MarketTools Blog

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to attend Dreamforce (Salesforce.com’s user conference), and like most people I spoke with, I was blown away. I think I was most impressed by the fact that, unlike other high tech events that are guilty of promoting ideas or technology still years from being a reality, Salesforce’s vision of the Social Enterprise is relevant NOW.

It was only a few years ago that I literally “LOL’d” at the commercials showing tribes in Africa thanking a computer company for bringing them the internet ‒ I didn’t buy it. And even in the past few years when people talked about promoting B2B businesses on Facebook, I rolled my eyes, thinking no one really wants that kind of relationship with a corporation. But we’re finally entering a time where it makes sense to bridge the gap between social customers and social employees. The time has come to understand and communicate with customers in new ways that leverage the information customers are already making available to you.

One of the drivers of the Social Enterprise is the ability to begin “delighting customers in a whole new ways”, which essentially means knowing who they are and what they “like” – on Facebook or otherwise. By bringing together traditional CRM customer data with social media data, AND making it easy for your employees to socially engage with customers, you now have a whole new relationship with your customer and a lot more ways to delight them. Many of our customers are already doing this with our Social Media solutions, while other organizations are just starting to see the relevance for their business. The bottom line is that social media is finally getting to the point where it could become less about your vacation photos and more about making your voice heard to organizations, governments, and of course, your peers.

And while it may initially sound a bit Big Brother, there are actually huge benefits for customers who participate. First of all, individuals can control their image and access to their information online. They can decide what to share and what not to share, and fortunately Facebook is continually improving its privacy settings. Then by making their voices heard and engaging their peers in open discussions online, customers can help create changes as small as packaging design or as large as bringing down corrupt governments. This is real, and it’s already happening.

So what does that mean for traditional Voice of the Customer programs? More opportunity to capture customer feedback more often and in more relevant, personalized ways. Survey programs won’t be replaced by social media, but rather they’ll take advantage of social networks for more relevant discussions and more timely sharing of results. I also think expectations for action will increase – unlike private surveys, when customers know you’re collecting their feedback through social media, they will expect you to tell them what action will be taken as a result of their input.

It all leads to increased transparency, a shifting of the relationship between consumers and business and a new way of looking at life, work and the grey area in between. I’m now a believer – what about you? Tell us what impact you think social media has made or will make on the way you interact with customers.