In 2009, let customers inside your organization more. Stop thinking of ‘the front line’ – that imaginary place where a thin line of customer-facing people acts as the buffer or interface between you and the customers. Imagine the line is breached and people previously ‘on the inside’ of your organization are accessible to customers.
How?
Try employee blogs. Intuit, the tax software company, lets employees blog, with a relaxed corporate voice rule. I heard their MD say a while ago “Our most loyal customers love hearing tips and tricks on how to get the best from our software, direct from the people developing the products.”
If you’re even more techno-savvy than that, and your user base is, too, try a Wiki user contribution system. Again, Intuit do this: a Wiki lets your users write and re-write content. I heard Intuit’s MD say “The speed of change, such as new tax law changes, far exceeds our ability to put relevant content up ourselves. Our customers do it.”
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