In this age when there is increased competition for everything, customers need a reason to stay loyal to a particular brand. Banks and Daus show how to build the “customer community” –an online community based on the foundations of historical communities that respects the individual’s value as a human being while also providing a means for companies to increase their bottom line.
Book Details:
- Author: Drew Banks
- ISBN: 9780470335758
- Year Published: 2001
- Pages: 288
- BISAC: BUS018000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Customer Relations
About the Book and Topic:
In this age when there is increased competition for everything, customers need a reason to stay loyal to a particular brand. Banks and Daus show how to build the “customer community” –an online community based on the foundations of historical communities that respects the individual’s value as a human being while also providing a means for companies to increase their bottom line.
The Internet is the world’s largest marketplace and provides businesses with the ability to interact with their market in a much more direct and tailored way. Internet markets have emerged to have faces and personalities–individual customers. Through online communities, businesses now have the opportunity to find out who customers are, not by data, but by conversations, by listening and talking to the market, their customers. Banks and Daus, who are both online community experts, here argue that online communities have to date been seen as supplementary to a company’s online efforts rather than as a primary source for creating value for the customer and the company. Banks and Daus argue that community should be the backbone of any online effort as online communities provide a place for businesses to receive direct feedback from their customers and provides customers with an opportunity to participate in a community of interest as well as transaction. They inspire and challenge people to design and participate in virtual communities in a way that builds a tighter, closer social fabric while allowing business to “monetize community” and build a base of repeat customers. By first explaining what the customer community is, the authors discuss how internet technology gives companies a unique advantage in building community and relating to their customers in a more intimate way. The authors then lay out the foundational tenets behind building a strong online community: sustainability, size and scalability, social connectivity, and soul. The authors then discuss how to monetize community while creating value for the customer, as well as how to manage the site in a cost-effective way.
Shows how companies can receive direct feedback from their on-line customers and provides customers with an opportunity to participate in a community of interest as well as transaction. * Offers a new approach to the topic–online communities as a source of value for both customers and businesses. * Examines the success of Amazon.com and the Harry Potter phenomenon as models for successful on-line communities.
About the Author
Drew Banks is an independent management consultant and former vice president of Community at ThirdAge Media. He has also served as director of Worldwide Performance Support and Employee Communications for SGI. Kim Daus is director of organization learning and communication at Intuit and former vice president of content and community at ThirdAge Media. Banks and Daus are co-authors (with Markos Kounalakis) of Beyond Spin: The Power of Strategic Corporate Journalism (Jossey-Bass, 2000).