You’re absolutely right, CGC has the potential to change many aspects of business outside of the marketing, customer service and PR opportunities we’re currently addressing. This is indeed exciting new territory.

To your points:
1. CGC’s potential to change brand communications, and perhaps more importantly brand attributes such as the product/service itself, is much greater than most brands have yet to realize. As you well know, the insights gathered from CGC research are applicable to all aspects of the business - from the communication strategy across all media to the station agents, customer service teams and product developers. It’s an incredibly rich information source that’s only starting to be tapped.

2. I’d really like to see that HBR article! Traditional forms of customer research may be complimented greatly with CGC research - typically we recommend traditional and CGC research in parallel to identify correlations in the data and to determine if it’s possible for CGC research to replace traditional measurement channels. In some cases it may be so, and can provide cleaner data across a larger sample for less cost.

3. This is a time of increased scrutiny on operational costs and for those of us in marketing that scrutiny can be quite intense. CGC has the potential to create connections, provide cost-efficiencies and add value across the board at any business with a serious commitment to its customers. The channel opens the door to more intimate customer relationships through research and communications made more efficient with technology. We’re finding now that a comprehensive CGC program can deliver overall value by making the customer service experience better and leveraging more influential peer-to-peer communications that effectively closes the ‘brand gap’. Benefits of doing so can be seen from local to global levels and from the marketing to the finance departments of almost any organization.

At the moment much of this is well beyond the horizon of many businesses but a smart and nimble few are currently experimenting, learning and benefiting from a complete appreciation of CGC – and Avis is right there at the forefront!

This is a very good summary of the strategy and logic behind our Blog. Still, a few but important points need to be developed:

1. If brands are built from the bottom up, how is CGC changing brand communications? What are the new opportunities and pitfalls? Avis and Web Liquid are experimenting, and every day I feel that we’re journeying in an exciting terra incognita.

2. WeTryHarder.co.uk is a new way or bridging the gap between the customer service and marketing functions. How can CGC complete existing customer insights measure? Market sentinel, Web Liquid and Avis came up with the Net Approval index. What else? There is a very good article in the HBR about customer research and how blogs and forums complete the existing practices. I’ll find you a copy. I think they completly missed the CGC element.

3. What other connections can be made thanks to CGC to get more value from a business than the sum of its parts? Customer Service and Marketing was one, PR and online marketing another. What about local vs global, Retail vs product development, finance vs marketing, etc…

Xavier Vallee