Synopses & Reviews
The Power of Customer Misbehavior explores the importance of customer driven innovation for top line and bottom line growth. It shows how companies should not only learn to identify how their products are being misused, but also how to use this knowledge to innovate new products and services that better meet customer needs and promote viral growth. These techniques also promote long-term customer loyalty and growth even in hypercompetitive environments.
This unique new book is the first to explore the idea of 'customer misuse': when customers modify features or expand the usage of products and services in ways that were never intended. Reacting appropriately to customer misuse will allow companies to enter new markets, create more loyal customers, and encourage customers to tell others about the company's products, all of which foster faster growth. These compelling concepts are presented in the form of simple actionable principles and illustrated with rich case studies from successful companies such as Twitter, Intuit, eBay and Coca-Cola, to offer the first practical guide to harnessing this new source of strategic innovation.
Review
"Fisher, Abbott and Lyytinen have written a fascinating and engaging book on the new era of customer empowerment. Executives are now more challenged than ever to understand customer behavior and the drivers for market growth. This book offers key insights for executives who desire to embark on a journey of discovery with customers, as they innovate on behalf of customers to transform their organizations and industries." - Lynda Applegate, Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard -Business School
"Finally, we have a book that breaks the mould by bringing the type of thinking on innovation that is most appropriate for today's information-intensive and networked world. The authors provide insight through illustration in a highly readable and compelling prose. It is a must-read for executives who want to their companies to compete and win." - Varun Grover, Distinguished Professor of Information Systems, Clemson University
"While we can't depend on customers to tell us what to build, we can provide them with the tools necessary to use technology in new and unanticipated ways, and we can learn a great deal by observing their actual use. This book will show you how to enable and nurture the power of your customers to innovate." - Marty Cagan, Partner, Silicon Valley Product Group
"If you ever thought that listening to your customers only served to increase customer satisfaction scores, think again. This book definitively argues that customers' misuse of products often has pronounced effects on the growth rates of product adoption and can lead to viral growth." - Doug Leone, General Partner at Sequoia Capital
"A book grounded in both the realm of higher learning and the school of hard knocks; it provides a simple but powerful model for success in information-intensive ventures... It explains the success of some of the most spectacular successes of the past generation, and provides valuable guidance on how to do it and what to avoid." - John Leslie King, W.W. Professor of Information at University of Michigan
Synopsis
To stay competitive, firms need to build great products but they also need to lend these products to the uses and misuses of their customers and learn extensively from them. This is the first book to explore the idea that allowing customers to adapt features in online products or services to suit their needs is the key to viral growth.
About the Author
Michael T. Fisher is a co-founding partner in the growth and scalability advisory firm AKF Partners. He was the former Chief Technology Officer of Quigo (acquired by AOL) and served as Vice President of Engineering and Architecture for PayPal. Michael received a PhD and MBA from Case Western Reserve University, an MS in Information Systems from Hawaii Pacific University and a BS in Computer Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Martin L. Abbott is a cofounding partner of the growth and scalability advisory firm AKF Partners. He was formerly the COO of Quigo and was the SVP of Technology/CTO at eBay. Martin has a Doctorate in Management from Case Western Reserve University, an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida, a BS in Computer Science from the United States Military Academy and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School's Executive Education Program.
Kalle Lyytinen is the Iris S. Wolsstein Professor of Information Systems at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the Director of CWRU's Doctorate and PhD in Management programs. Kalle currently serves on the editorial boards of several leading information systems journals and has been a consultant to several Fortune 500 companies including Nokia, IBM, and Daimler. He has also consulted several research organizations including National Science Foundation, the British Research Council and EU Directorate XII.
Table of Contents
1. Why is Viral Growth Important?
2. The Viral Model
3. Technological Factors
4. Demonstrating Skills, Proficiency, Taste and Accomplishments
5. Seeing and Being Seen
6. Getting It Right
7. Getting It Wrong
8. Conclusion