Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

Today's customers are socially connected and digitally enabled. They expect 24/7 operations and information available on-demand. Executives must realize that "social computing is about communication, not about devices," Prentice said. This means that a company's social computing strategy should not be about the platform, it should be about the people. "You don't want a Facebook strategy or a Twitter strategy, you want a community strategy," he said.

Social computing has changed the way we work and play, Prentice noted. "'It's my world, my way.' This has changed the balance of power."

Prenticed cited several other realities business leaders must face today if they are to continue to drive their organizations forward:

• If it's digital, it's discoverable. Privacy is dead.
• Control is an illusion. CRM is changing to "customer-managed relationships" because customers have more control than ever before.
• The push economy is changing to a pull economy. Customers expect companies to provide products, information, and service on their terms.
• CRM professionals need to understand what customers want.
• Rebuilding trust lost during the recent economic upheaval is single biggest issue facing companies today. Additionally, trust is the long-term problem companies face. Customers prefer to do business with companies that they trust will do the right thing.
• Implicit value--how people perceive the value of your brand--matters as much as explicit value.
• Reputation matters more than ever. The online collective has a huge impact on what people think, as well as on the decisions they make. Don't underestimate the collective.
• Big data is going to be critical. Organizations will need to analyze terabytes of data in real time to facilitate decision making that will have an immediate impact.