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October 27, 2004
Living the customer evangelism theology
We here at the Church love hearing about customer evangelism success stories, especially when the originating companies usher the concept into new and unexpected pews or receive well-deserved recognition. A few examples came to our attention this week:
Vivid Image
Talking about a customer evangelism theology is one thing, but Vivid Image is making it part of the company DNA: The new company headquarters is a former church.
The founder of this secular Minnesota-based web development firm (and Customer Evangelism University graduate), Steve Gasser, gave me a tour of his company/church during a visit to Hutchinson last week. He said the office "helps us fully embrace our purpose of creating customer evangelists."
A few buzz-worthy HQ features: Pages from the hymnals of the previous occupant are embedded in parts of the floor, and a "hall of fame" wall is filled with signatures of customers and visiting VIPs.
What a great way to be surrounded, literally, by your company's purpose and values.
Conference Calls Unlimited
As a strategy, pay-per-click used to work well for Conference Calls Unlimited. For awhile, the click-throughs resulted in reliable conversion rates and revenues.
About a year ago, the PPCs stopped working. Competitors had deluged the company with fraudulent click-throughs and quickly drove up costs. It was time for a new strategy.
CCU CEO (and "Testify!" case study) Zane Safrit embraced a customer evangelism approach that focused his marketing toward existing customers, not new customers. As a result, he has more traffic to his website and a higher conversion rate (65%) than with the PPC model.
Read all the details in this new and excellent MarketingSherpa write-up.
Videan Unlimited
Customer Evangelism University graduate Ann Videan helped a client extend his affection for rhinos -- his companies are named for the beasts -- by embracing rhinos as a cause.
Videan convinced the client, Jeff Giek, to underwrite the cost of bringing two new rhinos to the Phoenix Zoo and remodeling their zoo habitats. The effort resulted in a nice write-up in the local newspaper and made Giek a hero to rhino supporters. His rhino-themed companies now have a better, and more powerful, story to tell.
(Updated post corrects Zane Safrit's title)
Other blogs that reference Living the customer evangelism theology:
This is a bit off-topic, but...
Successful case studies are wonderful, but nearly as good is non-success stories. It'd be nice to go to clients/customers/colleagues and say "Look what can happen when you do customer evangelism right... but also look at what happens when you don't do it, or you do it wrong".
Never heard about that theory -- interesting though.
