Summary: Customers.Com - Patricia B. Seybold

This work offers a summary of the book "CUSTOMERS. COM - How To Create A Profitable Business Strategy For The Internet And Beyond by Patricia B. Seybold". Your existing customers hold the key to developing and implementing a successful e-commerce strategy. Get alongside your customers and find out exactly what they need -- what you can do for them to enhance the quality of their lives. Then figure out how to deliver your products and/or services effectively and efficiently.
Develop ways to make doing business with your company direct and straightforward. Incorporate the new communications technologies like the Internet and the World Wide Web into the way you serve your existing customers. Deliver such exceptional levels of service and value that customers will happily form long-term relationships with you. Then start reaching out for new clients. Closing the sale will be easy -- because you will have already made doing business with you simple.
Prospects will soon recognize that you've aligned all of your business processes and organization to face them, to understand the issues they are concerned with and to respond to their needs. They'll also recognize the intelligent use you make of technology not for its own sake but to simplify the value-for-value business transaction. With that sort of backing, closing the sale becomes an absolute breeze.
The real challenge of e-commerce is to implement that kind of vision. In the real world, it's difficult, but exceptional companies find a way. Usually that takes a visionary leader, perseverance, investment, a partnership between the pragmatists and the technologists within the organization and the participation of every employee at every level. The payoff, however, when your e-commerce strategy comes together that way can be truly impressive.