People scratched their heads when Marc Benioff started talking about the “Customer Company”. Having written a few guest posts for their blog in the last few months (see some linked below), I have been exposed to the wide range of webinars it sponsors and the eBooks it publishes. Across a wide range of sales, customer service and digital marketing/advertising themes.
Then you look at internal assets like its digital agency Buddy Media, and its ecosystem of partners like LiveOps which is pioneering customer service BPO using home based agents you realize it is not just selling customer facing solutions. It is also sponsoring a wide range of thought leadership and innovation around "”Customer Company” - collateral that is available to its customers and prospects for free.
While many folks love to hear Marc pick fights about clouds, I for one am glad to see a functional/best practice emphasis at the company. It pioneered enterprise cloud infrastructure, and continues to optimize that, but the real value to customers comes from a process focus.
Some of my posts – with a thanks to the editor Amanda Nelson (@amandalnelson) for making them interactive
How to reinvent your traditional advertising investment
If Rip Van Winkle had been in customer service
