I Love You Until Someone Better Comes Along

Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services reported on last Monday that while 83% of search engine users rate themselves as 'extremely pleased' with their current search engine, a full 63% would switch search engines if a better service came along.

This apparent contradiction isn't surprising. In fact, I think these numbers are about what any good online business can expect from here on out. Even if you get most of your customers to love you, they'll still leave you very quickly when someone better comes along.

And online it's much easier to find out that someone better has come along. This is true because of search engines, and the 'Back' button, and perhaps most importantly because of the ubiquity of opinions.

Once upon a time (meaning pre-1996 or so) a business could piss off just about as many customers as they wanted, and unless Mike Wallace came after them the odds were that mass advertising was going to overwhelm grumbling customers and keep the doors open. Today, anyone with a little time and energy can seek out pretty complete opinions on products and companies via all kinds of web sites and in enthusiast forums all over the web. And one day soon opinions are going get organized. They're going to be one mouse click away from any web page, product number, or company name. And the raters will be dutifully rated, so the irrational flamers and paid-supports can be easily weeded out. In other words your reputation is going to be like a tatoo on the forehead of your business.

Get Ready. The challenge is clear: businesses online are going to have to win their customers repeatedly. It's true for Google, and it's true for you.

Don't believe it. Consider this - when Google took over from Yahoo as 'the search engine' there were no blogs, about a zillion less news and opinion oriented web sites that people visited regularly, and a relatively small percentage of the population was actively online or interested in the concept of search. Imaging that a really great and far superior to Google search engine came online tomorrow. I mean something with much more relevant results, a fast yet more information rich layout, absolutely no search spam, and three really cool features that neither you nor I have thought of yet.

Would it take hours or minutes before news raced around the blogosphere and soon thereafter the news sites? Would it take one day or three before it got 60 seconds on the evening news? If it held up - people who used it liked it - would it take two weeks or three to make Time, Business Week, and even Teen People? Would it take a month before your parents or grandparents had heard of it? If everyone went and tried it, and it was really really better, would anyone go back to Google for 'old times sake'?

It could happen. To them and to you.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at June 13, 2004 02:13 PM