Download Chapter 13

Electronic Marketing
Chapter 13
Considerations for Ongoing
Customer Communications
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
The Value of Repeat Customers
• Retailers and wholesalers along with their suppliers are
looking for new customers and are trying to determine what
new customers like
• It is the retailer or service’s responsibility to produce
products and services attractive to a niche market and then
retain these customers through product satisfaction and
customer service
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
The Value of Repeat Customers
• Marketers should consider spending a fraction of the
marketing budget to satisfy and enhance the goods’ and
services’ delivery to past customers who are satisfied with
the product or service
• Electronic marketing provides excellent tools for focusing
efforts on fewer persons, attempting to achieve a mutually
beneficial relationship
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
The Value of Repeat Customers
• The Web’s capabilities can:
– Be programmed to deliver gratitude to longtime customers
– Congratulate new customers or encourage prospects
– Supply confirmations to existing clients’ orders
– Provide technical support for new product users
– Conduct surveys inquiring what changes the customer would
like to see
– Expand communications to outside suppliers and the general
community
– Supply associates with the latest company news first
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Where Do You Stand?
• It is best to learn what customers think about a product or
service before the marketer launches new, ambitious
customer service programs
• The Web is well suited for conducting prospect and
customer, supplier, and ex-customer opinion studies
• Many companies today strive for value-added customer
service strategies
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Where Do You Stand?
• Electronic marketing tools allow the customer extensive
knowledge about a product or about the company through
information on a company’s Web site or through hyperlinks
on the Web site
• The marketer should develop a full customer service plan
and test it before putting it on the company’s Web site
• Customer response or opinion polls can be conducted on
Web sites or by e-mail to determine the advantages or
disadvantages of the performance of an existing product’s
Web site to gain feedback on proposed new product
changes
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Where Do You Stand?
• Companies are finding substantial cost savings in
information transfer between offices that have heavy
paperwork involving high sales volume tied to customer
service records
• Companies with extensive human resources records also
benefit from electronic tools
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Should It Be Called Customer
Communications?
• The value of positive customer relations is glaringly
apparent from these customer research findings:
– A company loses half of its customers every five years
– Two-thirds of the reasons for customer displeasure are
breakdowns in communications
– One-third was attributable to actual product failure or poor
service
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Should It Be Called Customer
Communications?
• Customer relations are vital for the long-term benefits of
both parties, and never before has customer
communications been as expedited and rich as with today’s
electronic vehicles
• Studies have shown that dissatisfied customers will tell at
least 10 other people about their bad experience (which, of
course, is bad word-of-mouth advertising for the company)
• However, with the Internet, that figure could potentially be
multiplied by thousands
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Should It Be Called Customer
Communications?
• Sites should develop or utilize some form of “autoknowledge” that responds to all incoming reports stating
that the question was received and estimates a time frame
for how long it will take to respond to the question
• It is the marketer’s job, therefore, to initiate, nurture, and
improve the customer service program
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Establishing the Electronic
Customer Service Program
• The marketer might begin establishing an electronic
customer service program by asking, “How would I like to
be treated if I were the customer?”
• The marketer might then investigate competitors’ customer
service pages and programs, particularly the successful
competitors
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback
In any plan for commerce, online or traditional, “listening posts”
must be identified and ranked so that communications
mechanisms can be set to gather opinions, either positive or
negative. Sources of feedback can be:
–
Customer complaints
–
Direct customer contact
–
–
–
–
Employee and associates’
sessions
–
Your neighborhood
–
Community involvement
–
Online community involvement
Your own e-mail
The formal customer survey
Suppliers and manufacturers
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback
• Delivering services as a number one priority
• Sometimes the only concrete proof of an e-commerce firm is
its performance in customer service
• In organizing a customer service program, two ingredients
create a winning effort
– First, the marketer must insist on hiring excellent
representatives
– Second, superior training of these representatives must be
undertaken
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Evaluating the Sources of Feedback
• These two steps can be followed up with the other portions
of the customer service program
– Setting standards for customer service
– Time-lapse elements
– Activities schedule to solve problems
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• Forms are one of the most popular features on the Web for
conducting business
– They can add a flexible connection of interactivity to your Web
documents by allowing the marketer to conduct surveys, take
orders, sign up users, gather feedback, even administer tests
– Forms can be very simple or highly complex
• A form is a graphical user interface (GUI) that uses text entry
fields and areas, buttons, checkboxes, pull-down menus,
scrolling lists, and other specialized graphics
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• The “action” attribute points the form to a URL that will
accept the form’s information and perform some task
• In order for the form you create to work, it must have an
accompanying script or small program that deals with the
information to and from the form
• The script performs some manipulations of data and
composes a response that is typically sent back to the
user’s browser as an HTML page
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• The “method” attribute tells the form how to send its
information back to the script
– The most common type of “method” is “post”, sending all the
information from the form separately from the URL
– The other option for “method” is “get”, tracking the information
from the form to the end of the URL
• “input” is a single tag option for gathering information
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• Input types vary and are important to creating the perfect
form
– Most input types require a “name” attribute that sets a unique
name for the information being passed to the server
– Input tags also use the “value” attribute to assign an original
or default value to the input
– “text” type displays a simple line of text
– “textarea” tag provides an area for multiple-line text entry
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• Types of input continued…
– The “checkbox” type is a valuable resource for surveys and
order forms
– Radio buttons are grouped together using the “name” option
– “file” type provides a file upload feature
– The “image” type is used to create an image-based button
– The “select” tag shows a list of choices in either a pop-up
menu or a scrollable list
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
Making Web Forms
• Types of input continued…
– The “password” type is a modified text field displaying bullets
instead of the characters actually typed
– The “hidden” type attribute uses “name” and “value”
– The “submit” type displays a push button with the present
function of sending data from the form to the server
– The “reset” type displays a push button with the present
function of clearing data from the form to the original values
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
How to Make Forms Function
• For the forms that you create to function, each must have an
accompanying script or small program that deals with the
information to and from the form
• A script for forms is usually created in a programming or
scripting language
• The script and the form must match up in order for the
script to handle the information the form is passing
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo
How to Make Forms Function
• Cold Fusion, ASP, and PHP are application servers programs that work in conjunction with your Web server to
deliver Web applications--not just plain Web pages
• A Web developer will build Web pages with special tags
similar to HTML
• The application server interprets the special tags, replacing
them with results of whatever calculation or database
queries were specified and sends a completed HTML page
to the Web Server
Electronic Marketing: Integrating Electronic
Resources into the Marketing Process, 2e
5/24/2017
2004
Joel Reedy and Shauna Schullo