk?

  What’s Google’s Strategy for IM and VOIP, and How Will It Impact You?

  by Patricia Seybold

  Google’s introduction of Google Talk instant messaging and chat in August 2005 unleashed a huge buzz of speculation. Our take: Google is about to shake up the telecommunications industry.
  Sep. 1, 2005

  All Members

  

• A Blogosphere Primer

  Understanding the Basics: Blogging, Syndication, Reading, Searching, and Tagging

  by Brenda Michelson

  Blogging, and the blogosphere, are experiencing phenomenal growth. In this primer, we explain the blog and blogosphere basics, including blog structure, authoring, syndication, searching, reading, and tagging.
  Aug. 25, 2005

  All Members

  

• Democratizing Innovation

  Von Hippel’s New Book Stresses the Importance of Innovation by Lead Users

  by Patricia Seybold

  Eric von Hippel’s book, Democratizing Innovation, describes how to harness the inventiveness of your lead users to create breakthrough products.
  Aug. 18, 2005

  All Members

  

• Managing Product Content at Hewlett-Packard

  A Practical, yet Innovative and Elegant Approach

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Hewlett-Packard has designed, built, and implemented a system called HP Provisioner for managing its product content. This report is a case study that describes the motivation, approach, design, development, and implementation of HP Provisioner.
  Aug. 18, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Identifying Operational Customer Experience Metrics

  How to Spot What Matters Most to Customers and Turn Those “Moments of Truth” into Metrics You Can Track

  by Patricia Seybold

  This report provides an overview of operational customer experience metrics: What are they? Why do they matter? How do other companies identify and monitor them? How might you discover your customers’ metrics?
  Aug. 4, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Monitor Your Quality of Customer Experience

  QCE vs. QoE: Monitor Operational Performance on the Things That Impact the Quality of Your Customer’s Experience with Your Brand

  by Susan Aldrich

  Understanding how Quality of Customer Experience (QCE) metrics differ from quality of experience (QoE) metrics will help you deliver the quality of experience your customers expect
  Aug. 2, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Return on Customer

  Peppers and Rogers Popularize an Important Concept

  by Patricia Seybold

  Patricia Seybold reviews and recommends Don Rogers’ and Martha Peppers’ new book—Return on Customer—which continues the arguments that Seybold laid out in The Customer Revolution in 2001.
  Jul. 21, 2005

  All Members

  

• Are You Handling Content Management as a Customer-Critical Issue?

  Shoddy Content Management Will Adversely Impact the Value of Your Company

  by Patricia Seybold

  Content management issues are costing your company big bucks when measured in terms of customer lifetime value. What should you do about it?
  Jul. 21, 2005

  Strategies

  

• In Google We Trust?

  What’s Google’s Impact on Your Strategy?

  by Patricia Seybold

  What’s your Google strategy? Google has become much more than a search engine. It’s now a major market force and a shaper of customer behavior. In fact, Google’s strategy may impact your company’s future, whether you pay attention or not!
  Jul. 7, 2005

  All Members

  

• Concerns of Customers.com Visionaries in Q2 2005

  Issues, Initiatives, and Requirements from Customer-Centric Executives in Q2 2005

  by Patricia Seybold

  Our hand-picked group of visionaries are committed to making it easy for their customers to do business with them. Here are the top-of-mind issues facing customer-centric visionary leaders in the first half of 2005.
  Jul. 7, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Web Services, Services and SOA: What Companies Care About

  Results from Release 2 of our Web Services Survey

  by Brenda Michelson

  Here are the results from our 2005 Web Services and SOA survey, reporting on respondent adoption rates, investment plans, critical issues, and value expectations.
  Jun. 30, 2005

  All Members

  

• Northern Light Enterprise Search Engine V.3.0

  Low Price, High Value, and Programmer Friendly

  by Susan Aldrich

  Northern Light Enterprise Search Engine V.3.0 stacks up well against our enterprise search evaluation criteria.
  Jun. 23, 2005

  All Members

  

• Interviewing Customers for Your Customer Scenario Mapping Session

  The Pre-Session Interview Enables Great Customer Scenario Choices

  by Susan Aldrich

  Customer interviews are a critical step in preparing for a Customer Scenario® Mapping session. Here’s our script and tactics for the pre-session interviews.
  Jun. 16, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Knova Self-Service V.6: Self-Service and Support Search Solution

  Advanced Linguistics, Auto Classification, and Ontology

  by Susan Aldrich

  Knova Self-Service V.6, a solution for resolution management on customer support Web sites, incorporates a search engine that stacks up well against our self-service and support search solution evaluation framework.
  Jun. 13, 2005

  All Members

  

• Establishing Customer Experience Metrics Using Customer Scenario Maps

  Developing Your Customer Flight Deck

  by Susan Aldrich

  Use customer metrics and moments of truth you identify in your Customer Scenario® Maps to create your QCE measurements.
  Jun. 9, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Selecting and Recruiting Customers for Customer Scenario® Mapping Sessions

  How to Identify and Solicit the Right End-Customers for Customer Co-Design Sessions

  by Patricia Seybold

  What’s the best way to recruit customers (and partners) for Customer Scenario® Mapping sessions? Here are suggestions for ways to build customer co-design into your normal activities. We also describe what kinds of customers to recruit, and how many.
  Jun. 9, 2005

  Strategies

  

• A Call for Accounting Transparency: The Value of Customers and Brands

  New Rules for Disclosing Intangible Assets Will Require Reporting on Customer and Brand Assets

  by Patricia Seybold

  Accounting rules are about to change. Soon, your company will be required to break out the value of certain intangible assets on your balance sheet. Will you be ready?
  Jun. 2, 2005

  Strategies