Have any of you considered (or adopted) prediction markets for service and support? (Prediction markets are markets where participants trade in contracts whose payoff depends on unknown future events. For example, how low will the US dollar go against the Euro?)

In the service and support world, an example could be where you create a market to see how internal staff, partners and *gasp* customers predict whether your product or service offering will be bug free and delivered on time. If developed properly, I can envision this support prediction marketplace with helping service and support leaders get more relevant in critical conversations about the importance of the customer in an organization (beyond lip service).

One of the best known examples of prediction markets is the one run by the business school at the University of Iowa — Iowa Electronic Markets. You can put real money in and participate in academic research.

For those of you interested in this prediction markets, there is a great article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that explains this concept nicely.

So, are you doing anything like this in your organization related to support? If you could, what would the key questions you want answered (and predicted) to be?

Posted in: Enterprise Support, Managing Support, Technical Support, customer service, prediction market