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Community Publishing
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Web 2.0? - Look Before You Leap!
By Michael Miller on Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Web 2.0. It's everywhere. YouTube gets twice as many
visitors as Google each day. MySpace and Wikipedia are household names.
Everyone is talking about how Web 2.0 is vital to business.
It's true that businesses are seeing a potential return on
services like blogs, yet there is a down side.
Web 2.0 is best defined as a many-to-many conversation. When
businesses open the door to conversations with their customers through the use
of Web 2.0 services like blogs, they are often surprised by what they find
because the customers can all interact with each other and the company
simultaneously.
The reason a business would open a line of conversation with
their customers in an open environment is: * To gain an insight
into their customer base and find out what motivates them to purchase.
* To be made aware of
and circumvent any concerns before they get out of hand.
* To offer a place
where customers can interact so that the company can control the conversation.
Sounds great. However, the business is sometimes left with a
difficult decision. Consider the case of Cessna.
Cessna is the world's largest general aviation manufacturer.
The company produces light planes for the private pilot "aviation
enthusiast" market and produces smaller business jets that both businesses
and charter airlines purchase. Cessna has a high reputation for quality,
especially in the light aircraft category and for the last 50 years the
company's brand has centered, like Harley Davidson, on American-designed,
American-built, American quality.
Cessna looked at the market, which hasn't changed in 30
years, and saw that there are two major changes taking place. First, technology
is changing. Aircraft are being built entirely from composites now instead of
aluminum and rivets. On the instrument panel, computer displays known as
"glass cockpits" have replaced the old steam gauges.
Second, pilots want to move up to the next best aircraft
over time. They want more room and comfort, more speed, and a longer flight
range. Because the price difference between a single engine piston plane and a
jet is so vast, the jet sector is seeing aircraft companies develop "very
light jets" or VLJs that are a third of the price of business jets. Also,
since the vast majority of private pilots rent planes because they are too
expensive to own, a new category of "light sport aircraft" or LSAs
has developed. These are considered the "entry level" airplanes.
Cessna chose to enter the LSA market. They built a light sport
aircraft and named it SkyCatcher. The release of the plane was highly
anticipated. People wanted to know what it looked like, how it flew, and what
its costs would be. When they debuted the aircraft at OshKosh in 2007, Cessna had many people put
$5,000 deposits on the new aircraft even though the estimated delivery date for
the first aircraft had not been established.
Cessna chose to make a Web 2.0 style blog to keep customers
informed of the progress of the plane's development.
At first, everything was going perfectly. Tom Aniello, Vice
President of Marketing for Cessna, even posted the following on their blog
on September 5, 2007:
"I’d first like to thank everyone who posted comments
on the Cessna SkyCatcher blog site between our launch at Oshkosh and now. The response has been
overwhelming, and I’m delighted to hear so many passionate voices sharing opinions
with us. Your comments are being read by hundreds of people within Cessna –
from engineers working on the SkyCatcher to the sales team, and even Jack
Pelton himself. Having a public blog forum is quite a new concept for Cessna,
but we’re finding that it’s a great way to get instant feedback on new
products, and really helps us create a better aircraft for you."
On November 27, 2007, Cessna announced on their blog that
they had signed a contract with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) to
manufacture the new Model 162 SkyCatcher. Shenyang Aircraft is a Chinese
company purportedly owned by the Chinese government.
This post started a backlash of criticism from Cessna's
customers that steadily grew until Cessna's Tom Aniello
submitted another post on December 7, 2007: "Making the case for building the SkyCatcher in China."
The post gave several reasons for Cessna's decision. The
response to the post from the aviation community railing against Cessna was
overwhelming. Cessna turned off the ability for posts to immediately be posted
by the aviation community after it was obvious that the majority of posts were
questioning Cessna's decision.
Cessna did finally post the comments after a
"review" process, but after receiving close to 1,000 comments on the
December 7 post, Cessna stopped posting the comments, removed the comments
altogether and ultimately took the site down in order to implement "new
methods and editorial protocols to better facilitate communication and help you 'cut through the clutter' of visitor comments."
The comments from customers pleaded with Cessna to rethink
their decision to have the plane produced in China. The aviation community told
Cessna that they would never buy a plane built in China, demanded their
deposits back, claimed the final price of $109,000 for the plane was too high
if it was to be built in China, and then started attacking the quality of other
Cessna products.
This is called Brand Erosion. This is devastating.
How will Cessna respond? Will they listen to their customers
and cancel the contract with Shenyang Aircraft Company and build the plane in Kansas? It's a story
that is currently unfolding and only time will tell.
Cessna has made several serious marketing errors. Notably,
they closed the lines of communication with their customers after receiving
criticism. If you start a blog, you must expect criticism.
It's unfortunate because it appears they will have to hand
a large portion of the $5,000 deposits back to their customers.
So what have we learned from Cessna?
* Don't start a blog
unless you want to hear from your customers.
* There is potential
for praise and criticism - expect both.
* Be ready to address
customers' questions and concerns.
* Listen to what your
customers tell you.
* Respond to and act
on what your customers tell you.
* Once opened, you
cannot close the lines of communication.
At one time, businesses built products and customers
purchased them. Henry Ford said: "You can have any color you want, as long
as you want black." Now, with the advent of Web 2.0, businesses are
opening up to their customers and asking the question: "What do you want
us to build"? The logic is that the company will be more profitable
selling products that customers actually want, but as the Cessna case shows,
it's a double edged sword.
Michael Miller
Mindwhirl
mmiller@mindwhirl.com
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Introduction
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Sir Winston Churchill once said, "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it."
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