Bridgeline

Making Websites More Customer-Centric with Integrated Web Applications

By Brett Zucker, Chief Technology Officer, Bridgeline Software

In the November 2009 Gartner Research report “The Top 10 Ways to Make a Website Customer-Centric,” 10 best practices designed to increase website ROI by making them more customer focused are presented.

Among the best practices suggested are:

Coordinate responsibilities for the entire customer experience.
Determine your website’s top goal and the metrics that define goal achieved.
Model the success of web processes on customer-provided data.
Deliver relevant and focused advice and offers in real time.
Create dynamic, relevant website content.
Listen to the customer community.
Make the website fun and rewarding.

The question is how to implement these best practices to actually make the website serve the customer better.

In this newsletter, we suggest that a solution for putting many of the customer-centric website best practices into action is integration of the various website management applications such as content management, eCommerce, eMarketing, and web analytics.

By doing so, the modules can share data on visitor behavior, such as which sections of the site get the most traffic or which products are the best sellers. Beyond sharing of standard data however, this intelligence on user behavior can also be used to dynamically drive optimal content and functionality to users in real time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brett Zucker is Chief Technology Officer of Bridgeline Software, a developer of web application management software and award-winning interactive business technology solutions. He can be reached at:

Bridgeline Software
10 Sixth Rd.
Woburn, MA 01801
Phone: 1-800-603-9936
Web: www.bridgelinesw.com

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Customer-Centric Websites with Integrated Applications is published by Bridgeline. Editorial supplied by Bridgeline is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is © 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. All Gartner materials are used with Gartner's permission and in no way does the use or publication of Gartner research indicate Gartner’s endorsement of Bridgeline's products and/or strategies. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.