John Linton
.....a very old, and quite possibly old fashioned, part of being in business.
I read this an hour or so ago:
http://business.theage.com.au/business/last-vestige-of-trujillo-era-about-to-log-off-20090906-fctg.html
and thought it a bit strange - not that Telstra would close down an attempt at using the internet in one of the ways in which it is most powerful but what a total mess they made of the concept of using it in that way. The internet, which obviously Telstra uses as much as most communications companies to 'do business' is providing more new ways of dealing with customers and potential customers than the early Phoenicians could ever have dreamed of - or come to think of it - most hot shot "marketing gurus" as recently as ten years ago. Selling a product has, since the Phoenicians (or whoever you credit with being the first major understanders of commercial principles) always involved using customer feedback to drive every aspect of your 'manufacturing', distribution, buying experience and after sale support processes.
I first learned "how to sell products via a web site", coincidentally in the UK, in the early 2000's and I began to learn about the value of 'bulletin boards' or 'fora' as early as the mid 1990s. Undoubtedly my knowledge of these incredibly powerful tools is quite rudimentary compared to some people I talk with on these subjects but it is more than enough to have ensured we built these processes into almost every aspect of the way that Exetel does business today. Today 95%+ of the 'sales' that Exetel makes are made via our web site with no previous contact between the customer and an Exetel employee. Similarly over 80% of all technical, administration or billing problems are resolved by web based automated processes. These are the immediately obvious benefits the internet has brought to commerce but, incredibly valuable as they are, all the value of these processes put together is a tiny fraction of the value that the attempted web function that Telstra has just closed brings to Exetel and all of the other commercial organisations that use their web sites to allow their customers to interact with the decison making processes and people within a commercial enterprise.
Huge 'slices' of Exetel's current processes have been implemented based on direct customer suggestions including over 90% of our very comprehensive User Facilities, much of our FAQs, almost all of our web pages have been heavily influenced by customer suggestions and well over 50% of our billing and administrative processes have been developed based on customer suggestions. Almost all of our agent processes and facilities have been put in place based on ideas and suggestions (and in more than one instance) by actual code submitted by an agent or a customer.
Both our Customer Forum and our Agent Forum were set up (the customer forum before we took our first order) to provide customers and Exetel personnel to exchange ideas and to eliminate problems and have been instrumental in generating a steady stream of ideas for improvements in every aspect of our business. Those fora also give Exetel's management and directors a place to discuss their own ideas for Exetel's future and to, very seriously, listen to counter opinions and views on aspects of our business we are thinking of changing.
In many ways our 'latest' two way communication process, the 'suggestion box' (replacing 'suggestion threads' on the two forums) has been the most valuable 'channel' of all in producing over 1,000 implemented suggestions in less than 9 months of operation - a rate of change that we have never achieved before.
It seems impossible to me that Telstra couldn't make such simple to understand concepts deliver the incredible diversity of ideas and true value that they have done for every company that has implemented them. My knowledge of this aspect of business is by no means comprehensive but I have never heard of any serious attempt at setting up a two way communication system with customers (and others) that has been closed down. Ive seen many evolve rapidly over time, including ours, but never seen such an endeavour actually shut down. I have never bothered to check on what other communications companies do in Australia - my contacts are all in the USA - so I don't know how much of the 'two way' net facilities are used by other ISPs and comms companies but I haven't heard of any of them shutting down such processes.
Perhaps large companies have so many talented and innovative people they don't need to encourage their customers to provide them with feedback on their current and future services and processes?