CRM - February 2008 - (Page 31)

THE DIGITAL CLIENT see an increase in niche aggregation, the sophisticated filtering of social networking Web sites to separate relevant buyers from irrelevant ones. Organizations will also be forced to move from producerdriven to consumer-driven thinking in order to penetrate identified market segments with increasingly relevant products and services. Getting it right in the age of the digital client is no cakewalk—just look at the backlash that Facebook encountered from its Beacon data-sharing initiative. (See “Facebook’s About-Face,” January 2008, page 17.) Nevertheless, it’s foolish to deny the digital client’s growing influence on companies and how they’ll conduct business in the future. Consider the latest figures, as presented by Nielsen/NetRatings at a recent industry conference in New York: Web 2.0 sites—those allowing users to talk to each other via email, messaging, blogs, and other social media tools— make up the fastest-growing category on the Web, doubling their traffic over the last year. That puts Web 2.0 ahead of categories such as news and information, video and movies, and family resources. The average Web 2.0 user conducts 63.8 online searches per month, compared to the 44.7 online searches per month conducted by all Web surfers. Aggressive Web 2.0 users—people who make social sites part of their daily life, believed to account for between 15 percent and 20 percent of the population—are more voracious but less loyal news consumers because of information-retrieval tools such as RSS feeds. Simply said, there is not even a remote chance that Web 2.0, business in an instant, or the digital client is going away. So learn to mitigate risk around brand protection. Concerned that Web 2.0 is the new Wild West? Learn how to thrive within the unregulated and unmonitored environment. Think social networking is primarily a U.S.-based phenomenon? Accept that the world truly is flat, and it’s only a matter of time until Web 2.0 takes off globally. Hoping things will slow down to give you time to catch up? Get used to this level and speed of change—forget complacency and jump on board now. Barton Goldenberg is president and founder of ISM Inc., a CRM real-time enterprise consulting firm in Bethesda, Md. Barton expands on the concepts presented here in his forthcoming book, CRM in Real Time: Empowering Customer Relationships (Spring 2008, Information Today). He can be reached at bgoldenberg@ismguide.com. http://www.salesguru.com http://www.salesguru.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - February 2008

CRM - February 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Loyalty Riddle CRM Drives Down-Market Out of the Gate: Marketers Rate ’08 Traits The Pulse Consultants Adapt to CRM’s Changing Landscape Required Reading Cover Story: CRM Gets Serious Contact Center Solutions Always On Rumble in the Office The Smallest Slice Tying Up Cable’s Loose Ends Burning Up the Paper Trail Sunny Skies for Knology No More Bumps for BlueRoads Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - February 2008

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