Liberating Customers from Funnels

The customer funnel is anathema to the social media ethos that the business world needs to adopt:

It takes the company’s perspective, not the customer’s,

It assumes the customer comes to the company,

The customer isn’t even visible except when they pop out at the end to make a purchase,

The funnel’s opaque, closed and hierarchical, and

There’s no place for community.

Here are even more ways it conflicts with the Social Media vision of a new way of doing business.

If companies keep thinking of customers as funnel fodder, things will never change no matter how much they blog, tweet or SEO.

We desperately need a better way of helping organizations visualize their new relationship with their customers.

Add your ideas about a lens that will best help companies understand the new sales process, vote for others that you like and get your friends involved.

I’ll be blogging about what’s going on here until Dec 31, 2009 when the winner will be declared.

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A company cornucopia (the un-funnel)

2
Votes

Sideways eliminates the hierarchy, The flow starts at the company and goes out to the world, It’s an endless supply of nourishment provided by the company to the world, It’s not about homogeneity, but variety, Give to get, The emphasis is on the community being nourished, not the company doing the...

Bobhead_01_normal Bob Roan - 2 comments