Netconcepts

Does Your Web Site Make It Easy For Customers To Do Business With You?

Brian Klais — Tue, 12 Feb 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Through the Internet, your competition is just a click away from the customer. As a business executive, you need to assess whether it’s easier for customers to do business with you - or your competitors - online. The problem is, you may be too close to your site to most objectively analyze it.

You need practical recommendations that can help decrease abandonment rates while boosting traffic, leads, and online sales. By conducting an independent website evaluation, you can gain a fresh perspective and key insights for a competitive online advantage.

Brian will share his insights into what makes a website work. He’ll
explore website strengths, weaknesses, and best practices; touching on categories like usability, security, visibility, content, legal exposures, e-commerce, public relations, and customer service.

Bring your questions and a notepad for a timely and information-rich session.

Strategies for Customer Promotions

Stephan Spencer — Sat, 16 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Outbound e-mail marketing
Testing and measuring response
Website considerations
Search engines, keywords, and "landing pages"

How to Build a Food Portal in Four Easy Steps

Stephan Spencer — Fri, 21 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Providing your consumers with a “portal” to a plethora of online information about food and cooking is a great way to make your web site “sticky” and generate loyal repeat visitors to your site. Four key ingredients for a successful food portal include:

Content( both home-grown and aggregated)
Community
Customization
Commerce

In this presentation we will analyze from an insider’s perspective both the BirdsEye.com site and the Recipefinder.com site, comparing and contrasting their two differing approaches to creating a food portal, and reviewing their results.

Doing Damage Control in Online Forums

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 16 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Discussion forums in the forms of Usenet “newsgroups”, email- based “lists” and Web site “virtual communities” can be a powerful tool for branding. However, seldom are companies really “in control” of these online forums. The tide can quickly turn against your company: one solitary message triggering a flood of negative comments from disgruntled users. One doesn’t have to be “on the Net” to suffer the effects of negative branding on online communities. In one of the most powerful demonstrations of the influence that Usenet wields over large corporations, the “Pentium bug” PR fiasco stemmed from a college math professor’s posting to several discussion groups that he discovered a calculation flaw in Intel’s Pentium chip.

Learn:

proactive and reactive techniques for dealing with negative posts
how innocent company postings can backfire
participating vs. moderating

Special Luncheon Workshop

How does my web site stack up to my consumers’ expectations? Can he/she easily maneuver through the site? Delegates will enjoy a brainstorming and open discussion assessing the effectiveness of a select number of attendees’ sites over lunch.

When Customers Take Their Problems to Online Forums: Doing Damage Control

Stephan Spencer — Wed, 15 Sep 1999 00:00:00 +0000

If your customers are having problems with your products or services, and if an e-mail to your support desk and/or a visit to your web site don’t give them immediate solutions, they will frequently turn to discussion forums (in the forms of e-mail-based “lists,” Usenet “newsgroups,” and Web site “virtual communities”) for answers to vent their frustration.

Unfortunately for you, seldom are companies like yours ever “in control” of these online forums. The tide can quickly turn against your company; one solitary message triggering a flood of negative comments from disgruntled users. One doesn’t even have to be “on the Net” to suffer the effects of negative branding on online communities. In one of the most powerful demonstrations of the influence that Usenet wields over large corporations, the “Pentium bug” PR fiasco stemmed from a college
math professor’s posting to several discussion groups that he discovered a calculation flaw in Intel’s Pentium chip.

Learn:

Proactive and reactive techniques for dealing with negative
posts
How innocent company postings can backfire
Participating vs. moderating

Post-Conference Workshop, September 17, 1999:
“Killer” Customer Service Over The Internet
This is the workshop you’ve been waiting for - a LIVE Internet connection so you can see what the buzz is all about, while an expert is Internet-based customer service explains what it all means! Customer service departments looking to “get on the Net” need to prepare for the opportunities, pitfalls, and competitive market niches that are being created in Cyberspace.

This in-depth, half-day workshop specifically designed for non-technical customer service and marketing professionals prepares you to more fully participate in the marketplace. Basic concepts, terms, practices, and directions will be clearly defined and demonstrated. A number of successful online customer service centers will be closely examined, as we analyze in detail the characteristics of their success. We’ll illustrate exactly how these companies are creating satisfied customers and reducing operational costs. And most importantly, you’ll learn in this interactive workshop how to apply those techniques to your own online customer service venture.

Demonstrations and discussions will include:

Auto-response email
Following up with personal email
Answering their questions before they ask them!
Frequently Asked Questions with answers
Getting customers to help each other: online discussion groups
Getting your data out there: online libraries of technical
specifications, ties with corporate system, (e.g. FedEx)
Putting it at their fingertips: using search engines and hierarchical indices
Personalized web pages and automated personal notification
services by e-mail

Get a jump on your competition and get the solid foundation you need to succeed in this exciting new customer service venue by joining us for this one-of-a-kind workshop!

Turning Online Content, Consumers, and Competitors Into a Competitive Advantage

Stephan Spencer — Sun, 15 Aug 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Birds Eye strives to find new and innovative ways to help consumers plan tonight’s dinner (their primary marketing objective). To this end, we’ve taken some common online marketing strategies - content aggregation, virtual communities, and personalization - and applied them in rather unconventional (and, we’re happy to say, successful) ways. We’ll discuss how Birdseye:

Aggregates content through a Worldwide Recipe Search Engine
Personalizes content through a Personal Recipe Box and Personal Shopping List
Creates virtual communities through a Recipe Exchange

Turning Content, Consumers, and Competitors Into Competitive Advantage

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 18 May 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Birds Eye strives to find new and innovative ways to help consumers plan tonight’s dinner (our primary marketing objective). To this end, they’ve taken some common online marketing strategies — content aggregation, virtual communities, and personalization — and applied them in rather unconventional (and, we’re happy to say, successful) ways.

In this session we will discuss how Birds Eye:

Aggregates content through their Worldwide Recipe Search Engine
Personalizes content through their Personal Recipe Box and Personal Shopping List
Creates virtual communities through their Recipe Exchange and Web forums

Strategies for Streamlining Online Customer Service

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 13 Apr 1999 00:00:00 +0000

How can you get the most out of your online customer service? This extraordinary presentation will demonstrate a combination of both automated and self-regulating methods for providing customer service online. You will discover that you can significantly reduce your staffing costs with these techniques :

Auto-response email boxes
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) with answers
Integrating your FAQs with email responses
Email newsletters/announcements
Email-based discussion groups (”listservs”)
Web-based discussion groups
Usenet-based discussion groups (”newsgroups”)
Intelligent search engines for your web site (both keyword- and concept-based)
Online databases that can be updated automatically by your customers via the Web

“Killer” Customer Service on the Internet

Stephan Spencer — Mon, 12 Apr 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is the workshop you’ve been waiting for - a LIVE Internet connection so you can see what the buzz is all about, while an expert in Internet-based customer service explains what it all means! Customer service departments looking to “get on the Net” need to prepare for the opportunities, pitfalls, and competitive market niches that are being created in Cyberspace.

This in-depth, half-day workshop specifically designed for non-technical customer service professionals prepares you to more fully participate in the marketplace. Basic concepts, terms, practices, and directions will be clearly defined and demonstrated. A number of successful online customer service centers will be closely examined, as we analyze in detail the characteristics of their success. We’ll illustrate exactly how these companies are creating satisfied customizers and reducing operational costs. And most importantly, you’ll learn in this interactive workshop how to apply those techniques to your own online customer service venture. Demonstrations and discussions will include:

Auto-response email
Following up with personal email
Answering their questions before they ask them! Frequently Asked Questions with answers
Getting customers to help each other: online discussion groups
Getting your data out there: online libraries of technical specifications, ties with corporate systems (e.g. FedEx)
Putting it at their fingertips: using search engines and hierarchical indices
Personalized web pages and automated personal notification services by email

Get a jump on your competition and get the solid foundation you need to succeed in this exciting new customer service venue by joining us for this one-of-a-kind workshop!

Managing Your Brand in Online Forums: Damage Control

Stephan Spencer — Thu, 15 Oct 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Discussion forums in the forms of Usenet “newsgroups”, email-based “lists” and Web site “virtual communities” can be a powerful tool for branding. However,
seldom are companies really “in control” of these online forums. The tide can
quickly turn against your company: one solitary message triggering a flood of
negative comments from disgruntled users. One doesn’t have to be “on the Net”
to suffer the effects of negative branding on online communities. In one of
the most powerful demonstrations of the influence that Usenet wields over large
corporations, the “Pentium bug” P.R. fiasco stemmed from a college math professor’s
posting to several discussion groups that he discovered a calculation flaw in
Intel’s Pentium chip. Learn proactive and reactive techniques for dealing with
negative posts, how innocent company postings can backfire, participating vs.
moderating.