Highlights:
Smartphone growth is slowing.
Global Internet use continues to grow at 10% year over year, with 3.4 billion people on the Internet as of 2016. [QZ]
Advertising is about visuals (pics/vid), measurement, mobile and engagement. UCG (user generated content) is back.
Growth in Internet population is slowing, but growth in online ads is accelerating.
Combined, Google and Facebook accounted for 85% of the total internet ad revenue growth between 2015 and 2016. [QZ]
Amazon Alexa and other voice assistant devices are disrupting Brands as well as text based search. That is going to effect advertising revenue on one hand. On the other hand, Alexa is pushing Amazon house brands over better known quantities in order to push up margins. And they are winning at it!
Customer Service is about real time customer conversations. The Holy Grail used to be single call resolution that was hampered by silos and technology. Today with AI, Cloud, omni-channel contact center, we are closer than ever to that goal.
Retail has some bright spots but requires strong community and specific target market (slide 58). Or Subscriptions. [Funny, I say the same thing about UC/Hosted VoIP!]
For Restaurants, Eating Out is now Eating in with restaurant delivery. Grocery shopping is also about personal and delivery. Do you see where this is trending?
I am skipping Gaming, China, india, except to say that Gaming is a skills school and the old time the phone is put away (as another tech toy has your attention).
88% of U.S. consumers use at least one digital health tool.
"The rise of fitness trackers and health apps are collecting more user data than ever, while hospitals are sharing more health care information with patients. The average hospital holds 50 petabytes of health care data, and the total amount of that data is growing by 48 percent a year, Meeker says." [venturebeat]
What happens online in 60 seconds: HERE.
]]>In the world of Anti-Virus, two Czech companies are merging. Avast made a $1.3B offer for all the public shares of AVG.
Jon Arnold has a nice write up from MoNage - Messaging on the Net - about messaging and comms. Interesting stats. It explains the Slack phenomenon.
From 451 Research Group, Colocation vs. Cloud: "Many providers claim that SMBs are skipping colocation and going straight to the cloud. However, 451 Research studies show that this isn't so black and white. In the 'S' portion of the SMB market (<249 employees), companies are more likely to have some sort of cloud-based service (IaaS, SaaS, PaaS or hosted private cloud) than colocation services, but only by a margin of about 19 percentage points (49% to 30%). In the 'M' segment of the SMB market (250-999 employees), the numbers are about even between cloud and colocation services (38.2% to 38.9%, respectively)."
]]>You know all those comparison quoting sites? Like GetVoIP and Expert Market? People can get quotes from 3 or more vendors for HPBX or VoIP? That is replacing YOU!
If you just present some quotes without some discovery questions, a website will do just as well. (Your only advantage is they can call you.)
If you don't deliver solutions that produce business outcomes, you will be replaced by GeoQuote*.
* btw, Patrick Osborn congratulations on the two patents!
A side note: I read that we call everything Robots until we don't. Like a garage door opener is a robot. Drones are robots. Websites, personal assistants (like Siri, Alexa, Cortana) can be robots. Food for thought.
One last note: Amazon is selling Comcast services and VoIP installation. You will need to step up your game a little.
]]>While search slideshare (now LinkedIn slideshare), I saw this slide, which sums up customer expectations as well as a conversation I saw having with Pete Davis of Panterra.
BYOD is not just an IT PITA (pain-in-the-@ss); it is about the user choosing. That is what Netflix is - user choice (including binge watching). That is what Consumerization of IT is.
Napster was about user choice, not piracy. Most of the mp3 downloaded were not available as mp3 commercially.
Want to be successful? Be Experience-Centric. Be User-Choice-Friendly.
In Hosted UC, some customers want OTT to save money. Some want UC delivered via a secure private circuit (today usually delivered via MPLS to enterprise and mid-market). Some will want both (hybrid). Some will want desk phones; some will not.
Some folks are looking for secure IM/chat/messaging. Some are using Slack. Othersare using Lync with Office365. How are you integrating those choices?
Be flexible or lose business.
Last thought about Experience-Centric. This means the deployment and training and support has to enhance the user experience. Think it through. Get feedback. Improve.
]]>Before a plane ride, if I am out of books to read, I run to B&N. The last two trips have been a waste of time. One trip the sales clerk asked me what I was looking for, but they were out of stock on two of the books, but offered to order it online for me. Lately sales is about "Is it in stock, because I want it now."
This weekend I decided to buy a Roku. I should have just either ordered it at Roku.com or Amazon. But No. I like to buy from brick-and-mortar of I can. I try to buy from Sears when I can because they support the military so much. Sears doesn't make it easy to give them money. Their website is horrible. The only Roku I found was from some third party supplier. I wanted to buy it and pick it up at the store. Not possible.
I remembered that Radio Shack had them in stock, so I surfed over to RadioShack.com. The local store had inventory. I clicked on ship to store, which I thought meant store pick-up. Wrong! I paid for it online, printed out the receipt and went to the store. The clerk said and the FB CSR wrote, "Peter- We are sorry to hear this. Since our .com is separate from an actual RadioShack store, if you made a purchase from our RadioShack.com website, and decide to later purchase the item at the store, you would have to either wait until the item is shipped to the store, or cancel the order and purchase the item from the store."
Well, you can't cancel orders online according to the website (when you check order status): "After you have clicked "Send My Order," your order begins to process and you cannot cancel or change your order.*" Apparently, I didn't know that nor did the Facebook CSR nor the store clerk.
ON FB, "Unfortunately, our inventory systems are not fully integrated at this time, which makes it a bit difficult. It's actually something that we're actively working on, to avoid giving customers frustrating experiences like the one you described. -Ricky" Not solving my issue or anything, just explaining that I ordered wrong.
This is why Amazon is beating everyone - Best Buy, B&N, Radio Shack, everyone. One click. BOOM! it's done. Great communication. You know when it shipped, when it is likely to arrive. If you buy from Amazon as a Prime member you can get it in 2 days for free.
Lesson 1: Communication is key to everything in sales. The web allows for great explanation via pages, videos, email, tweets, etc. Use that limitless, free space to explain clearly what is being bought and how. Customer Expectations is integral to customer satisfaction.
Lesson 2: Don't explain policy! Solve the customer issue! You cannot retain a customer by quoting policy.
I want to buy from you. You are parroting policy to me over and over -- and twice the action suggested (cancel it) was wrong. Help me give you money so I can have my Roku.
Lesson 3: Make It Easy to Buy from you. It should be as easy as Amazon, but I understand why it might not be that easy.
By setting up proper customer expectations with clear communications, you won't have to explain policy to a customer. Instead you will have let the customer know exactly how the sales and delivery will proceed, so that both of you get what you want.
]]>Most people have 3-5 frequent callers. That explains the Circles and Friends&Family plans.
When one of their frequent callers cancels, they are 7x more likely to leave. Now that's Influence.
What are you doing to retain customers (or re-acquire them)? ]]>
Then I read about Google's Zero Moment of Truth by Gary Kim and started reading the book.
From the Google book, "A Zero Moment of Truth is:"
More from the book:
"Would it surprise you to know that a full 70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase?
Or that 79% of consumers now say they use a smartphone to help with shopping?
Or that 83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them?"
The take away should be that people are online - whether you are or not. That's where a majority of the conversations are happening - about YOU and Your Company and Your Services.
The question is: What are you doing about it?
]]>Fact checking is important, according to Newmark. I agree and he gave the names of many sites that do that. Web 2.0 has certainly had an effect on shining the light in some areas. These sites grade non-profits: Charity Navigator, GreatNonProfits.org, and Guidestar. Also, Donors Choose. These check political facts or money: Politifact and Influence Explorer, [I would add Open Congress here and mention that Politifact is a project of the St. Pete Times newspaper, which is owned by the Poynter Foundation. Local pride for Tampa Bay!]
He is working with some crime fighting nerds to check grant apps and vet veterans groups. Craig worries about journalism (especially since media empires are crumbling), since the Fourth Estate is supposed to keep our Democracy in check. For our democracy to survive, the press has to have integrity and be diligent in fact checking. I'm not surprised that The Daily Show wih Jon Stewart does the best job of fact checking, according to Newmark.
Craig has his hand in many pies that all revolve around social good, customer service and doing what's right. I'll leave you with 3 quotes from his speech.
"Listen to people and then do something about it. That's customer service. Try to listen to everyone because even a disgruntled customer can be right."
"Working together for the common good - whatever your version of that is."
"Sunlight is the best disinfective for government."
Jody Haneke runs an interactive agency that specializes in user design for the mobile/tablet/desktop app space. Haneke Design has worked with HP and the St. Pete Times (on an iPhone app for things to do). I got to speak to him about AT&T's attempt to take on Groupon, the "Shop Alerts by AT&T," an opt-in geo-fenxing service that would text you deals at retailers near where you happened to be at the moment. (Basically, mobile coupons and social coupons). Haneke believes that mobile coupons will have to be developed from the customer experience, not the corporate view point. Listen in for the insight.
]]>Image via Wikipedia
Amazon Web Services including EC2 is down today. When Gmail has any failure my twitter stream goes nuts. Facebook collapses often.Image via Wikipedia
At IBM's Lotusphere this year (Feb. 1), IBM rolled out strategies for Cloud and Social Media.
IBM identified 5 ways that partners could benefit from the Cloud. They are as follows:
These are ways for VAR's to stay in the business of providing applications and associated services.
According to some PR sent my way, " IBM is the largest consumer of social technologies. As a company, IBM takes social networking seriously - to develop products and services, to enable sellers to find and stay connected with clients, to train the next generation of leaders, and to build awareness of Smarter Planet among clients, influencers and other communities. IBM will showcase how it is poised to help clients exploit this transformation of a social business delivering new software, services and skills resources to help organizations adopt best practices, policies and software to transform their businesses, including: (1) New Cloud software and services that delivers a cloud-based office productivity suite; (2) New software to help companies and governments socially enable their business processes using the most successful mobile devices, including tablets, such as the iPad, iPhone, Google Android, RIM's Blackberry and Nokia devices."
See how they worked Cloud and social networking into that press release? Google Juice!
"IBM intends to offer a cloud-based version of LotusLive Symphony, an office productivity suite that will give organizations a social platform that enables them to simultaneously collaborate on documents in the cloud. LotusLive Symphony in the cloud complements IBM's on-premise, free of charge, office productivity suite, IBM Lotus Symphony." I didn't know IBM offered free office software.
In its collab suite, IBM will turn the inbox into the Activity Stream that feeds in twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and SAP through the Social Business toolkit. (Yeah, it says SAP in the release.)
Meetrix is an IBM Partner that offers IBM's enterprise-class Sametime Server in the Cloud. "Combining Meetrix with Broadworks Connector provides unique capability for Broadworks operators to deliver a full featured, over the top Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC 2) offering to business-class customers." Simple Signal is using this service. Meetrix is the only partner for Hosted Lotus Sametime presently, which allows Meetrix to offer "businesses access to enterprise-class UCC features such as instant messaging, chat, presence, awareness, document and presentation storage and sharing, audio and video, web conferencing and e-signature capabilities through SAAS." Note: digital e-Signature. [pr]
I'm guessing that this will compete against Microsoft Linc. I'm also guessing that the marketing and branding of this will take some time, which they don't have. The key may be the Activity Box and the digital e-Signature capabilities. At least, that's what I would be featuring in my marketing. It should be interesting to see, especially if other Broadsoft CLEC's jump on that wagon.
]]>They talked about the future being about checking in with TV shows and websites for points programs. I think all that checking in will burn people out. I have credit card rewards, coke rewards, and airline programs -- all basically worthless. I see that checking in (to me) would be basically worthless. It was mentioned becuase with the new FTC rules about cookies and tracking may change some online analytics. This may be the way to get real analytics - of loyal customers, which is the kind you want (not the 5000 people who just click Like and then shut off your feed to their feed. A panelist suggested that we need a "smarter use for Like".
Google Real Time search will become more important. (I think it already is especially for news).
Group texting from companies like Groupme or Beluga. A panelist called this "spin up communities" and another said it was "like a chat room".
Facebook is going to be using iFrames because they don't want you to leave and most users of FB don't like to leave FB to go out there. It's 1998 again people. iFrames and AOL-like behavior. Amazing how everything old is new again. A point here: building your business on FB instead of your own website/domain means you are at the whims of FB - and don't own anything. Just saying. You can't have it be about some platform or application. You have to find a way to get those prospects into your sales system.
A couple of college administrators asked questions. One asked what the business world needs from students. Paula Berg asked that students have a realistic expectation of what it means to work! (I blame Tim Ferriss and his 4-Hour Work Week on some of that entitlement expectation). Justin Levy said that they have to be realistic about experience. Being on twitter for a month is not experience. Students need to know how to tactically run a campaign. Know how to drive traffic with content - and more importantly know what kind of traffic they are driving. In addition, students need to know how to write. IM/text writing is not for email or any form of business communications. Expressing thoughts, ideas, benefits, ROI and TCO takes more than 140 characters.
Don't be afraid of negative comments. It's a chance to talk to your community (or marketplace).
Have a content strategy.
Finally, don't face-tweet. And don't face-tweet to LinkedIn!! I know not everyone follows your every waking thought on every platform - and there is a reason for that. And if they do, they don't want to see the same tweet three times. (Trust me, it wasn't that great.) You have to understand that people are on these platforms for very different reasons. Messaging on the platforms has to coincide with your strategy and how people interact and listen on the platform. On twitter, you can post 8 times a day. On FB, the stats are more like once every other day. On LinkedIn, people are there for business. I know you think it's all relative but it is not. All you are doing is adding to the social noise. And people are not listening -- even to you!! Imagine that.
So those are the take aways from the Social Fresh conference. Can't wait for next week because VoiceCon is having a twitter wall :)
]]>I think the disconnect right now is that Agents aren't comfortable selling apps. They aren't comfortable with many of the SAAS Providers.
Here's the scenario: Agents sell telecom services for licensed companies, most of whom are public. And all agents have heard or know someone who was burned on commissions from companies they know. So now imagine we go into this nebulous thing called Cloud or SAAS, where some company says, "Hey, Go sell my Apps to your base!" The company is unknown, unlicensed and private. You have no idea what to look for; what to ask; what to expect; and in some cases how you are going to sell it.
At least the Conferencing companies (Conferencing is Software-as-a-Service and Voice-as-a-Service) like Intercall and RollCall have been around a long time. SalesForce too for that matter. But others? Not so much. Unknown entitiy.
So how do you choose a Cloud Provider to be a vendor?
Carefully.
Really the questions are the same for a Hosted UC company as it is for Cloud provider or SAAS company.
Email is in the cloud. Doesn't matter if it is Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail or Hosted Exchange, it's in the Cloud. It is attached to the Internet for you to access your email from any Internet enabled device.
Shared hosting is where most of your websites sit. GoDaddy's 43M customers host mainly on shared web servers. These shared web servers make up some of the Cloud.
It's interesting because I saw an ad for a company today with the tag line: "Hosting, Reinvented™ - change how you think about web application setup and hosting." "Shared hosting was a great advance in application development. In 1999." Standing Cloud talks about root control, reliability, simplicity, efficiency. Key items to discuss. (But I would have added Redundancy and Security).
Standing Cloud also talks open source web applications - a lot of them. The Cloud is all about web apps and high availability of the data through those apps. Users want to be able to access email, contacts, pricing, status, voicemail any where they are connected to the interwebs. That is basically what the cloud is all about.
]]>My answer to that was as follows:
Most telco carriers worry about becoming a Dumb Pipe. Isenberg told them this would happen. They fired him instead of listening. All the value is in Layer 1 or Layer 7.
Layer 1 in owning the network and delivering fast Internet bandwidth. The value there is if you can also deliver it with Quality. The value for the Telco is to deliver it via as many ways as possible to maximize ARPU - wireline, wireless, Wi-Fi, WiMax, cellular.
The value at Layer 7 is the apps - Web 2.0, social networks, SAAS, ASP, virtualization, The Cloud. People have to get to their data. However, Telcos are horrible at implementing and selling managed services. Why?
When you are a cost-cutting organization you will not hire the right people, train your sales staff, provide the necessary customer care, and design a suitable user interface.
The RBOC's can barely keep their copper up and running. If you have a lousy experience with them in wireline or cellular, why would you move to them as your App Provider?
Remember that RBOC's couldn't even sell Centrex, which essentially the first hosted phone system type of service. Their E-Commerce initiatives have been failures. RBOC's partnered with Yahoo on their ISP DSL service.
This also falls under my rant that Telcos don't innovate. There was a time when AT&T Labs was the promised land for PhD's. It is a shadow of what it was in the 80's. Some of that is due to the fact it was spun-off with Lucent. Some of it is that the US doesn't graduate nearly enough PhD students. Some of it is that the R&D budget is shrinking fast. (We even cut the NASA budget). We need pure research. It leads to innovation. If the US is going to be the knowledge center in the future we need to continue to be the leader in research, innovation and patents. I see that shrinking. And it scares me.
When I think about the CEO's of Ma and Pa Bell, my take-away is that the customer is a number, an ARPU figure to be manipulated. Erik says it's the regulatory environment, but I think it is the Bell-head mindset. When you can't get billing right - either because the BSS is too clunky or it is a revenue source - why would someone trust you with their DATA? Fortune 5000 companies probably will because they play it safe and buy by the Brand, but the rest of the 8 million companies in the SMB space don't buy that way. They buy from who they like and trust.
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