The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

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  dareconcrete10/30/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  Internet is the greater mechanism to initiate a prospect follow up sale call.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/30/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE: Internet is the greater mechanism to initiate a prospect follow up sale call.
  
  Absolutely. It's a fantastic PROSPECTING tool. But that's the other side of the equation. It's not always a great way for the customer to find out the right information. Information at your fingertips doesn't mean that it's the right information, after all...

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  ennyman10/30/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  It's not either or.... Wikipedia and Google are remarkable tools for providing certain info fast. For example, I saw a Thomas Carlyle quote and wanted to know more about him. I do not need to go to a library any more. Wikipedia gives me all I need just so I have an anchor to associate him with a time frame, etc.
  But yes, I have written a couple articles about info overload and it is an issue. There are things people SHOULD be learning about (like how to take car of their cars) and they are so overwhelmed with learning new useless information that they don't even know to check their oil.
  Consumers need help. ... but they are not stupid.
  
  As for toxic anonymity... Isn't it "buyer beware" here? I mean, a little "applied critical thinking" is also necessary in this game.... The more that is at stake, well, the more one needs to use some sense. One bad decision may be a little costly, but isn't that unfortunately the price of an education sometimes.
  
  It's a "wild west" out there in cyberspace, but I don't think we want to go back to three networks controlling the entire flow of information in the world... or six publishers or whatever.
  
  I am not disagreeing with the premises... am only preaching a little personal responsibility here. We can't blame the internet or Google any more than addicts can blame the devil...
  e.

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  Marsha Keeffer10/30/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  Rubicon Consulting just published a study that customers' second most used way of gaining purchasing information is via online reviews and comments....it's second only to word of mouth.
  
  The data now prove that online reviews and comments are influencers that actually surpass PR placements, advertising and manufacturer information. Online is crucial.
  
  View the entire study at http://tinyurl.com/5peaov

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  taxh8tr10/30/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  You're joking...
  
  Salespeople are rarely experts and they are obviously biased. The role of the sales person now is to verify the mapping of their product to the customer's requirements and to negotiate pricing. Anyone who weighs the input of a salesperson over the wealth of information on the Internet is simply to lazy or insecure to weed through the research and make decisions.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/30/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE from taxh8tr: Salespeople are rarely experts and they are obviously biased.
  
  
  You're in error. Sales reps who aren't experts in their field -- and in their customer's business, simply can't function in today's B2B sales environments.
  
  
  
  QUOTE from taxh8tr: verify the mapping of their product to the customer's requirements and to negotiate pricing.
  
  
  Once again, you're in error. B2B sales reps define/frame problems, build solutions, and then own the results of that solution. They're outsourcers, not order-takers.
  
  
  
  QUOTE from taxh8tr: Anyone who weighs the input of a salesperson over the wealth of information on the Internet is simply to lazy or insecure to weed through the research and make decisions.
  
  
  This isn't so much an error as just extraordinary naivete on your part. Any manager who tries to be an expert in dozens of areas that are outside the core competency of his own firm should be fired. In most cases, if the manager figures out how to save money, it's not enough to justify the extra work of doing all the research.
  
  
  
  I deal with these issues in detail in the post:
  
  
  
  B2B Sales Pros Make Customers Smarter
  
  
  http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=570
  
  
  

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/30/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE: The data now prove that online reviews and comments are influencers that actually surpass PR placements, advertising and manufacturer information.
  
  Irrelevant. As I've pointed out numerous times, almost all marketing materials (i.e. PR, advertising and manufacturer info, aka brochures) are now, and have always been, useless as sales tools. The question is whether managers should be trying to become experts in everything that they purchase. Manager who do so (and there are apparently many) are being foolish with their time. I note that you don't say how many of these forum-browsing buyers were led astray by false reviews, bogus comments, and information bloat.

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  Engago Team10/31/08 Report as spam
  8

  Not: The customer knows more than the salesman

  The salesman has many products to sell and know about.
  The customer is interested in one single product and knows about the nearest models of the competitor as he has studied the Internet on several occasions.
  http://bit.ly/3eyM5z
  The buyer knows more than the salesman.
  And that can make or break the decision to buy with a vendor, as the buyer finds out he knows more.
  The customer has never been so informed as now, making him capable of shifting between serious salesmen and other.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/31/08 Report as spam
  9

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE: The salesman has many products to sell and know about. The customer is interested in one single product and knows about the nearest models of the competitor
  
  You have it exactly backwards. A successful sales rep is the expert in his product area and usually understands the competition thoroughly. Similarly, the customer knows about HIS business function and needs to focus on it to be successful. If he doesn't he's wasting his time. Please read:
  
  B2B Sales Pros Make Customers Smarter
  http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=570

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  Engago Team10/31/08 Report as spam
  10

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  @Geoffrey
  That's why all current investigations now mention people first trust the word of mouth from their friends and in second place the information they retrieved from the Internet.
  Where does this leave the Salesman?
  
  Currently when a customer enters a shop or a company employee is buying, he is informed and knowledgeable on the matter.
  In some cases during the selection process of purchase customers phone home to someone sitting at home in front of his PC investigating the Internet on the 2 or 3 possible models to buy.
  
  In many cases the potential customer knows more than the salesman who isn't aware of all possible new developments in the market.

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  mmello10/31/08 Report as spam
  11

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  Oh really?
  
  Well, it's so comforting to know the world is full of un-biased, honest and knowledgeable salespeople to help us, ignorant buyers, out of our web-induced mental blurr.
  
  Thank you.
  
  Maybe you should get out of the Web and go back to the streets informing and illuminating confounded professional buyers (poor helpless folks they are).

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/31/08 Report as spam
  12

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  The previous two comments are based upon a world where companies buy products that fit into their vision of what needs to happen in their companies.
  
  
  
  How 1990s!
  
  
  
  Only idiots buy B2B products and try to cobble them into solutions by hand when you can find a sales rep who will do the job for you, if not for free, then at least for far less than you'd be able to do it yourself.
  
  
  
  If everyone in the world thought like Engago Team and mmello, then Microsoft would not only make software, but build its own computers, build its own circuit boards, design its own semiconductors, construct it's own fabrication machines, and so on, all the way down to mining the copper that goes into the wires.
  
  
  
  No company, and no person, can possible understand EVERYTHING that goes into running a modern globalized business. People who think that the Internet gives them this power are simply deluding themselves.

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  Engago Team11/01/08 Report as spam
  13

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  @Geoffrey Microsoft: Samsung makes alomost everything themselves: Their mobile phones are the best example and they are #2 behind Nokia.
  
  But this has nothing to do with Internet making custoemr stupid.
  
  About salesman helping out: the main drive for a salesman is his commission. Thus why put the future of your company in the hands of someone on a comission.
  People will retrieve information from multiple sales people and compare it with their own perception they made by advice from friends and colleages or what they have found on the Internet (or a combination).
  If aalesman tells a too different story or benefit, he will have a hard time to convince.
  
  Just wondering:
  - Why do you blog?
  - Have you already experienced your blogging power?
  - Were you impressed of your power?
  - Your blogging on the Internet is to make customers stupid?

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine11/01/08 Report as spam
  14

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE from Engago: About salesman helping out: the main drive for a salesman is his commission.
  
  You obviously know nothing about sales or sales professionals. They are not sub-human money grubbers, but are motivated in as many different ways, and by as many different things, as other people. Maybe when you've gain some perspective beyond cultural stereotypes, you'll be able to understand what I'm talking about in these posts.
  
  
  
  As for your questions, I'm not selling anything on this blog. Nada. The question isn't whether there are reliable source of information on the web, because there are many such sources. The question is whether it makes sense for a manager to spend days researching some complex subject matter rather than getting a sales pro to do it for him, for less money than it would take the manager to do it himself.
  
  
  
  It's called delegation. But since you're convinced that sales professionals are professional leeches, you'll never be able to see the simple logic of this idea.

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  ndlicht111/01/08 Report as spam
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  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  The flaw in internet research is that anything can get onto the internet without passing any validity or truth testing. Folks seem to see and believe all kinds of things and then pass them along as truth yet they have never checked the truth of the statements they pass on.
  
  Internet research can get you a feel for an area but decisionmaking - not without being an "expert" in deployment and having the education that can validate or devalidate what you find.
  
  Commodity type products can be purchased via internet since its usually a price only difference but beyond commodity typr stuff where a keen understanding of a business and how to define a solution to their issues- thats just not on the internet at all. Sales people are still the key.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine11/01/08 Report as spam
  16

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE for ndlicht: The flaw in internet research ... are still the key.
  
  Thank you, Neil, for explaining so clearly in three paragraphs what I've been struggling to explain using two longish posts.

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  shoub11/02/08 Report as spam
  17

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  Customers will be critical thinkers or idiots with or without the Internet.
  
  You don't need a sales person to buy a book from Amazon. But if you spend 2 million dollars on a real estate deal strictly on the basis of an on-line property listing, then that's your problem.
  
  Managers do NOT spend untold hours on the Net. They either view the top 10 on a search or delegate the task to an underling.
  
  Actually, sales people are not as releveant as they used to be. Pre & post-sale support staff and Account Managers are far more important these days.

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  marinmikulic11/02/08 Report as spam
  18

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  I must contradict with the author's opinions:
  Webinfo does not make people's minds more polluted with info. IT makes them more tolerant and up to date with other people's opinions.
  This now said, I conclude that all on the Internet needn't be facts, that is not their purpose whatsoever, it is the variety of opinions.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine11/02/08 Report as spam
  19

  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  QUOTE: IT makes them more tolerant
  
  I think you're being a bit naive here. When religious nuts uses the Internet, they connects with other religious nuts and quickly become 1) more religious and 2) more nutty.

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  jenilia07/17/09 Report as spam
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  RE: The Internet Can Make Customers Stupid

  It is partiaally real becaz i use the AT&T internet connection my system is very very slow they said the connection fast But now is Become slow i use the site for the Internet speed testhttp://www.ip-details.com/