The Decline of Customer Service and the Rise of Self-Service

New technologies allow consumers to freely explore seemingly endless amounts of products and information online. Because of this, consumers are becoming increasingly self-reliant. People check-in to flights and hotels with automated machines and purchase groceries through check-out stations. Consumers are responding positively to self-service systems and the need to interact with customer service employees is rapidly decreasing.

Caught this announcement on the Google Checkout Blog yesterday and it also appeared on Search Engine Land today. It looks as though Google has added another Trends tool to their arsenal that caters to eCommerce sellers, shoppers and even eTail professionals and search engine marketers.

The new eCommerce trends tool is called Google Checkout Trends. The tool is similar to Google Web Search Trends, except that the Checkout Trends tool only aggregates useful sales data from Google Checkout merchants and charts the data on an easy to use, easy to read interface for the user to see. Basically, it shows users important trend data about who is buying and selling what from Checkout.

Just caught wind of this news at the SEOmoz blog. Wow Mozzers, good secret, this is certainly something I didn’t expect to see from you, but is definitely a good addition to the site in my opinion. We are seriously lacking a quality marketplace that allows service providers to display their services and skill-sets, hopefully this becomes THE industry resource for that.

So, if you are an industry service provider and specialize in anything web design, development, content or marketing related, be sure you go over to SEOmoz right now (if you haven’t already), register or login to your account and go to the new Services Marketplace so you can list your resume, company and areas of specialty for display on SEOmoz. Hurry, before someone else from your organization does and gets all the credit for the idea!

At SEOmoz, we get more than a dozen requests for business every week, and constant emails asking if we know people who can fill a particular position. With the SEO Services Marketplace, we finally have a scalable solution that lets search marketers and web professionals of all stripes connect with businesses seeking services and candidates. It’s a match made in search industry heaven.

Just noticed this, not sure if it’s been brought up or if anyone cares, but it appears that there are some new ads in place of the premium member advertisements that have previously been displayed on SEOmoz’s blog and Youmoz under each first post. I can’t see this being a permanent change, Rand must be doing a favor for Danny, or something like that. I don’t expect to see these new ads replacing SEOmoz’s second main stream of revenue advertisements for good though, do you? Feel free to chime in anytime Mozzers, I don’t recall seeing anything about this and you we usually get a hint when something like this happens or is about to happen.

This past Monday I had the privilege to attend the first ever SEOmoz Training Seminar and Presentation by Rand Fishkin. A client, biz partner and friend of mine, Slingshot, flew in from Indiana on Sunday to attend the event with me. Personally I had a blast and loved the small attendee format, which gave everyone a chance to mingle with Rand, other Mozzers and each other without feeling like you had to “wait in line.”

Microsoft Expression Studio, a set of professional design tools designed to give users the flexibility to bring their visions to reality, whether they are designing standards-based sites, rich user experiences on the desktop, or managing digital content. The Studio tools include Visual Studio 2007 Standard, Expression Web, Expression Design, Expression Blend and Expression Media.

You can purchase Expression Studio for $599.00 or you can upgrade any of the individual Expression tools to the complete Studio for $349.00. A complete set of Studio FAQ’s and Individual Expression Program FAQ’s are available here.

eCommerce platforms are perfect for search engine optimization. Popular search engines love large websites with common content themes, and eCommerce stores naturally fit this bill. A few beginner search engine optimization techniques can start you down the road of gradual success.

I recently WON a free premium membership from the team over at SEOmoz and it motivated me to write up this quick rating and review of the services and tools that are offered through their premium membership program. If you are interested in giving them your feedback feel free to comment on this article or fill out the survey form at SEOmoz (you must be logged in as a premium member to access the premium members survey).

SEOmoz Premium Membership Overview:

Premium membership at SEOmoz gives you 24/7 access to unique industry guides, tools, tips, tricks, answers, videos and exclusive events. The membership features provide Internet professionals of all skill levels with a suite of beneficial educational resources designed to improve the processes needed to properly analyze, setup and market sites of all sizes.

Quite simply, these features and tools make it easier to understand the inner workings of web sites, search engines and other forms of Online marketing that Webmasters constantly use within their business advertising and branding strategies.

I got an email yesterday congratulating me on a complimentary membership to SEOmoz’s premium content. It was such a nice surprise and a great end to my Friday afternoon at work. This was really unexpected and I appreciate the gesture so much that I wrote this post as kind of a thank you to them for being so generous. Here’s what the email said …

Once a month we look at the SEOmoz members who earned more than 150
mozpoints in the past 30 days and we reward those that we consider the
most generous and participatory with a free month of premium
membership. It’s our way of giving back to those who help build the
SEOmoz community. Your account has been updated and you now have access
to all our premium content. Your premium membership will last until July 9, 2007.
If this is your second(third?) time receiving a free premium membership,
congrats x2!