Collaboration Community Relationships

The retailer must be vigilant to consistently nurture the relationships that support the consumer collaboration community.  These relationships are important to supporting and maintaining the values of the community and the continued success of the community and also the retailer.  The retailer is the steward of the relationships as the consumer representative and as such must maintain the values of the relationships. This is in the best interest of both the retailer and the consumer collaboration community to ensure a safe and secure environment for both the consumer and the retailer to collaborate.  This safe and secure community will draw the consumer to participate and share with both the retailer and more importantly with the other consumers in the community.

As the steward of the community it is the responsibility of the retailer to ensure the stability and security of this collaboration community.  While the objectives of the community is to encourage the consumer to lead the participation and provide the communication and interactions and reactions that will encourage the participation, it is important for the community to be built upon a secured framework.  The security and maintenance of the collaboration community is the long term responsibility of the retailer to ensure there is a virtual community for consumers to gather and collaborate.  The consumer must be assured that the community is safe from hacking and identify theft before they will participate in the community and interact with the retailer and other consumers.  This is a very important responsibility and require continuous monitoring to ensure the security of the consumer information.  

In the startup of the community the retailer will also be responsible for encouraging consumers to participate and engage in the community.  This will initially require a great deal of effort over at least a six month period or more to provide the new content and reasons for the consumer to return and engage in the community.  This is challenging because the timeframe to grow the community can only be planned in general terms; such as allowing for six months to a year of focused support and monitoring of the community to build the following.  This may take more or less time depending on the product mix and the imagination of the retailer support staff to engage the consumer.  This is where imagination and experimentation play a large role. The retailer should utilize any tool or social networking community to engage the consumer and encourage their return.

The important factor in building the community is encouraging the consumer participation.  In most current retailer sites and channels, the retailer pushes content and information to the consumer.  While the has provided results in the past, the future requires the retailer to engage the consumer and encourage the consumer to participate in the community.  This community participation is the ingredient that will set the retailer apart from their competition.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaboration Community Values

The consumer collaboration community brings a new level of opportunity for the retailer to develop a relationship with their customers and then use the relationship as input to drive marketing and product decisions.  This community provides the means and the opportunity for the retailer incorporate consumer driven initiatives back into the retail sales and supply chain.  I see no other initiative available to the retailer to provide the same level of values and develop a strong and long term relationship with the consumer.  The collaboration community must be customer focused in order to succeed and this customer focus must support in addition to incorporate the guidance based on the community values.  

The retailer support of the collaboration community values is paramount to the long term relationship with the consumers and the success of the retailer.  Large chain retailers really have no other method or opportunity for developing a relationship with their customers that crosses over geographic areas and provide the opportunity to measure results in a consistent manner across the chain.  Small neighborhood retailers can develop a direct personal relationship with their customers because of the consistency and interaction with the individual consumers.  Large chain retailers do not have the same opportunity within the store and need to incorporate a means for the direct interaction with the consumer.  This collaboration community provides the tools, the framework and the means to develop a virtual personal relationship with the consumer.  

The retailer cannot, however, force direction and obvious controls over this collaboration community.  Instead, the retailer must work to understand and embrace the consumer values and the consumer reasons for interacting with the community.  This can be difficult for the retailer because it requires they release control of the relationship to the consumer and this requires the retailer to understand the values and the reasons driving the consumer to interact and embrace the community.  The retailer must provide a community that is driven by consumers and the features and functionality driven by the consumer.  This can be a very difficult thing for retailers to embrace however it will provide a very valuable engine of information to drive and support the success of the retailer in marketing and product selection.

The retailer must be both supportive and patient in providing and supporting the collaboration community.  One of the key factors to the success of the community is understanding and embracing the community values.  The retailer must provide an open community that provides a vehicle for give and take between the consumer community and the retailer.  It provides a safe environment for retailer experimentation and for consumer interaction with other consumers and the retailer.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumer Values To Guide The Chain

The retail consumer supply chain is focused on providing the consumers with a positive experience, products that the consumer likes and desires, in addition to a value in the service, the experience and the products offered.  This relationship with the consumer is something that must be nurtured and based on a set of values that is embraced and guided by the consumers. The retailer provides and supports a consumer community that is the vehicle for collaborating with the consumers to understand their values in order to incorporate their values into the retailer’s shopping and sales channels.  The consumer community provides the means for the retailer to understand what consumers value and desire in their shopping experience.

The capabilities that the consumer channel provide an important ingredient in the relationship between the consumer and the retailer.  In the past the sales clerk was able to provide the capabilities to collaborate with the consumers to understand their values and desires for the shopping and purchasing experience.  This is still true of the small, one or two store, neighborhood retailer where the sales clerks and the owners develop a personal relationship with the consumer.  A coffee shop, or a small independent bookstore is a good example of the types of personalized relationships with their customers that allow the owners to focus and meet their customer's’ needs and values.  

The large retail chains generally do not have the opportunity to develop these personal relationships and when they do have the opportunity it is localized to one store. There is no process for these retailers to share the customer response from one sales clerk to another or from one store to another or from one region to another.  In most large retail stores the sales clerks are busy stocking new inventory arrivals, fixing displays and now many of these retailers have assigned their store sales clerks eCommerce order filling activities.  All of these activities and assignments leave very little time for the sales clerk to develop a personal relationship with the customer and this leaves no opportunity or ability to share learnings with other clerks, stores or regions.

This is where the online consumer community will bring value to the retailer by encouraging the retailer to develop the virtual relationship with their customers.  This community provides a channel for the consumer to interact with both the retailer and other customers in a manner that encourages the customer to return and provides the opportunity to easily purchase from the retailer based on the suggestions of the community.  The data capture, display and interaction capabilities of the community provide the retailer a basis to explore the consumers desires and values and then to validate these responses through the interaction and purchasing that is derived from the community.  This community provides the large retailer with an opportunity to develop an individual relationship with their customers that cannot be achieved in the brick and mortar store.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?