The Emperor's New Clothes: Customer Experience Management

In the last couple of years the field of "Customer Experience Management" (CXM) has become a big focus for combining "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM) and "Content Management Systems" (CMS) or "Web Content Management" (WCM) with Order Management Systems (OMS), eCommerce platforms (plus mobile, tablets, etc.), and social media.

This would seem to be a nirvana of systems confluence, the holy grail of multichannel customer activity. The thinking underlying CXM is that this places the emphasis where it belongs, on how the customer navigates a Website (or possibly a store) to find what they want to purchase, and how the purchase itself can be most effectively supported and enhanced (from cross-sells and upsells to product reviews, guarantees, warranties, and so on). A lot of this, of course, will be based on analysis of customer activity, both in real-time and historically. Typical direct marketing database challenges.

One practioner refers to it as "a marriage that empowers the eCommerce platform to create experiences rather than simple transactions."

Fair enough. But there's only one problem with all of this: as Forbes pointed out a year and a half ago, "No one vendor offers all the components, though some – like Adobe, IBM, and Oracle – are working on acquisitions." I don't think any of them have achieved that goal as yet.

A Management Challenge
Which means that CXM is more of a management challenge than a systems challenge. It requires configuring each of the components to make the customer's experience as simple, straightforward, and pleasing as possible. And this is not at all easy.

Take site search, for example. In January 2011 I wrote a blog post on the subject, pointing out some of the complexities of this rather arcane functionality. Not for the faint of heart! But in many ways, site search and other "utilities" like it are probably at the core of any successful CXM suite.

Essentially, I see the problem as somehow juggling technology, statistical analysis, content, customer data and profiling, affiliate management, and corporate hierarchies on behalf of customers whose business you are competing with the rest of the world to earn and profit from. This is nothing new: back in the heyday of the specialty catalog (1975 - 1995), designers were very strategic about what they put on the catalog cover (they still are!), but that didn't mean you would always have it in stock to meet demand, or that customers would always be satisfied with their purchase. It was sometimes a "political" decision (as in "the company president and chief buyer just got back from Thailand and this is what they bought a thousand of"), and of course that is always a dicey proposition.

So CXM is going to be a work-in-process for some time to come. Maybe five years from now, with some new technology (including advances in interface tools and gadgets plus social media) and some new blood in middle (if not upper) management, things will be easier. For the time being, though, it's the same-old same-old, and CXM is just another acronym puzzle floating in the alphabet soup.

For some articles on CXM, see:
The Emergence of CXM Solutions: Forbes
Focus On Customer Experience To Navigate Digital Disruption: Forrester
The Content Repository is the Key to Customer Experience Mmanagement: mindtouch
A New King In Town For Managing e-Commerce Experiences: CMS Wire

And as always, I welcome your feedback, input, and comments. Very much so, in this case!

Dydacomp Introduces SaaS System

Dydacomp, vendor of the Multichannel Order Manager(M.O.M.) system and SiteLINK eCommerce platform, has announced its first new product in many years: Freestyle Commerce. 

Freestyle is a cloud-based order management solution for retailers who are automating order processing for the first time. It‘s functionality is intended as a subset of the existing capabilities in M.O.M., with a few new things made possible because it’s an online-only system. The system was developed from scratch, however, with no code reused from M.O.M. or SiteLINK. 

M.O.M. and SiteLINK will continue to be sold, enhanced and supported. They are Dydacomp’s core products and M.O.M. will remain their only on-premise order management software solution. SiteLINK will work exclusively with M.O.M.

Freestyle is an alternative for new customers to consider when automating their order management processes. It is not an upgrade to or replacement for M.O.M., and it is not a hosted version of M.O.M. Many of the more advanced features in M.O.M. are not initially available in Freestyle but will be added over time.

There is no end-of-life planned for the M.O.M. or SiteLINK products, either. Dydacomp intends to continue to enhance, sell and support both those products. 

With Freestyle Commerce, retailers can:

• Keep customers informed about in-stock, committed, back-ordered, packed, or shipped items
• Seamlessly integrate fulfillment operations across multiple channels into a single workflow from shopping to shipping
• Sell their entire stock or just a small subset through Amazon.
• Automatically download new orders, publish product information and synchronize inventory across channels

GoECart’s Integration with Avalara Sales Tax Solution Officially Certified

GoECart, a leading provider of multi-channel eCommerce order management solutions, has announced its official certification with Avalara, a leading provider of cloud-based sales tax automation services.

Avalara's AvaTax service helps GoECart merchants reduce audit risk and achieve compliance with a suite of automated sales tax services that make it easy to calculate tax rates, file forms, remit payments and simply reporting.

“We’re always focused on helping our clients consolidate systems and manage their businesses more efficiently,” said Manish Chowdhary, CEO of GoECart.  “Avalara’s official certification of the GoECart eCommerce and order management solution means that our clients can remain confident that they are fully up-to-date on handling today’s highly complicated and rapidly changing tax regulations.”

The integration gives GoECart merchants several benefits that include:

• A complete set of automated end to end compliance services including sales and use tax calculation, exemption certificate management, filing and remittance, and a broad array of related services
• Complete automation of sales tax compliance areas that include situs, nexus, tax tiers, tax holidays, exemptions, certificate management and product taxability rules
• Rapid application of sales tax calculations to eCommerce and call center transactions via a secure, encrypted Internet connections
• Reduction of time spent on sales tax return and RMA processing
• On-demand reports containing information necessary to prepare and submit accurate sales tax returns
• Seamless remittance payments by Avalara for each jurisdiction where the merchant has a nexus
• The ability to manage all aspects of tax compliance via familiar, web-based administration panel

Avalara’s SaaS solution provides a complete set of transactional tax compliance services developed specifically to serve the needs of small- to medium-sized businesses. Avalara CEO and Founder Scott McFarlane said, “Avalara’s cloud solutions help thousands of customers stay focused on their core businesses by eliminating the angst of a statutory requirement that has no strategic value, and we do so in a fast, easy, accurate, and affordable manner. We’re pleased to welcome GoECart into our ever expanding community."

Soldsie Receives Seed Funding

Soldsie, a service that enables purchases within comments on Facebook, has received $1 million in seed funding from institutional investors including 500 Startups, e.ventures and FundersClub. Former Facebook employees Yun-Fang Juan and Jonathan Ehrlich, Peanut Labs founder Prosper Nwankpa, and angel investors Elliot Loh and Tom Kelly also participated.

Soldsie allows brands, merchants and small business owners to use Facebook’s social features to increase online sales. The technology turns Facebook posts into digital shopping carts. Once a user has registered with Soldsie's app, commenting with the word “Sold” lets them purchase the item posted. Since its start, more than 100,000 Facebook users have registered with Soldsie's app.

On the backend, Soldsie’s platform completes the transaction and gives businesses a streamlined interface for processing and tracking sales.

“F-commerce needed a fresh perspective, and that’s what Soldsie’s technology provides,” said Alex Mittal, CEO and co-founder of FundersClub. “Cracking the code on this market would be huge, and from what I’ve seen, Soldsie is well on its way.”

How Brands Have Succeeded with Soldsie
The Soldsie platform includes more than 1,500 merchants and is currently processing over $1 million in transactions a month from clothing boutiques like Jenny Boston Boutique to professional sports teams like the San Jose Earthquakes. The platform processes payments via credit card or PayPal.. To date, more than 100,000 Facebook users have registered with the Soldsie app.

After registering with Soldsie, simply posting a photo on Facebook turns into a valuable sales tool for any business. Because Soldsie’s technology works inside of Facebook and on any device, Soldsie posts convert better than sending fans to an outside link to make a purchase. It also gives brands an opportunity to create demand that extends outside of Facebook itself.

“Before Soldsie we just weren’t engaging people enough on Facebook. We started using Soldsie about six months ago and began running Wednesday night sales to test it out,” said Jenny DeMaria, owner of Jenny Boston Boutique. “Our Facebook sales are a huge success, and they help us drive people into the store. We can’t put a price tag on the buzz these sales created.” 

GoECart Wins Stevie Award for Customer Service

GoECart has won a prestigious Gold award in the seventh annual Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service.

The multi-channel eCommerce solutions provider was selected for the award out of 17 finalists in the Customer Service Department of the Year — Computer Software category for companies with up to 100 employees. 

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service recognize the achievements of call center, customer service, and sales professionals worldwide. From the more than 1,100 entries submitted to this year's competition, entries were considered in 30 categories for customer service and contact center professionals. 

GoECart's founder and CEO Manish Chowdhary said, "At GoECart, customer service has always been paramount, but it is especially gratifying to receive this award after the remarkable year we had in 2012. We are very honored to be recognized by the Stevie Awards for our work in helping our clients to shine in the world of eCommerce." 

Last year was a banner year for GoECart's Sales and Customer Service on a number of levels. Highlights included:

• Market introduction of GoECart 360, the "all-in-one" eCommerce suite designed to provide multi-channel merchants with the full suite of tools needed to manage and grow an online business.
• Overall growth of the company by high double digits — with twice the number of new customers.
• An expansion of training programs to include one-on-one role-based training for new clients.
• GoECart 360 merchants collectively processed 210% more transactions during the 2012 holiday season over the same period in 2011 with zero downtime.
• A substantial increase in the company's Client Services (CS) team to support the unprecedented growth and outstanding customer support with zero employee attrition.
• Redesign and launch of the company's website http://www.goecart.com to be more customer centric.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy put the GoECart Customer Service team to the ultimate test. GoECart's Bridgeport, CT based headquarters had to be evacuated for four business days with no power but thanks to the company's software-as-a-service model and extraordinary efforts of the customer service team, all client-facing software systems maintained 99.9% uptime and no support case service level agreement (SLA) was violated.

James McDougal, GoECart's Director of Operations, added, "I am very proud of the team and all that we accomplished last year, which is testament to GoECart's culture of innovation that values a passion for results, hard work, empowerment and initiative, teamwork, and open communication. We pledge to carry this work ethic into 2013 and beyond." 

Programmers Ain't Chefs

I recently ran across a peer-to-peer selling network called Vendly, which (to make a rhyme) ain't too friendly! It thinks the opposite, saying that unlike eBay, which it complains is "complicated," you just post a picture of stuff you want to sell (no need for those pesky details), and let your "friends" contact you to complete the purchase. Put another way, it has no method of payment embedded in the platform.

Of course, with PayPal, completing the transaction is not that difficult, but it is a completely separate step, after you have secured other details from the seller outside of Vendly.

Vendly does say it has plans to include a payment platform, but when is anybody's guess.

AlphaBeta Soup
Which reminds me of how a lot of phone apps work, all boiling down to the simple fact that developers for the last few years seem to think it is normal and SOP to put things out there for the public to use as alpha or beta testers.

I, for one, resent this. I understand that everyone is rushing to be first to market with something new, build a large base of early adopters, and try to get more funding and ward off competition before breakfast, i.e., before a better solution can be built and marketed.

Not Like Chefs
Speaking of breakfast, imagine if chefs did this. There would be no printed printed menus, and the chef would prepare something as quickly as possible, without all the seasonings or ingredients, and without waiting for it to fully cook. Throw a few sprigs of parsley onto the plate along with this mess, and hope for the best!

Bleh!

Since the stakes (steaks?!) are so high, I'm not sure there's a defendable alternative. But I'm sure I can't be the only one to be irked by this. Let me hear what you have to say: please comment!

App Privacy

Dr. Dobb's Journal has a very good summary of mobile app privacy issues, covering U.S. Representative Hank Johnson (of Georgia), who has drafted a bill aimed at trying to give users more control over their application data: The Application Privacy, Protection, and Security Act. There is also a link to a study on the subject questioning over 1,000 users by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.