Collaboration has been talked about for a long time, but little has been done so far to incorporate it between a company and their customers. Times are changing and movement is happening towards increasing the participation levels across groups (customers, partners, vendors, etc.).
It's been said, by me a lot and by others, that interactions are what's needed to create a "pull" effect - getting customers to interact with you instead of pushing static content/messaging at them. Which makes a lot of sense given the need to build relationships, get emotional investment and close sales.
According to the Forrester blog, the next buzz will come from unsolicited customer testimonials. But how do you get "unsolicited" customer testimonials? I propose that one of the best ways is to create a customer portal that promotes interactions - which leads to, you guessed it, participation. Get them involved in best practices and talking with their peers about the value they've gained from your products. You may also gain some great learning about how to be better.
The key to getting customer testimonials will be in how well you can create conversations with your customers and how well you can get them to articulate how they are more successful because of the value your products contribute to their business processes.
Peter Kim, from Forrester, talks about his latest research piece, "Reinventing the Marketing Organization" and a piece he favors that was cut from the report: "One of my favorite concepts that ended up on the editing room floor: the marketing mix is fine - tactics may change (e.g. branded entertainment or social computing) but strategic principles remain the same (e.g. relationship building and consumer engagement). However, the traditional model needs to be expanded to incorporate a 5th "P": Participation."
How are you creating participation in your organization?
