Rating: 
Summary: I think I WANTED to like this book more than I did
Review: I've been a Patricia Seybold fan for awhile, and I so anxiously awaited this book that I bought it from the first place that had it in stock.I was a bit disappointed. Maybe it's just me, and I actually know a lot more about e-commerce than I thought, but I didn't get any real insights from the book. The strategies seemed more like platitudes I'd heard over and over before, and the framework for implementation was vague enough that it would take an experienced consultant to flesh it out to the point of usefulness. But perhaps that is the point. One can't expect everything from a book, and there are some things this book does exceptionally well. The case studies alone are well worth the purchase price, and Patricia's Rx (a section discussing each case study) offers some good ideas for implementation. I wavered between three and four stars for this book, and went with stars because I think a lot of my disappointment was due to too high expectations. I would recommend this book as part of an e-business "trinity" along with Larry Downes & Chuka Mui's excellent "Unleashing the Killer App" and Winston, Stahl & Choi's "Economics of Electronic Commerce." Economics of E-commerce gives the background, Killer App the theory, and customers.com gives the examples that lead to understanding. All in all, an worthwhile read.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book!
Review: Patricia Seybold does a great job letting the reader know that the root of success is understanding the end customer's needs. She not only analyzes 16 case studies of well known corporations, but includes her own experiences with these companies or the subjects being discussed. She is able to get her point across without being boring, looking at the subject form different angles. She did not focus only on "web-site" interaction but e-commerce in general. I thought the case study of General motors was great. She talked about making the customer feel at home and the importance of giving him/her personal attentionl. I also enjoyed her section on Cisco and Tripoid. I was able to see how empowering a customer is fundamental to these companies success even though their business models and customers they target are very different. Although the book is over 2 years old, I find that most of the information in it is very relevant to today's businesses. I specially liked the fact that she has a separate section for the infrastructure of these companies internet strategy. I liked her chart of critical success factors and markings on the factors that were going to be heavily discussed in the case study. The only thing I am not sure is totally relevant (besides the outdated technology section) is that she talks about money being generated by advertisements. I think that in 1998 this was true, nowadays most websites are not able to sustain themselves only with ads money. I also checked out the customers.com site. I think it is a nice site, but that the updated info about these case studies needs to be updated again. The updates are dated nov. 1998.
Rating:
Summary: Self Helped, jobs done excellent, decreased time waste
Review: Target the Right Customers
1. Focus your electronic commerce efforts on your most profitable customers.
2. In deciding what information to put out start with the most requested information your call centers put out.
3. Think about marketing offers you can make electronically that are not practically to do any other way.
Own the customer's total experience
1. Identify each step or business event where the customer is most likely to interact with your firm and streamline each of those steps.
2. Reassure the customer at each step
3. Capture the customers profile and off them the oportunity to change their profiles at any time and to select a set of profile defaults.
4. Give customers access to their entire transaction history.
5. Let the customer specify if they want proactive notification.
6. Recruit thousands of business partners who can represent your firm to customers
7. Make it easy for your suppliers to deal with you.
8. Focus on excellence in the customer experience.
Streamline business processes that impact the customer
1. Use online forums to overcome internal organizational barriers to success.
2. Use streamline electronic forms that are visible to all legitimate parties involved.
3. Make the right bets on technology
Provide a 360 degree view
1. Layout the groundwork
2. Start by focusing on the convenience of the customer
3. Target your most profitable customers
4. Use middleware to pull customer information together
5. Make sure the answers and information that your customer receives are identical
6. Don't let technology limit your vision
7. Begin by offerring information then transactions
Let Customers help themselves
1. Cooperation is the name of the game on the internet
2. Provide information on the web that helps the customer make a decision or answer a question
3. The best combination is where the person can access the information they want but get a person on the phone if needed.
4. Customers design their own products
Help the customer do his job
1. Make it your goal not to waste the customers time
2. The best website offer at least three different types of search engines
3. Keep track of what the customer looks for and does not find
4. Use electronic mail for targeted marketing
5. Listen to the customer tell you what they need to appear on their bills.
6. Make it easy as possible to help the customer help their customer use your product.
Deliver personalized service
Foster Community
Rating: 
Summary: Good book but needs updating now.
Review: With so much changes in the internet business, this is a good reading to understand how should you start, but new technologies are available now. This book was written in 98, so Patricia Seybold should rewrite.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but needs updating now.
Review: With so much changes in the internet business, this is a good reading to understand how should you start, but new technologies are available now. This book was written in 98, so Patricia Seybold should rewrite.
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