Shel Israel, co-author with Robert Scoble of Naked Conversations discussed a positive customer service story that has unfolded over the last 48 hours at my place in respect of vyew – a potential Webex competitor. First off, all credit goes to Zoli Erdos for starting the ball rolling with a Skype message asking me if I’d seen vyew. We played for a little while and then I blogged it
A few of my readers got stuck in and started posting comments, seeking additional features before they’d be willing to try the service and grumbling about things they thought difficult or non-functioning. A few hours later – vyew bites the bullet and commits to delivering requested functionality this week. No-one asked them to do that. I’m aware it won’t be ‘finished goods’ but readers are scheduling to try it out early next week.
This has to set a new record for responsiveness for user-requested refinements. My congratulations to vyew. My advice for next steps: start your own blog, vyew, so that you can have more direct exchanges with customers.
I agree. To use a very British expression: I was gobsmacked (UK/US translation: my breath was taken away by a pleasant surprise)
Which raises interesting issues/caveats/thoughts:
- It is clear there are markets to be won and early stage products have a genuine chance to succeed or at least gain traction. That won’t work all the time. You can’t for instance have an accounting product that doesn’t balance Dr and Cr (though I have known such beasts.) But you could do a phased R&D rollout for a practice knowledge management system
- The world is flat – Shel is in the US (west cost I believe), I’m 9 hours in front. Most of my daytime readers are an hour behind me though some are 5 hours in front. The time differences didn’t disrupt the flow of events.
- Prospective customers have power
- Indirect PR works – I’m sure vyew will get a boost from this
- Solving problems as close to real-time as you can radically changes service perception – but ‘real-time’ is not the same thing in all industries. 5 minutes in one scenario could easily be 2 days in another. Not to be confused with ‘instant.’ That’s for bad coffee.
- The market works in concert – provided all participants engage in a sensible fashion.
- Exchanges and outcomes of this kind demonstrate friction-free communications and actions.
An interesting Naked Conversation with a vyew – thanks everyone.
PS - blogs are not always as negative as people sometimes think. BTW – this story would never have made an MSM title unless a large chunk of change passed hands for what would be considered advertorial. Who need it?
Technorati Tags: blog pr, blog_marketing, client relationships, cluetrain, vyew
