The Challenge

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The transparent Company - Part 3

Published by Esteban Glas on March 23rd, 2007 | This post lacks all category except for: Business, Web, Web Marketing

What about partners associates and vendors?

This system also applies to them, and it’s core to their interaction with customers and the main brand. All sorts of associates are key in relation with customers. Most of the time they own functions which are front face to the customer. If you buy a product from company A, in store B, store B relates to the customer, but should go wrong it is company A that gets the bad reputation. For all parties’ sake all involved should take care everyone is taking care of their part of the process in an appropriate manner. Although sometimes it might not appear so, everyone’s on the same side.

So, if everyone is on the same side, it seems only natural that everyone uses the same sort of tools. It is just a matter of compromise; sure, sometimes partners of the same company are direct competitors, but sharing information is beneficial for everyone. Say some customer buys from “A” for the first time and from “B” the second time. If “A” did it’s share, “B” knows part of the customer’s purchasing (and even service & support) history and they might be able to get to do a better sale.

The same happens with support, many companies have 3rd parties as support and service providers, customers might be assigned to one or the other depending on variables such as geography. So, say a customer moves or is mobile or is far away for whatever reason from their usual service provider; that should be no problem if the information is centralized and public or semi-public, they’ll know the history and be able if the particular case is a recurring incidence or something completely different.

Another example: if a sales rep knows certain product line has some issues with a certain type of use, he’ll be able to sell a different product, since that information is public. Of course it takes some homework, but every sales-person must do a share of work to ensure good sales. This benefits both the salesman (who would make a knowledgeable sale, have a happy, issue-less customer), support and help desk (who will not have to face support due to a poor sales strategy), and the main brand, since a happy customer is the best marketing campaign.

I have already stated the transparent company is Customer-centric, but I believe it’s noteworthy to say that the side benefits for partners, vendors, service and support people are substantial. It will sure take a company some hard work to get all its different associates to use such tools, and get them convinced that such policy is beneficial for everyone (many companies are very reluctant to share any kind of information, even worst if that information is shared with the competition).

I’ll end up this 3rd part with the obvious: happy customers help everyone; from top to bottom, from left to right.

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