Virtual Customer Environments: IT-Enabled Customer Co-innovation and Value Co-creation - Information Technology and Product Development - page 119

6.6.2 Integrating VCEs with Internal Innovation Teams
Companies that want to benefit from their customers' creativity need to adopt
strategies that link their external customer innovating environments with internal
product-development teams.
This might involve establishing new organizational roles to connect the VCE
with the internal product teams. For example, Microsoft has specially-designated
employees called “buddies” who play such a bridging role. Buddies interact directly
with customer contributors in the VCE and ensure that their inputs are fed to the
appropriate people within the organization. This also allows the company to partici-
pate in the conversations that occur in the external innovation forums and contribute
to the customers' hedonic experience.
Similarly, companies could also establish new communication mechanisms -
both formal as well as informal communication avenues. Some of the companies
have used formal communication methods such as white papers to provide vision
and direction to customers' innovation and value co-creation activities. Informal
mechanisms can be equally important. Some companies have started using blogs
and wikis to facilitate informal conversations between internal experts and cus-
tomers (for example, Microsoft's Channel 9 that promotes open conversations
between customers and Microsoft employees).
Finally, new processes may need to be established that tie together the activi-
ties in the VCE with those in the internal innovation teams (for example, processes
related to managing risks, coordinating tasks across organizational boundaries, and
information sharing). Instituting appropriate processes to accommodate the VCE
activities and their outcomes can go a long way toward enhancing the customer
experience and ensuring returns to the company.
6.6.3 Managing Customer Relationships and Expectations
The third type of managerial implications relates to managing customer expectations
and minimizing potential negative outcomes.
Clarity about customer roles, innovation and value-creation processes, and the
outcomes can reduce the potential for misplaced customer expectations regarding
their participation in innovation and value creation and lead to a more positive cus-
tomer experience. Strategies to enhance transparency vary according to the VCE
context. For example, some companies have tried to enhance clarity by making cus-
tomer roles and processes explicit through published policies and guidelines. Open
discussions with the customer community about their involvement may also help
clarify perceptions and expectations. Similarly, explicit recognition of the issues
related to intellectual property rights in co-innovation value co-creation is critical
for enhancing outcome transparency. Practices that bring clarity to “who owns what
intellectual asset” and communicate that effectively to the customer community will
be of utmost importance.