Increasingly, customers expect to have a say in the development of new company products and services. At the same time companies look to customers for innovative inputs to products and services honed to meet customers' needs. Social technologies both necessitate and enable these developments. Indeed, social technologies offer important opportunities for increased value creation and stronger customer relations.
Value co-creation
In the traditional value chain the company creates value for the customer and for itself. The company develops and delivers products and services that are of value to the customer. The customer, in turn, pays the company. With social technologies and digital business platforms value creation is taking on new forms.
We are increasingly witnessing that value is co-created by company and customers. Active customers take part in the value creation by suggesting new products and services, by testing and commenting on products and services in the development pipeline, by supporting themselves and each other in customer support forums and by taking part in online discussions of products, services and brands. Thus, value is not only created in a collaboration between company and customers but also added in the interaction between the company's customers.
Social technologies both enable and necessitate the co-creation of value. On a practical level social technologies make it possible for company and customers to continuously collaborate on value creation. On another level customers experience that social technologies more and more often allow them to influence the agendas and activities of organizations and companies. As a result, customers come to expect that they can influence any company's business. This customer expectation necessitates the co-creation of value.
Customers take centre stage
Whenever value co-creation results in products and services that are relevant to the customers, customers are tied more closely to the company, its products and services and its other customers. Thus, companies can increase the value created for company and customers alike and strengthen customer relations through considered use of social technologies.
The difference between success and failure in this regard will be the company's ability to create and maintain a framework for and contribute to customer relations (including relations between customers) which motivate customers to actively contribute to the co-creation of value. Doing so is more than a matter of implementing social technologies. The most successful companies will engage their customers in continuous dialogues about customer experiences and needs letting customers take centre stage.
Very interesting post – thanks
ReplyDelete- Søren