MJD Management Group

Archive for October, 2010

For those of you interested in improving customer experience, I wanted to share with you the results from the Temkin Group’s (www.temkingroup.com) 2010 survey of 140 North American companies with revenue of +$500m in annual revenues.

The assessment is based upon a tool with four categories.

• Purposeful Leadership. The executive team needs to act consistently with a clear, widely communicated set of values.
• Compelling Brand Values. The company needs to translate its brand attributes into requirements for every customer interaction.
• Employee Engagement. Employees need to be committed to the goals and values of the company.
• Customer Connectedness. Customer insight and feedback needs to be deeply engrained in all processes and decisions.

Customer Experience Competency Self Test

nto a customer-centric organization that can sustain a long-term differential in customer loyalty.

Bottom Ten Customer Compentencies

All of us know that social influence is pervasive in every aspect of our lives.  There are several new studies which provide insight into social influence in online systems.

The authors of the Proceeding National Academy of Social Academy of the United States (PNAS) have asserted in there research however there are unusual “bandwagon effects” where popularity of a download hits a threshold where it can skyrocket. This is reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwells’s “tipping -point” premise from his book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.”

The popularity threshold of a download can skyrocket through independent action by a user and without outside influence like in the non online world or the real world (why am I having Matrix flashbacks as I write this post).  I have provided a link to the PNAS abstract for their article, “Spontaneous emergency of social influence in online systems” along with supporting information.

The researchers (Jukka-Pekka Onnela and Felix Reed-Tsochas) gathered data in mid-2007 and used apps whose downloads were advertised to the Facebook community and user’s apps were visible to friends and the friends were notified when an app was downloaded that the unusual “bandwagon effect” occurred (Facebook no longer provides this information).  We see this in the Itunes store, where popularity indexes drive free downloads.

So, what does this mean? First, the popularity threshold is influenced by the choices of others particularly friends who we trust.  Second, the behavior by all of us is only influenced by the choices of our online friends. This research is consistent with Social Media statistics about the influence of friends recommendations on brands in the +80% range.

Why do you think we as users are so heavily and solely influenced by the choices of friends?

When the online era took off, didn’t many of us believe that this was the medium in which we could express our unique individuality and find what uniquely appeals to us?

Check out BBC News Science & Environment article Facebook app downloads show  unique “bandwagon effect”

Have your heard of the Khan Academy?  I learned about it through a Bill Gates clip and how he is using the videos to teach his kid’s math.  The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere.

The Khan Academy has 1800 videos in the areas of math, science, humanities & other, test prep, and talks & interviews on their website (www.khanacademy.org).

Khan Academy is the brain child of Salman Khan, a 33 former hedge fund analyst, who left his job to create the Khan Academy.

Take a look at the following video clips of Bill Gates talking about Khan Academy, an Khan Academy About Us video, and a PBS video about Salman and his Academy.

This is great stuff. You have to check out the videos and spread the word!