Ideas

 Why Customer Assistance Sucks

  Going Global

  How Online Stores Can Develop Communities

Some estimates in his crystal ball:

• 157 million users on the Internet in 2000.
• 10 emerging countries will soak up 40% of all imports in 2015: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey.

His vision: Using the Internet, wireless communication, satellites, and networks, many companies can provide a global, instantly available infrastructure that will be "equally available to consumers everywhere, whether they live in developing countries or industrialized nations."

His recommendations reflect the influence of  Web culture:

• "Think of your customers' needs first, and worry about revenue enhancement later."
• "Whenever possible, try to buy rather than build."
• Because the Web is becoming a "global database, driven by hooks into underlying transaction systems," make your site into a dataweb, built around multiple interlocking databases, all updated realtime.

Some key ideas:

• "The bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest players will become."
• "Individual employees or work groups can assert their value and worth to large enterprises independently, regardless of physical location."
• Computer makers Dell and Gateway introduced build-to-order techniques allowing them to move sales onto the Web, and make inventory "just in time," through new relationships with their suppliers. They are examples of the new global businesses made possible by the Web.
• You're going to have to learn about customer attitudes around the world, real-time.   A quick visit is not enough.
• With the sheer volume of Web users, a merchant can carve out a share of the global market at a very low cost.
• Time to market is reduced on the Web, because you can announce new products, price changes, new marketing campaigns right away--around the world.
• Customer service must be available online and by phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and not just in English.
• The Web business model is data-centric, based on several interconnected databases, linked to a transaction processing system.

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