Our lives have changed forever

I have been working in the online space since the commercialization of the internet. I have watched the web develop from a mainly marketing based arena, to a viable business channel that today represents a significant portion of our economy. I have had the pleasure of watching as this platform for business has moved from an 'under construction" phase, to a client focused, customer driven, content rich competitive landscape.

In 1997, a partner and I started a web development company called Media Factory. We were selling way ahead of the curve – building first and second generation websites for companies looking to leverage an online presence. At the time, neither companies nor consumers were truly ready for e-commerce, so our approach was to use the web not only as a means to market and brand, but equally important as a way to better understand customers. Our sites were conceptually ahead of their time – being built to capture as much data as possible on users and their online behavior, in order to build demographic and psychographic behavioral databases. Better understanding who was coming to your site, allowed our clients to better serve small, but important online customer groups.

Back then, clients never really understood the power of this approach. They knew they were online for a reason, they equally knew that the data they were capturing was incredibly important. They just didn’t know what to do with it. As CRM became more and more accepted at the corporate level, they finally began to understand the importance of tracking, profiling and understanding how people were behaving online.

What a ride it's been so far, and I believe we are just pulling out of the station.

On an average day, over 100 Million North American adults are logging onto the Internet to check their email, read the news, buy something, sell something, bid on something, research a product, find a recipe, a stock quote, even a date. This number represents an almost 40% increase from an average day online only five years ago. I can only imagine where we will be five years from now.

The internet has changed our lives forever, and more importantly, changed the way we do business.

For me, this blog is a way to let people know how things have changed, and why understanding the importance of ‘listening' to your customers is crucial for a business to succeed and thrive both online and off.

We have all heard the expression ‘competition is a click away'. It’s true. Today more than ever, consumers have choice, reach, and little loyalty. If you don't take care of your online customers, somebody else will. A bad experience online is more than just a lost sale or an abandoned visit – it is a stain on the very brand that you represent – and its impact can be tremendous.

To support this point:
Kelly Mooney - Customer Experience Advocate and President of Resource Interactive in New York, posted the following to her blog on January 26, 2006 in reference to an article on marketingvox.com:

Bad Online Experience Has Multichannel Impact
“… It proves the importance of the web in all channels, and illustrates that a bad online experience is going to make the brand or company look bad ALL over.”
"More than half - 55 percent - said a frustrating shopping experience online has a negative impact on their overall opinion of that retailer. Nearly a third said a frustrating experience when shopping online would make them less likely to buy at that retailer's bricks-and-mortar store."

Better start listening...