Press Releases
Future Shop Recognized As Customer Leader by 1-to-1 Magazine
Emeryville – July 7, 2009 – Lithium Technologies, the leading provider of on-demand customer community solutions for the enterprise, today announced that Future Shop, Canada's largest retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics, has been recognized as a customer service leader by the editors of 1-to-1 Magazine. The company was honored for its innovative online customer community which is powered by Lithium Technologies. Available in both English and French and with over 100,000 members and more than 8 million page views per month, the Future Shop customer community is Canada's largest community of technology and consumer electronics enthusiasts.
"When we set out to develop an online customer community for the company, our main goal was to enhance the online experience for our customers," said Robert Pearson, Vice President of e-Commerce, Future Shop. "The community has become one of the top visited pages on our website, and with Lithium's help we have been able to provide our customers a valuable avenue to engage with each other around the products we provide. In return, we have been able to leverage insight from the community back into all areas of our company, including buyers, merchants, marketing, and operations."
Future Shop partnered with Lithium Technologies to better understand how to build and maintain a successful community and how to engage "superusers," those users who frequently contribute to community discussions and are critical to building a thriving community. Today Future Shop superusers play an important role in welcoming new users to the community, answering questions from others and providing valuable feedback on proposed site enhancements.
To help personalize and enhance the user experience, Future Shop integrated its community with a virtual product expert, or avatar, which lives on the Futureshop.ca homepage. The avatar encourages users to "Ask an Expert" if they have a technology-related question, and helps users find answers by scanning conversation threads and highlighting relevant information. If a user doesn't find the answer they are looking for, the avatar offers to post their question to the appropriate discussion area in the community. There, the question can be answered by other customers or Future Shop product experts. This innovative approach to creating a guided, personalized customer experience resulted in Best Buy, Future Shop's parent company, awarding its creators the company's $1 million Chairman's Innovation Award.
"We are proud to support companies like Future Shop that are dedicated to delivering the best possible customer experience," said Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium Technologies. "Lithium is excited to see Robert Pearson and his team receive this honor for Future Shop's customer community and for the company's efforts to support the needs of its customers."
To learn more about the Future Shop community, customers can visit http://www.futureshopforums.ca. For further information about Lithium Technologies, please visit Lithium Technologies
About Future Shop
With 139 stores across the country and the nation's premier web store (www.futureshop.ca), Burnaby, BC-based Future Shop is Canada's largest retailer and etailer of consumer electronics. The company employs more than 10,000 technology enthusiasts, has enabled its website to deliver unparalleled content about the products it sells and hosts an online community forum for technology beginners and techsavvy experts to exchange ideas, reviews, tips and other consumer electronics information (www.futureshopforums.ca). As a proud corporate citizen, Future Shop has developed solutions to recycle used electronics (see www.futureshop.ca/green) and is committed to employee volunteerism and supporting nonprofits organizations dedicated to transforming local youth into Future Leaders (see www.futureshop.ca/community).
About Lithium Technologies
Lithium is the leading provider of customer-centric social networking solutions for the enterprise. Working with market leaders such as Best Buy, Sony, AT&T, Research In Motion Limited (RIM), Univision, and PayPal, Lithium delivers online customer communities that work. Lithium solutions inspire customers to share knowledge, connect with each other, and connect with the enterprise, thus providing a unique method for companies to identify, engage, and understand customers. As a result, businesses measurably improve their marketing and sales, accelerate innovation, and increase customer satisfaction. Lithium's platform is proven in high-volume, growth environments and provides the security, analytics, APIs, and multi-language support that enterprises demand. Founded in 2001, Lithium is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, California. For more information, visit www.lithium.com.
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Lithium Media Contacts:
Michael Paige, Corporate Communications, michael.paige@lithium.com , +1 (510) 318 7014
Sandra Teuber, EMEA, sandra.teuber@lithium.com , +41 43 268 2757