For example, a while ago, I posted an entry as to whether to tweet or blog and my followers told me that some preferred the blog because is was a little “meatier” while others preferred the tweet because of the brevity of the response and a feeling of interaction and then my YouTube followers liked the see and listen format. Because of this, I use tweets, blog posts, and YouTube posts as well as my Facebook, Plaxo, and Linkedin status line to keep my followers up to date on my research and other activities.

These thoughts then lead me to think that social tools are just like tools in a carpenter’s toolbox where one saw is used to cut rough framing material and yet another for fine molding finish work and it is the carpenter that delivers the value to the customer.

Accordingly, is your organization taking a toolbox view of social tools or is it just trying to build a relationship with only one type of saw in it’s toolbox?

An interesting story on a court ruling that enabled students to rate teachers sparked an equally interest discuss discussion around reviewing people performance.

As the e-commerce person here, I have been talking with clients about product rating for years. It has been my belief that with all product review ratings the reader should apply the “grain of salt theory”.

Ratings or reviews are only part of the customer (in the case parents and students) evolution process and are subject to gaming by many parties.

Moreover, one rating alone does not tell the whole story; have you gone to move just because it says “Excellent Movie…” NY Times on the poster – Most likely not.

However as the producer of a product or service once should be aware that people has a public forum to use and that anyone with an opinion can shout it out on the internet. Even if that person never even used the product or service, they may just not like the company for instance. Therefore, I thought I would list some attributes that bring value to ratings.

• Depth – How detailed is the rating? – Only the word “great” or did the writer provide information on their position?
• Number- How many are there only one or thousands?
• Timeliness or the rating – Are the ratings current or three years old?
• The profile of the rater – Do they do many ratings on these types of products or services? Are they an avid user of these types of products or services? Simple things like are the male or female can also help, for example male skiers will rate ski’s differently than female skiers, also rating can vary by age of the reviewer.
• Belief in the rating quality – Ever read a rating the looks like the product manufacturer wrote?

Therefore, product reviews are only a guideline they are not law and with all things – “Caveat emptor”.

An interesting phenomenon that I am seeing is that a company can go bankrupt and yet its online store can outlive the physical business. Take for example Linen – N – Things (www.lnt.com) and Circuit City (http://www.circuitcity.com/) both who filed for bankruptcy and closed their stores in 2009 have new owners of their website operations. (See http://www.circuitcity.com/sectors/opt-outv2.asp and http://www.lnt.com/content/6/help-faqs.html for the stories on the new owners.) I believe this trend confirms that your organizations website is the primary face of the organization and the customers can become loyal to your online operations. Moreover, it is possible for these online businesses either to remain as pure play online retailers or to resurrect their stores when the economy picks up.

I know this may seem like I am reaching here. However why else would the online sites survive the demise of the business? In addition, I cannot help to point out that the Linens – N- Things site still has a store locator on the homepage and when you click on the store locator, you will find a statement that Linens – N -Things is “presently” an online only store.

Now the next challenge for these businesses is to provide a superior online customer experience that makes customers want to come back for more. So as I see it, the bottom line here is make sure you website customer experience can interoperate with your stores for sales, service and marketing or else it may be the only thing left in the end.

I had paid off my motorcycle in 2000 however my old NY state title showed a lien, so when I went to DVM and showed the title with a lien from one defunct bank and a letter of loan satisfaction from yet another defunct bank the DVM said I would need a letter of merger stating all of these banks were one in the same to complete the registration.

Well, I first needed to find out who owned the second defunct bank. Subsequently, I googled my way to that answer then I called that bank and after pushing buttons and speaking a bunch of information I got to a person who looked for my information and could not find it.

So as a good agent they transferred me to the auto department to see if they had more information. However, after redoing all the answers to get to a person that person said they were not the auto department and then transferred me to a dead phone line.

Consequently, I went back to the web and searched the site for first defunct branch address that was on the title and luckily it was still a working branch of the new bank, then I found the automotive loan 800 number and called and got to a person who was able to send me the letter I needed.

But this time the web saved me from more transfers to nowhere and found who I had to deal with phone number.

I guess we’ll be seeing more of this, due to all the bank takeovers. So hold onto that paper work – you never know when you’ll need an address to link it all together.

In the State of Connecticut you must have a Vehicle ID Number (VIN) check for motorcycles and certain new vehicles. Well my luck I had one of each. I used the DMV’s site to help figure out what I had to do which wasn’t that clear but I was able to figure it out after several readings.

One of my tasks was to have a VIN ID check which can only be done at a full service DMV location. The nearest full service location to me was Norwalk, CT but according to the web site they do not do VIN ID checks there. So I drove 45 minute away to Danbury to get this done for my first vehicle. Well my first attempt was met with a paper sign that told me the office was closed due to a national holiday on the following Monday even though the site did not list any Saturdays as being closed, nor did it list the early closing on the Friday before. So I returned on another Saturday and obtained my VIN check document.

Now I went on the complete the next task in obtaining a registration which was going to the Norwalk to complete the registration since I now had my VIN ID check, new insurance. I needed to go to the Norwalk office since that is where the lease company power of attorney title had to be sent to register the car. Even thought I have proof that the DVM had signed for the FedEx containing the power of attorney. The DVM could not find it because they file them by the State of Origin and not the name of the person requesting to register the vehicle (another piece of information missing from the web site). Once the power attorney was located we proceeded to the registration process it was then that a helpful employee told me that the Norwalk office does do VIN ID checks and that my long drive was not necessary and that they didn’t know the web site was incorrect.

So basically a key component to a customer experience is accurate and up to date information since web sites are being use to tell customers how to perform tasks. I would also suggest that you don’t think because this is a state agency that your company won’t let that happen to your customers. I find things like this on sites all the time.

How accurate is your site’s information?

How would these two interrelated topics impact IT in 2009 and beyond? I know I had some great discussions with clients about both topics as we delved into these macro issues ripple affect on IT. 

I didn’t see attendees running around in a panic because they thought that the sky was falling instead I saw people that were looking for ways to utilize existing investments better for customer retention and acquisition.  

I think this was a very smart reaction to all of these events because customers are the lifeblood of any enterprise. However, some may not agree that leveraging CRM as a defense against poor economic times is a wise thing to do. But my opinion is that as prices fall on goods and services as a result of lower demand, customers will begin compare alternative suppliers as they seek to reduce there spending. So aren’t  you more at risk of losing customers due to falling competitor prices? What do you think?

Although all the answers to these questions may not be clear, we are certainly seeing the beginning of wide spread adoption of the social aspects of web 2.0 for sales.