Community Guy - Latest Comments in The perfect customer interaction support tool

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Customer Retention — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:49:58 -0000

Great article. What you said here "isn’t about the tools, it’s about the relationships." is so true on all levels. As CRM specialists, we've managed just by the use of forums and emails to build up such a huge network of customers and return customers without any tools just relationship chatting skills.

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Mike Rowland — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:06:42 -0000

The search for the holy grail of platforms continues. Each of the platforms/aps listed above have their pluses and minuses, there is no perfect fit no matter how hard we try.

The good news is that the aps are getting so much better and more robust. Remember when we had to choose between iChat, eShare, and WebCrossing as our only vendors????

Based upon our technology reviews for clients, I'll go out on a limb and project that we're about 2-3 years from a web based ap that can do about 90% of what you've listed. Good luck and thanks for providing such clear ideas to our community. You've done a good job of explaining the details and the frustrations that many of us feel...

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Ben — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:30:19 -0000

I've also been in search of a remarkable online community platform.
http://caeexam.blogspot.com...

Please publish your findings!

To the list of multiple access points, I'd add an interactive desktop alert widget similar to Southwest Airlines' DING application. Users could customize if they want to know when an admin posts something, one of their favorite users posts something, a new document is posted, etc. When the alert is activated, users could have the option to interact through the widget, or jump off to the community web site, or post a reply by email.

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Chris Heuer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:49:00 -0000

I have been searching for this too and found nothing that meets my needs yet, but Drupal, customized with a real budget can serve as a platform to do most everything you suggest.

The thing is though, that I have to ask, 'perfect for what/who?' - the needs are still slightly different in each situation, so it also really needs to be customizable to the very specific usage of the human beings who are needing to connect with each other.

Everything is Situational...

What would be really interesting is to create a matrix of community characteristics and see how they match to existing solutions... could be a great research project.

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

lane — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:09:57 -0000

yeah, we're not quite the right tool for this particular job, since we're focused entirely (@ the moment) on public interactions between companies and customers. but, this does sound like a pretty interesting idea...

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Derek Scruggs — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:19:06 -0000

I think Drupal could do all this - http://www.drupal.org

It might require some customization, but most of what you describe (including security) is either already available or do-able within a week or so (by a programmer, not a designer or user).

Shameless plug - we've done a lot of this with Drupal and are looking to do more. Contact me if you're interested in taking a closer look. :)

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Chris Messina — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:34:44 -0000

Argh, I should have read more closely. Maybe they'll do a private white-label?

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Jake — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:17:36 -0000

Satisfaction is cool, but with everything public it doesn't really address the whole top secret thing :)

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Chris Messina — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:06:52 -0000

Dude, use Satisfaction: http://getsatisfaction.com

And you're done! ;)

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Jake — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:40:28 -0000

So just a couple of quick thoughts about the project management systems you linked. First off, those look really nice for PM systems. I like the tasty interfaces and easy flow they seem to have.

But for my Perfect App, the project management vibe has to be removed. Getting volunteers, community members to participate in your company's projects is tricky to ensure they don't feel "used". As I mentioned in the post, my concern is that if they feel like it's a "work" only activity, a PM tool focused on "tasks and deadlines" they may feel taken advantage of or simply free labor.

OK, wireframes it is! :)

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Jake — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:33:48 -0000

Thanks for the links - I'll check them out. I've also been reviewing others and will post a bit of feedback on those too.

My vision, if not properly conveyed is closer to a project management system than a personal web log. This is much different than a blog.

Maybe I should create some wireframes... hmm.

Thanks!

Re: The perfect customer interaction support tool

Cesar H Castro Jr — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:27:36 -0000

Sounds like you are describing a personal weblog with certain capabilities and certain login features. I personally use ExpressionEngine which is a robust content management system that could do all the things you describe.

On the other hand you could also be describing a project management system in which I can only suggest GoPlan from WeBreakStuff since that is what I use personally.

Some other project management systems you might want to look at are Lighter House and Action This which are more team based management.