Two weeks ago, Dell announced plans to create a channel program. We haven’t seen an announcement like this for quite some time from Dell, and many observers are understandably skeptical. Is this is an attempt to sway more orders from resellers and potentially sell direct to their customers, or is Dell actually trying to expand its addressable market by engaging with resellers? And given the state of Dell’s business, could this all be just a cry for attention?
Our research leads us to believe this time Dell is serious about resellers, and it’s more than just public announcements that causes us to say this. Dell’s past channel efforts in major markets didn’t go well, but this time there is both executive support and a strong motivation to succeed that wasn’t there before.
One thing is for sure, this comes at a time when competition among PC vendors is at its peak. Lenovo has publicly stated that partner recruitment is a top priority, and Acer has recently overtaken Lenovo’s #3 spot world-wide, thanks to its partners. Not to mention HP, the #1 PC vendor worldwide, has one of the largest partner communities in the business.
Can Dell will succeed after years of channel antagonism? It’s a tough call given Dell’s eroding reputation and the gains its competitors continue to make. We’ll be watching with interest.
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Enabling customers to rate and review products has worked wonders for leading Internet retailers. Amazon and eBay were two pioneers of this practice, and in the technology world U.S. retailers such as CompUSA have been getting on the bandwagon. (They need to, or else risk losing sales to online retailers who link to review sites.)
Search marketing expert Mike Moran’s Biznology blog does a great job of explaining the reasons for this practice, but more interestingly points out the potential for a new source of online customer reviews, coming this time from manufacturers.
Mike applauds the move by Sun Microsystems to incorporate customer reviews for all of Sun’s products on sun.com, and hopes that other manufacturers will follow suit. I agree with some of Mike’s reasoning, mostly from the standpoint of building goodwill and a greater sense community among customers.
I see two potential pitfalls of this system for manufacturers. First is whether a manufacturer can successfully encourage an open and thriving review community, if it can delete the reviews it doesn’t like. What if they mention a competitor more favorably? On the flip side, how do you prevent competitors (or competitors’ fans) from subverting the manufacturer’s good intentions?
The second issue I see is the potential for reviews and other value-added features on manufacturers’ web sites to draw customers away from resellers and cause further channel conflict. If online retailers offer customer reviews to prevent an end-run by e-tailers on editorial review sites, what’s to prevent a manufacturer from offering reviews to bring in more direct sales revenue at the expense of its partners?
To succeed, a manufacturer will have to foster an open community and be an advocate for its channel partners. It’s a tall order, but I believe it can be done if manufacturers are committed enough. If it works, customers will have one more source of information to consider when purchasing and that’s a good thing. Good luck, Sun. We’ll be watching.
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Defining what a customer is should be an easy task for most businesses. Unfortunately, many would say it’s simply someone who buys your product or service. But (in my not-so humble opinion) no business today should settle for such a partial view of the lifeblood of its existence. Someone who buys your product or service is simply a buyer, nothing more.
So what makes someone a customer? A true customer, to our way of thinking at NewGrowth, is someone who not only buys your product or service but willingly chooses to come back again and again to your business. A customer is someone who has a relationship with you. By the way, the above definition implies your customer is a person – a human being, regardless of whether he/she buys for a business.
Here’s a simple test to check whether your company has customers or buyers: can you randomly select five recent sales and call up the individuals directly responsible for purchasing or using your products and ask how they’re doing?
Put another way, does your company:
- Have accurate data about recent purchases and the companies that made them;
- Know which person at a given company made the actual decision to purchase; and
- Is that person willing to take your call?
If you can answer “yes†to all three, there’s a good chance you have actual customers. If not, you’d better get busy – your sales pipeline depends on it.
Posted in Online Research.
