Following up on our introductory blog: let’s discuss helping
customers obtain value from the Apps and services we deliver through the use of
social media. To communicate to our
customer base in addition to email we employ social media channels such as Twitter,
LinkedIn groups and facebook. In the
energy efficiency space the use of specific LinkedIn groups enables customers to
respond to RightSlope posed questions and informational updates – in addition provide
feedback to other group members.
For example our Appliance Search App requires a lot of
data population and the coverage of our data is key to value. The original idea for the app came from an
energy efficiency company in New England. After scoping out the project and writing
some prototype code we asked a larger community on LinkedIn for need - the
response was positive, we then built a demo version for testing. The response to the demo was great and
several reviews were published publicly on the group.
The customer advantage is similar to crowd sourcing they
can validate the application has broad appeal and will be improved via multiple
input; by querying a social media group they get unfiltered feedback direct
from other customers. The process is successful
by involving as many customers and advocates in an open forum format via social
media - customers get unvarnished validation and we get open feedback by customers
who want to participate in the process.
The end result is an Application that meets the needs of a broad
customer base.
