As 2011 comes to an end and as we look forward to celebrating New Year 2012, one thing that strikes most looking back is the massive increase in ownership and usage of Smartphones and Tablet computers.
Just consider following headlines in the last few days:
“On Christmas day alone, a total of 6.8 million iOS and Android devices got activated around the world, a 353% increase from Christmas 2010″ (for more, see this link)
“Consumers have spent a record $35 billion online shopping this holiday season” (for more, see this link)
“Apple’s iOS accounted for a whopping 13.4% of Online Sales on Christmas Day” (for more, see this link)
“According to a recent report, Facebook reached more than half of global audience in October 2011 and accounted for 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world and 3 in every 4 social networking minutes” (for more, see this link)
These are just a few headlines I came across during last few day of 2011. And they all points to the fact that thanks to Mobile, Tablet computing and Social Networking revolutions, customers are empowered like never before and they are leveraging technology not only for shopping online or scoring great bargains, but also for highlighting poor customer service experiences.
This growing trend of empowered and assertive customers leveraging technology for connecting with other like minded individuals to share their purchase intentions and experiences about products and services will be the big story of 2012.
Questions is how many companies are listening to customers, learning from it and engaging them? Not many. So if 2012 is going to be the year of Empowered and Assertive Digital Customer and if companies are not ready for it, we can also say that 2012 is going to be the year of Social Media disasters and Social CRM crises, and many companies will learn the Social CRM lesson hard way. And that will spur investment not only in Social CRM, but also Enterprise Collaboration Platforms, Mobile engagement platforms and Data Analytics.
What do you think? Do you agree that 2012 is going to be the year of Social Media disasters and Social CRM crises? Please do share your thoughts:
(Picture courtesy: Beautiful sunset in Dallas, Texas as seen from my apartment)
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