Customer Service Strategy

There is no doubt, Social Networks are changing the relation of the complete society worldwide, creating one closer communication between people. This phenomena is called for some professionals in the Social Network such as: "Collective Intelligence".

In present, it is well known, there is people permanently connected to any Social Network, and the trend, is even increasing in terms of users and the content. As examples, the Radio had 50 million listeners in 40 years, TV had 50 million spectators in 13 years, Internet had 50 million users in 4 years and Facebook had 50 million users in only 1 year.

Some studies gives information about these Social Networks are covering one hole in the human relations, which has been activated for thousands years. In relation, there is Scientifics studies about some drugs, in concrete heroin, the most danger drug. Heroin is activating some parts of the brain which no other substance is able to cover, only by some experiences, but this experiences are difficult to experiment. For that reason, and by scientifics experimentation, this drugs are really with high dependence, because are feeding one lack in the brain.

Social Networks are in similar situation, are feeding one necessity of human being, the necessity of interacting with other people to socialize. If it is analyzed the pyramid of Maxwell, the human being is searching to cover after basic physiological needs in this order: affiliation, recognition and in the top of pyramid; self-realization.

During hundred years, the human social activities have been developed in the center of the villages, almost in Western culture, the center of the village was the center of the social and economical activity, all news was communicated in this centers, normally one square and the most important market, after this conception, it appeared newspaper, TV etc, but of course not being interactive . Nowadays, the people had the same features, and of course, the same relation (that society had in the old market), which nowadays one company or business, is able to have with customers; reputation, after-sales service etc.

The message is, the concept of the old market in the cities, with its human relationship in terms of social and economical activities, are coming back. Social Networks are bringing back this concept, the only change is the interface, in the past was face to face relation and nowadays are by Social Networks.

Having in consideration this concept, it is necessary to understand the importance of the social interaction of society, being this, one feature innate of human being, which recently is increasing after the crisis creating more collaborative society, sharing knowledge and making properly administration of this knowledge (creating and making retransmission of it).

Therefore, the communication of companies with customers also change. The companies must understand the needs of the customer, being this customer more and more important (see Figure 1). As example, following the Service Marketing main instructions, it has to be considered that for selling one Service, and even more one consulting Service, which is completely intangible, it is extremely necessary to take care about the image, the segmentation of customers and the customer loyalty, because the process of buying one Consulting Service, or one Service in general, it is a rational decision. Totally contrary of buying one product, which the irrational component is the most important, the emotion.

Figure 1_ The trend of the word "Customer" in the interest over time, from 2004 to nowadays in Google trend. Having a inflection point from end 2008 (crisis starting) giving support of the concept, the customer is day by day more important in business . Source: Google Trend

Following with Service concept, when it is bought one Service, the perception of risk is crucial, because is very difficult to change after contract it. Just thinking about risk in new possibilities of contracting a new Service, having in reference, one experience in the past, the customer is able to think "may be the new one is even worse". For that reason, is very important the Certification in the Service Business.

With this explanation, the idea is, in next future the value for selling Service, even in selling products, will be more important and will be implemented more day by day, because the products will bring more service, and this Service will bring the possibility to create "Loyalty", the most optimized Customer, the most profitable.

At the same time, in relation with Customer relationship, one study reveals the importance of customers in the new business Model of Utilities during the last DistribuTech in San Antonio (Tx), with one report 2014 State of the Consumer Report.

In this report, there is a clear mention of the disposal of customers to interact with Utilities, in that case with the interaction in the Utilities websites for being informed and staying in more close contact (even being part in a proactive perspective) and seeing by positive way the use of Renewable Energies.
All this information is exposing the needs to interact by different way compared the way it has been made so far, the companies, and not only Utilities, must interact with customers and make this customers parts of the companies, and of course, paying attention for staying updated in the new technologies and innovation and being creative because the ideas, companies and business models will change by exponential line.

The ways of making business, contact with customer etc, will change very quickly, and nobody knows which will be the way for do it in the next future, simply, it has to be invented. The companies which will achieve, it will be the companies which adapt more quicker to the new scenarios, not the companies best placed in the market, because this market will change every day faster (one example is Utility business model in the last 50 years). 
 

One interview to Salim Ismail, the CEO of Singularity University, exposed about the change of model. The business models, is based in the predictability, and the world is unpredictable. The democratization is going to be the future and the "crazy" entrepreneurs are going to be who will allow progress.

This will be one challenge, and it has to be taken like that, the companies must understand to change the communication with customers and to be proactive for offering one communication based in the interaction. 
The "Smart" technologies companies will give this opportunity, first by corporate Websites, Social Networks but also with applications in tablets, PC or Smart Phones. Not only creating tools or applications for helping to manage the Energy Efficiency in Homes, EV or PV rooftop system. Companies will be able to give possibilities to customer to create the innovation of the companies by the customer experiences, may be creating software applications open to development, like in some videogames the customer is creating new possibilities, why not create open applications for letting customer to create solutions, and not being Gamification Marketing, being real solutions of the customers, the real users of the product or service such as application developer by the interaction with apps. The companies will have to implement systems which not only offers solutions to customers created by companies, also will give possibilities to create solutions created by customers, because at the end, the customer will know better the applications than companies, staying in interaction with product or service and the day by day experiences.

Considering this interaction, this it will create one community, which will reinforce the brand, the affiliate of Maxwell pyramid, and then, the loyalty of the customer. Being customers the real "Brand Ambassadors" of the company. Even why not this company is creating the own Social Network for the community where there will be activities for customers, and then, creating community between the customers. This will be one new way to create the old market, but involving the brand such as common interaction, the only change is the channel, in the past was face to face and now by social Networks, and after why not, face to face between this customers by activities. 

With this implementation, the company has the opportunity to know the real needs of the customer, creating a long term and win-to-win (W2W) relation, proposing ideas which makes the customer feels part of the brand, and making this customers part of the community; affiliation, recognition and in the top of pyramid; self-realization.

For that, the companies will have to be consequential with its image, there is no possibility to give one image and after do the contrary. In the next future, the companies will have to be the complete responsible of its product or service, closing the 360º of the life cycle, it means. The companies will be the responsible for the complete business: production, recycling etc, and may be even more. For that, as example with recycling, will not be acceptable to send (after end of life cycle), products to other countries because there is no environmental restrictions or safety properly standards, because soon or later, this information come to light and will break the affiliation of the customer.

Connection with the sentence "and may be even more", and knowing this change will involved all industries, for example, automotive industry has one challenge with EV (Electric Vehicle) and FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle), because the EV implies some topics which the Automotive Industry never thougth, in this case, "give one integrate service for the complete new challenge".

In this integrate service will include applications in the Smart Phone for optimizing the charging of the EV.

The complete system for EV charger: (in house mostly long term charger = 8 hours full charged), solar PV rooftop systems integrates with other smart Home technologies (Air conditioned, or geothermal energy and security system). The producer of the EV will have to give applications which support one integrate system for managing all complete system, or at least the EV charger.

Such as one supposition, if this customer is recharging the EV during night, by energy produced from PV system during the day, covering with PV system the 70% of the battery load of the EV (in spring season).

If one day there is no production of solar PV energy by shadowing or cloudy day, (being the system related to one meteorological forecasting system). 
The owner of the EV is able to charge the complete battery of EV in the parking job center (after the jouney to the job the battery level is 30%), because the company has better price of the Electricity in the parking EV charger by one contract for employees (only using the long term charge, because for quick charge, the price is higher, and staying working minimum 8 hours, it is not relevance to use quick charge), then the EV is charged at the end of the work day and ready to start the journey to come back.

For tomorrow, the batteries will be charged in the house by the recommendation of the forecasting system which indicates that tomorrow will be a sunshine day, and knowing it is spring, the load will be already 70%, enough for making the journey to the job. Such as Safety reasons, the management EV Charger system estimate always a minimum charge in the EV of 30%, for the assurance for the jouney to the job center, one calculation for number of km (or milles) from house to job center.

With the experience information by the Smart Phone application system (in cloud data base) that in winter is only being able to complete maximum 40% of the load and in summer, during July and August , the complete 100% of the range of the EV charge. This information is including in the database with the reference of one deep study of the production of the PV system, the geographic location (by sun radiation) and the average consumption of Electricity in the house in every month by data (for considering solar hours, different in winter than summer) and historical weather conditions.

Figure 2_Example of PV systems. In the left side, the front of the building is installed PV panels for the electricity generation for the Building (Sto). In the right, one PV roof for supplying the cars of the vehicles of the industry_source: Javier Sanchez Rios.
* Consider Buildings with energetic certification, for example Leed (gold or platinum), where is included the EV chargers, it used to be in a preferent position in terms of value of the Real Estate Building Assets for selling or renting.

If the customer is not living in a sunshine country, the alternative will be by small wind energy or even with micro hydro power installed in the sewerage system in the neighbor community drain system (similar system is used in USA and first prototype in northern Spain). The system is collecting the water of raining and such as hydraulic system.

If the possibility is FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicles), in that case the system will change, because the hydrogen is very dangerous, high risk of explosions (highly flammable), and then, there will be no possibilities for managing in any house.
The hydrogen Fuel tank stocks in places with restrictions, in terms of security, similar to actual petrol stations but with its proper standards. Some implementations, one example in Barcelona Metropolitan Transport Company, are applying production of hydrogen by electrolysis process and supplied the production process by Renewable Energies.

The Hydrogen storage system presents complexity because the electric systems (switches, lighting etc) in the place of the storage must avoid any electric arc in the switching on/off or lighting on/off (for flammable features of the hydrogen). Even the warehouse is one cylindrical building, with one plastic cover on the top (roof), because in case of explosion the blast is going up, not expanding in circle avoiding bigger damages.

One example following with Hydrogen is; Schneider Electric & Areva have signed one contract for Hydrogen production by electrolysis for storage hydrogen in case of low demand in Wind Power Farms, why not in future this system is able to sell surplus production to FCV.

Making a conclusion of all exposed, please think about such as industry challenges. The new possibilities presented to automotive industry with EV & FCV in the next future. Because the challenge is not only regarding the vehicles, the automotive industry will have to give support to all involved EV & FCV. For example if customers want to know the level of batteries in the EV by the Smart Phones, the Automotive Industry will have to implement one communication systems which communicates the EV with charger, and both with Smart Phone.

In this case of situation, if the EV charger is installed in one new building, for sure the engineering studies are going to implement internet communication, mostly by cable (coaxial, fiber optic etc) or even wireless.
In existing buildings, the situation is more complicated. It will very expensive to implement one communication system from EV charger by conventional cable for internet communication, and even more wireless. Because, in the most of cases, the parking are underground (no wireless cover). May by, the communication by electric cables will be the solution for the communication between the EV and the EV charger (with one route). For that, it will be one solution in Power Line Communication (PLC), from underground floor to first floor, when the signal is arriving to first floor, then with one router for codifying the signal from PLC, after that, the system can use whatever wireless communication and being connected to whatever Smart Phone.

On the other hand, PLC is used in Automotive Industry for communication in the vehicle and then, for avoiding more cables in the wire harness of the Vehicle, using basiclyFlexRay, LIN (Local Interconnection Network) and CAN bus (Controller Area Network) developed by Robert Bosch GmbH, which nowadays is implemented in a lot of industrial implementations for its high reliability in industrial environments. See Figure 3 with one example of vehicle harness wire. But think about linking this PLC systems of the car with the PLC of the electric systems and then the possibility to the brand for receiving infomation about the performance in the car, like nowadays is working AMI systems, sending the information during the night, when the EV is charging and transmitting information to the database to the vendor: number of revolutions of the engine during the day, temperatures of performance etc, and then giving to this vendor more information for optimizing preventive maintenance and for staying in a better position for dealing with supplier (Procurement and Inverse Logistic).

Just imagine the communication infrastructure in existing buildings like big Supermarkets, Stadiums etc (in parkings with no wireless cover).

Figure 3_Sectioned Car 5 Series BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) in Berlin Teknikmuseum_source: Javier Sanchez Rios

With all those inputs, the challenges presented by automotive industry are enormous. Automotive Industry, which so far there was no any implication in fuel availability. 
As may be will happen with hydrogen tanks, which the placed will be in emplacements similars that it is nowadays with petrol stations.
In case of EV, the long term charger will be implemented in every home or existing parkings buildings (outdoor & indoor), and it is well known the availability of charger points will play an important role in the EV implementaton. 
In relation with that, even Tesla, is implementing EV charges in highways (free of charger for Tesla customers)

Then, the Automotive Industry will have one great challence, because the customer, will want to know the state of the EV Bateries level (despite of the EV is placed: indoor or outdor parking, with wireless or not cover), and for getting this "Service", the Automotive Industry will need to implement new technological solutions which never face. Think about the other industries with other implementations...

Figure 4_ Tittle page from the book: El Vehículo Eléctrico, Desafíos Tecnológicos, Infraestructuras y Oportunidades de Negocio - (english: The Electric Vehicle, Technological Challenges, Infrastructure and Business Oportunities)_source: Javier Sanchez Rios.

References: 

1_El Vehículo Eléctrico, Desafíos Tecnológicos, Infraestructuras y Oportunidades de Negocio - (english: The Electric Vehicle, Technological Challenges, Infrastructure and Business Oportunities): Cetib (Col.legi Inginyers Tècnics Industrial de Barcelona), Circutor, STA (Sociedad Técnicos Automoción).

2_ Power Line Communication for Smart Grid, Smart Homes & Smart Cars. Edited by Krzysztof Iniewsky and Tracey Mozel