Paper Topic: What makes a successful customer experience with online services?

Research Topic:

In today's world, the way in which users are interacting with information and with each other is changing rapidly. People are connecting to the internet with a host of new devices and are accessing content or information in new ways. Over the years since internet has emerged in the early 1990s, people have now developed online lives, where routine daily tasks involve the internet. Yet through this change, some exemplars have emerged in the realm of 'online services' which provide that unique customer experience that users seek and keep them coming back, despite a host of competitors and little to no switching costs. In the social media realm, there is Facebook which has clearly dominated over competitors such as MySpace. Online gaming is led by Zynga, the maker of FarmVille despite PlayFish and Pogo and many other online game sites. When most people of online music, they turn to Pandora rather than offerings from Last.fm and Slacker Radio. And online information and community sites such as Wikipedia, Blogger, and LinkedIn are ruling over content mills, Typepad and Wordpress, and Bebo.

Key Questions:

What makes these key offerings work and why are they sticky? Is there something that explains their success? How is the user experience managed? How is the user experience designed, and are there key elements of each leading offering that are common among 'winning' platforms? How do they overlap: for example, Zynga and other online gaming companies use Facebook as a platform. What is the customer experience of each - relating to the customer experience framework we have studied in class? How are customers acquired? How are they managed? How are users retained? Have these online services been able to create higher switching costs than that of other less popular offerings? How much do these companies understand of their user base that is allowing them to target other customers and develop other appealing offerings? What are the broader implications of our growing connection to online services and what could the future hold? For instance, will it be a winner-take-all market for each type of offering or will multiple offerings co-exist?

My Interest in this Topic:

I am intrigued with how much our lives are being conducted online and how rapidly this phenomena is changing in today's world. As someone who remembers the late 1990's internet bubble and crash, it seems there is some element of what is going on today that parallels that period. However, there is likely much that is different and it is possible we are not going through internet bubble cycle 2.0 at this point. I hope to understand why or why not this may be occurring and what has changed since that time. This topic is also personally relevant to me because I hope to find a job at one of the leading online service providers. I think that by conducting the research for this paper that I will learn a great deal about the industry and the strategy behind the engaging customer experience that has been created by each company.

As I think about my interest in this topic and my future career, I consider that if I were required to write an MBA dissertation, that this would be my topic.

Resources:

My research resources include learning from one of the leading experts in online marketing today, Seth Godin, through his book and ongoing personal blog. I also will analyze the corporate blogs of today's leading companies in this realm, Google, Facebook, and Pandora. Additionally, I will look at leading tech site articles devoted to the topic, such as the CNN Tech article listed below.

Seth Godin, Tribes, 2008

Seth Godin's Glog

CNN Tech, Why the no-fun 'FarmVille' is so popular, Sept. 28, 2010

Pandora Corporate Blog

Google 10 Things Corporate Philosophy

Facebook Corporate Blog

Customer Experience: Amazon for Textbooks

As a graduate school student, each semester brings a large textbook purchase, sometimes upwards of $300. The cost can be daunting, although the textbooks are required for each course. Fortunately, there are options, and the number of options is growing. Students such as myself today can purchase from the Co-Op, rent textbooks from Chegg.com, or purchase from Abebooks.com or Amazon or even Barnes and Noble.

This past semester, I had to purchase two books for my Invisible Global Marketing course, the subject being business in emerging markets. These are not textbooks, but two books co-authored by the professor of the course. Being the cost-conscious student, I first comparison-shopped for these two books at the locations discussed previously. After a store visit to the Co-Op and a few website visits, I determined that these two books were cheapest when purchased from Amazon. I started an order for them at Amazon and added them each to my cart. When I began the checkout process, I realized that Amazon carried one, and could ship to me directly, but the other book was listed by a private seller on Amazon. I first thought this could be a problem, because there could be two transactions, but Amazon handled both purchases in one check out - the book at Amazon, and it handled the other with the private seller. Amazon's book was new, but for the other at the private seller, Amazon indicated what condition the book was in: New, Used, Like-New, Or Very Good condition, and the price differed for each variation. Additionally, for each one, I was given an estimated ship date, and length of time for delivery based on the shipping method I chose. I soon found out that both books would arrive at my house within a day of each other, although in separate shipments. I felt delighted that I could save about $15 off these two books versus other avenues such as the Co-Op, so I went ahead and placed an order. When each arrived about 5 days later, each arrived with a receipt from Amazon and the other seller and the Amazon book came with a return shipping label. Each was in the condition described in the listing.

Despite securing these books, I was forced to drop the class a week into the semester because of a scheduling conflict with a required course. I decided to return the books but I felt that this could be a problem. Would I be double-hit for shipping charges? Would Amazon and the other seller accept the return? Would any of the books be damaged or lost in the mail? The return at Amazon proved to be super easy. I didn't have to call or email anyone, I just simply indicated on my web check out form from my order that I was returning them. The return form sent me a return label for the other book. I put both in the mail and received a confirmation about a week later that both were received and a return credit issued, including the shipping charges for the return. Looking back on this entire transaction with Amazon, the whole experience seemed relatively painless; both finding, shipping, contacting Amazon afterwards, and returning the books. From my perspective, these are the important elements of my exchange with Amazon:

Ease in locating items
Low pricing and shipping costs versus other alternatives
Felt the shipping time was good relative to the cost
Ability to purchase from a variety of sellers, not just Amazon
Ability to quickly communicate with Amazon regarding the return (simple web page handled return)
Effortless return process, simple label priting at home, although I still had to go to the Post Office to mail the package
Fair credit for exchange policy

Why was this so? Analyzing the entire customer experience with elements of the Experiential Marketing Framework explains this.

There are five elements to this framework:

Sense: appealing to the senses, and used to differentiate the company or motivate customers.

Feel: appeals to to customers inner feels and emotions, with the objective to create affective experiences.

Think: appeals to the intellect. This engages the customer with creative problem solving experiences.

Act: enriches customers' lives by showing them alternative ways of doing things.

Relate: contains some of the above aspects but expands to customers feeling of an ideal self, other people, or cultures.

From my perspective, my Amazon experience touched on the Feeling, Thinking and Relational aspects of the Experiential Marketing Framework. These three categories encompass much of what I value from the exchange with Amazon. The competitive pricing and shipping costs and times all relate to my inner feeling regarding saving on expenses and how that just feels good for a consumer, especially with a web transaction - where cost and shipping are the main differentiators - the same items can be found at many sources. My ability to engage in one transaction with multiple sellers through Amazon, the ease of communication regarding the return and the effortless return process definitely falls into the Thinking category, as these aspects are all ways that Amazon showed me a creative way of completing a tast. (Amazon handled the sale for me with the other vendor, coordinated shipping, included a return label, and made it easy to print the other). Lastly, considering how I feel about the entire experience includes comparing this experience to previous dealing with Amazon, also comparing to other sellers, and comparing to what I feel is an ideal fair transaction. These three elements stem from the Relational aspect of the Experiential Marketing Framework.