It is no secret that customers form an important part of the Global Brain. Indeed, customers can be actively engaged in different aspects of innovation and value creation – from the design and development of new products and services to marketing and product support activities.
To tap into the innovative power of customers, in recent years, many companies (including Microsoft, BMW, Ducati, Volvo, and Nokia) have established ‘Virtual Customer Environments’ or VCEs – i.e. technology-based collaboration platforms that incorporate online discussion forums, wikis/blogs, virtual reality tools, and other such technologies to support customer contributions in ideation, design, development, testing, and marketing activities.
Over the last few years, I have been studying how companies can implement and manage such VCE-based initiatives that promote customer co-innovation and value co-creation. One of the interesting issues that I have found from my research work has been that customers’ experiences in such VCEs can have broader and more profound implications — particularly for customer relationship management.
In an article published in the Spring 2008 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review, I discuss this issue in detail. Customers who have positive experience in VCEs tend to not only participate more in innovation activities but also develop more positive attitudes towards the product as well as the company. And, vice versa!
So what is the key message here? In pursuing VCE-based initiatives, companies should carefully select and implement a portfolio of strategies and practices to enhance positive customer experiences in VCEs, and thereby ensure favorable outcomes in terms of both innovation management and customer relationship management.
More importantly, managers should view their VCE initiatives as an integral part of their overall innovation and customer strategies. For more on this, read the article.
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