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n What are you doing to make your best customers more loyal?

n Some experts believe that online business will take off and will
grow at a cumulative rate of at least 30 per cent a year for the next
five years. (The last quarter of 2001 showed an increase, year on
year, of 74 per cent.) What are you doing to ensure that you can
handle the distribution and customer service problems that could
arise if your business grew that fast or faster? (At this stage clients
grin and say: “That’s a problem I would like to have to deal with
when it happens.” To which I rather bad-temperedly reply: “Never
mind the problem. What’s your solution?”)

n What are your goals for customer service improvements?

n How will you measure your advances in customer service?

n What motivates your best customers to buy?

n What motivates them to buy from you?

n What motivates others with the same or better potential to buy
elsewhere?

n Who do your best customers also do business with or get
information from on the internet?

n What are your goals for doing joint ventures on the internet?

n Can you list the internet chat rooms, publications, newsgroups
that your best customers participate in?

n What do your best customers say about you and your service online
and off-line?

n How do your best customers perceive your business?

n What precisely are your competitors doing online and what are you
doing to ensure a competitive edge?

n As they change how will you stay ahead of the pack?

n What is the profile of your best customers?

n What future needs of your customers will your online presence
enable you to satisfy?

n How do you plan to identify changing customer needs and
expectations more quickly than your competition?

n Right now how are you building the competencies that you will
need in the most profitable markets of the future?

n What is your online marketing budget?

n What is your advertising policy?

n How many internet PR pieces do you intend to have published
each month?

n Who will publish them?

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