• Big Data — Big Money Says It Is A Paradigm Buster - Forbes.com
• For Start-Ups That Aim at Giants, Sorting the Data Cloud Is the Next Big Thing - The New York Times
• Accel Makes Big Commitment To Big Data With $100M Fund - The Wall Street Journal
• Five startup predictions for 2012 - c|net
• Big Data: Investments Flow into the Next Big Thing - a great post by Dick Weisinger

So what is Big Data and why it is in the news so much these days?

According to Philip Russom, Director of TDWI Research, Big Data has three defining attributes – three Vs as he calls them. They are Data Volume, Data Variety and Data Velocity and together they constitute a comprehensive definition of Big Data. So Big Data is not just about Data Volume, but also the variety of data (mostly unstructured) and the velocity with which the data is generated and need to be analyzed. (for more, check out following posts by Philip Russom and the TDWI Best Practices Report titled Big Data Analytics):

• Big Data Analytics: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• The Three Vs of Big Data Analytics: VOLUME
• The Three Vs of Big Data Analytics: VARIETY
• The Three Vs of Big Data Analytics: VELOCITY

Given three Vs of Big Data, ‘traditional’ data storage, retrieval and analytics methodologies are no longer going to work. Cloud Computing is going to play a key role when it comes to Big Data Management and Analytics. And here in lies the opportunity for Outsourcing companies.

Traditionally, data collected by organizations is ‘safely’ stored in massive relational database accessible to only few within the organization and requires elaborate infrastructure both in terms of hardware and software for storage, retrieval and reporting/analytics. In such an environment, it is not possible to easily outsource Data Analytics function/processes alone given the heavy investments made in terms of hardware and software.

Because of the business requirement of analyzing vast amount of ever changing structured and unstructured Big Data almost instantaneously, companies will be hard pressed to do this on their own. But given the fact that Big Data stored in cloud can be accessed from anywhere the internet is available and can be analysed almost instantaneously by third party service providers,  outsourcing companies can offer to their clients value added services in the area of Big Data analytics without heavy investments on the part of clients in specialized hardware and software as was the case with ‘traditional’ data analytics. This will bring down significantly costs (especially fixed costs) associated with building and maintaining analytics infrastructure and solution center.

Just to give an example in the area of Social CRM, Social Media has empowered customers like never before as they can discuss about brands/products on Social Media channels. The best any marketer can do is to Listen, Learn and Engage customers. Given the three Vs of Big ‘Social’ data and the fact that most of the user generated content resides in the cloud, outsourcing companies can offer cost effective analytics solution to their clients to enable them effectively engage their customers/prospects in real time.

What do you think? Do you agree that Big Data Analytics is The Next Big Opportunity for Outsourcing Companies? Look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments:

As I explained in my previous post titled 2012: Year of Empowered and Assertive Digital Customer, 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, 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 experience about products and services will be the big story of 2012.

In order to make sure that 2012 doesn’t become a year of Social Media disasters or  Social CRM crises, CEOs and CMOs of large and medium sized companies should include following three new year resolutions on their 2012 list:

1. Improve collaboration within the enterprise and invest in collaboration tools

2. Listen to what customers/prospects are saying on Social Media channels and learn from it

3. Empower employees to engage customers/prospects on social media channels and invest in customer collaboration platform

How important are these to the survival and growth of business? In my opinion, these are as important as resolving to lose weight for someone who may suffer a heart attack if he/she doesn’t lose weight, or as important as bringing debt/expenses under control for someone who may face financial ruin or bankruptcy otherwise.

One may argue that these doesn’t apply to leading companies or brands that enjoy dominant position in their market. Well, think again. It doesn’t take long for assertive customers, empowered by social media to drive home their point of view. If you want proof, look no further than Netflix or GoDaddy in this regard. So as I said, better to lose weight than suffer a heart attack and better to control expenses/debt than face financial ruin.

Dear CEOs and CMOs, are you listening? Wouldn’t you include these three New Year’s resolutions to your 2012 list?

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)

Social Media can play a major role in finding this “win-win” equation between companies and customers, by helping companies better understand their customers’ needs (not wants or desires) and customers can better collaborate with companies using social media channels to design and co-create products or services that fulfill their needs. One key challenge facing all large and medium sized companies in this regard is how to engage tens of thousands of customers across the world on social media channels.

Well, solutions to this problem is to “Go Local”. Meaning, companies must engage their customers on social media channels at a “local” level. So if a company segments or classifies customers “geographically” or at a “store” level, they should engage their customers on social media channels at a store level. This means that companies need to have a Social CRM team for engaging customers at every local unit (like geography or store).

Unlike traditional CRM, which was all about centralization of information into a database for decision making at the top, Social CRM is all about engaging customers at a “local” level and empowering front-line managers for decision making where it matters the most – at the local level in a decentralized way. Because companies cannot collaborate with thousands of customers in a centralized way.

Here’s an example of this approach: Retail giant, Walmart recently announced that any one of Walmart’s facebook fans can get information from their “local” store by clicking on the Local Walmart tab on the Walmart’s Facebook page. “Liking” a local store will enable customers see local promotions for that particular store and a map of the store with exact location of advertised specials (for more, see this and this).

This strategy of “Going Local when it comes to Social CRM” is applicable to companies across all industries, be it retailers, restaurants or banks. Companies need to form Social CRM teams at a “local” level to engage customers and build win-win relationship with them.

What do you think? Do you agree that key to Social CRM success is Going Local?

In these days of gender equality, we can rephrase this quote as “The consumer isn’t a moron; he/she is your spouse”, but the fact remains that a customer is the most important person for any business, more so in a competitive economy where customers have many choices. You may ask what that has got to do with Social CRM? Let me explain:

The sole reason any business, be a mom and pop store serving a small community or a multi-national corporation (MNC) having tens of thousands of employees across several countries with thousands of products and millions of customers, exists is to serve its customers. All business decisions and actions undertaken by every employee are aimed at satisfying needs and wants of customers, starting right from understanding customers’ needs/wants, designing a product, manufacturing the product, distributing and marketing the product and post sales support. Any action not aimed at making customers happy is fruitless or is counter-productive.

Heavy up-front investments are made (fixed costs incurred) in the process of creation and delivery of a product or a service with the assumption that the customer will like what is being offered and will purchase the product. Any active customer involvement in product design, manufacture and delivery process is ‘minimal’ at the best through market research. This results not only in costly product failures/increased risk for the business but also higher sales and support costs.

In ‘Social Age’, it is not only possible, but incredibly easy and inexpensive for business to collaborate with customers and work together irrespective of physical location and other barriers. Thanks to social networking technology, business has an opportunity to engage customer and prospects in ‘real-time’ at every stage of product design, manufacture and delivery process in order to minimize risks and maximize value delivered to customers.

Question is not how business can afford to engage customer on social media, it is how business cannot afford NOT to engage customers on Social Media channels. Social CRM, which has been defined as the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty is the way to go for business (for more, see this).

To quote David Ogilvy again, “the consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife”. Wouldn’t you want to engage your spouse or significant other (customers in this case) on an ongoing basis? And we all know the costs if we don’t engage significant people in our life, don’t we?

Here’s how – set up a branded and moderated customer community focusing not only on product usage but also underlying passions surrounding usage of your product(s) and let product enthusiasts and brand advocates help other customers out in resolving any issues. Community Moderators (company appointed representatives similar to customer support agents) need to step in only when required and provide necessary info or resolve an issue. For example, if you are marketing cameras, have a customer community on photography and travel (underlying passions) and not on cameras, where customers can share pics and tips, and help each other out on how to take great pics, which SLR lens to use or what should be the shutter timing/ISO setting etc. Who better to assist customers than other customers who use the product on a daily basis. Company representatives (moderators) can chip in where required.

This will not only reduce call volumes (and costs associated with it) to other support channels like phone and email, but will also empower customers share their expertise and experience and be recognized in their “community” of like minded individuals – something that is at the heart of Social Media revolution.

Besides setting up a branded and managed community, marketers should also integrate their CRM system to the community platform, so that activities of customers on the community can be monitored and individual customer can be recognized/rewarded on the basis of their contribution to the community.

Customer Support communities deliver ROI not only through reduction of call volume (and associated costs) to other support channels, but also can be a great source of new product or marketing ideas and drive customer loyalty through empowerment. You can’t go wrong with that one. Can you?

What do you think? Please do share your thoughts on the subject:

In this post, I want to discuss how Social Networking technology and Social Media tools are transforming customer support function. For many decades, marketers have been providing service to their customers over phone, and over email/chat after spread of internet. Both, phone and email/chat are private and one-to-one in nature. For any support, customers have to call a phone number (normally a 1-800 toll-free number here in the US) and wait for a Customer Support agent to answer the phone and resolve any issues or provide any necessary help. During the whole support process, marketers are in total control of the interaction to the extent that agents use “scripts” or pre-defined workflow during most customer support calls. This also highlights the fact that customer support personnel are just working as “agents” and are not really empowered to solve customers’ problem and have to adhere to their scripts during the call. How many times have we heard the phrase “sorry, my system won’t allow me to do that” in response to a request during a support call.

I am happy to note that thanks to rapid expansion of reach and effectiveness of Social Media channels, this is about to change. Social Media have empowered customers like never before as they can express their opinions/feelings about brands on Social Media channels, including commenting about poor customer service or wait times for some one to answer customer service calls. Marketers have no control over what customers are saying about their brands or poor service. Given this scenario, best strategy for a business is to engage customers on Social Media channels if customers prefer that option, especially when wait time for phone, email or web based support is too long for the customers.

As more and more customers air their grievances on social media channels, it is important for marketers to engage them and not wait for them to call customer support phone numbers. Social Networking technology provides great tools for “engaging” customers. Unlike traditional media channels, Social media communication is not only two-way, one-to-one, but customer is an active participant and “owns” the conversation.

Moreover, conversations over Social Media channels are public – visible to all. And customers and potential customers are discussing about products and brands on Social Media channels, including poor customer support whether the marketer is participating in the discussion or not. This is why it is utmost important for marketer to have a Social CRM strategy and invest in Social Media tools for effectively engaging customers and prospects. Gone are the days of “scripted” customer support calls.

Level of customer engagement will determine mind-share and market-share for a brand. Those marketers who effectively engage their customers and prospects will emerge as winners and those who are not good in customer engagement will lose market share.

What do you think? Is it time for Customer Support to move over and Customer Engagement to take its place? Please do share your thoughts on the implications for business.

Between then and now, we have seen a lot happen due to this convergence. Customers empowered by Social Media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have started connecting and sharing like never before right from their mobile devices and are asserting their influence, be it for venting their feeling towards a brand or their anger and frustration at their rulers. This has even led to downfall of many a dictatorial regimes, in power for decades, in just a matter of days – something unthinkable even a few months ago. The biggest lesson business can learn from recent events is that Social Media is the new front end of CRM system and CRM ain’t CRM if it isn’t Social. Here’s why:

Social Media has empowered customers like never before as they can discuss about brands/products on Social Media channels and companies have no control over what customers are saying about their brands/products. This discussion is visible to all including other customers, potential customers and competitors.

The best any marketer can do is to Listen and Learn from what customers are saying and Engage them in meaningful conversations. In other words, treat Social Media channels as the front-end of CRM system, capture all relevant information from Social Media channels in the database and use Predictive Analytics and Knowledge Management tools to derive insights and help in decision making.

What is important to note here is that “Social” is not a middle-ware or another layer in the architecture of CRM systems, but is the front-end of CRM system, where customers decide the format and content of information. It is responsibility of the company to record and store all relevant information from Social Media channels and derive value from it by using Predictive Analytics and Knowledge Management tools for effectively engaging customers.

Companies must also leverage unique characteristics of Social Networks and re-engineer their CRM business processes to derive full benefits from it, rather than trying to fit “Social” engine to their existing CRM carriage or merely treating Social Media as another 1-1 channel like phone and email, albeit public!

This requires fresh outside the box thinking. For example, instead of trying to respond to each and every tweet or Facebook posting by customers, something not practical for a medium or large business, the emphasis should be on creating advocacy and building trust among customers, keeping in mind the “Social Context” of the medium.

No where this is more evident than in support communities, where brand advocates/loyal customers help other customers out by answering their questions or suggesting solution, rather than company Reps trying to answer all the question. As a part of their CRM initiative, marketing managers should design programs to track and reward Customer Advocacy behaviors on Social Networking sites. This will not only help in brand promotion on Social Media channels but will also help in building trust and loyalty among target audience.

As you can see from my explanation, CRM ain’t CRM if it is not Social, thanks to ‘Social’ Customers!

What do you think? Would love to hear from you. Please do share your thoughts on the subject:

They are Enable, Empower, and Engage – what I call 3Es and they play a very critical role in Social CRM success. Let me elaborate on the 3Es.  

1) Enable:

Enable refers to enabling free access to Social Media tools and technology among all the employees (not just select few) and allowing employees to use Social Media freely within well defined Social Media usage guidelines. (for more, refer to my earlier post titled Should Companies restrict Employees’ Social Media use?

2) Empower:

Mere enabling is not enough. You must empower your employees, especially those in customer facing roles to engage customers and prospects on Social media channels. And employees should feed “empowered” to do so. For more on employee empowerment, see these excellent articles titled Empowered and Empowered Customers Need Empowered Employees Need Empowered IT.

3) Engage:

Lastly but not the least, Enabling and Empowering is of no use if your employees don’t engage customers and prospects on Social Media channels, as engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards the brand will determine winning brands in Social Age (for more, refer to my earlier post titled How Customer Engagement will determine winning brands in Social Era).

It is critical for organizations to Enable and Empower their employees and Engage their customers and prospects for success in Social CRM.

What do you think? Do you agree that 3Es are key to Social CRM success? Please do share your thoughts:

But inspite of the fact that SaaS CRM has been around for a decade, it is not as popular or widespread as what some might have expected it to be by now. I think this is about to change. As I noted in my previous post, four independent trends, namely Social Media, Smart Phones, Predictive Analytics and SaaS are now converging to bring about a Paradigm Shift in CRM.

In particular, Social Media will drive adoption of cloud computing/SaaS CRM going forward. Some of the key reasons why I think this is likely to happen are as follows:

• Social Media channels (like Twitter and Facebook) generate tremendous volume of user generated content created by millions of users. Not possible for CRM system to import/store the data “locally”. This is unlike “traditional” CRM, where data was generated by few users and stored in “local” database. SaaS Model makes it possible to store information in the “cloud” (shared space) and access it from (Social) CRM application “on-demand”

• Social Media space is changing and evolving rapidly. New Social Media channels and tools are being added almost every day. Very difficult, if not impossible, for any CRM vendor to incorporate all new channels and feeds “locally” for every installation of CRM system. Under the SaaS model, it is not difficult to add new Social Media channels/feeds to the “hosted” (Social) CRM application and make it available to users “on-demand”

• Service Oriented Architecture and Cloud Computing not only make it easy to integrate applications, but also facilitate “plug and play” modules and add-ons that can dramatically reduce time and cost involved in extending functionality of the application. This can be of great help in Social CRM as Social Media space is changing and evolving rapidly.
  “plug and play” modules and add-ons can dramatically reduce time and cost involved in extending functionality of the application. 

CRM and Analytics application vendors such as Oracle, SAP and SAS should take note of this trend towards SaaS and should extend their service offerings to include CRM SaaS.

What do you think? Please do share your thoughts and comments on impact of Social Media on SaaS CRM.

• Social Media
• Smart Phones/Portable Devices
• Cloud Computing/SaaS
• Predictive Analytics

All these four independent trends are now converging to bring about a Paradigm Shift in CRM.

“Managing” customer relationships till now involved recording “transactions” between company and the customer over phone, email and web-site besides “snail” mail and face-to-face exchanges and using the “historical” or “past” information to better serve the customers. Company was in total control of this conversation with customer at every stage. Information was recorded using pre-determined fields in the database, by company employees (or by contractors trained by the company) using script in CRM application controlled by the company. Thanks to the convergence of cloud computing, social media, predictive analytics and smart phones, this comfortable existence of marketers (and CIOs, CTOs as well) is about to come to an end.

Social Media has empowered customers like never before and they can discuss about brands/products on Social Media channels. This discussion is visible to all including other customers, potential customers and competitors.

Smart Phones/Portable devices with high speed internet access, geo-location tools and camera have ensured that customers can use information gained from Social Networks and Internet to maximum advantage. For example, scanning product bar codes to ascertain the lowest price of a product in geographical vicinity.

Software as a Service (SaaS) has made “on-demand” full functionality CRM application possible, with no large scale investments requirement upfront. CRM system’s integration with multiple other systems was one of the biggest challenges, requiring substantial investment in terms of time and cost. No more, thanks to Cloud computing/SaaS model. It is possible to integrate SaaS and cloud applications with enterprise apps in days, what used to take weeks or even months earlier. This has further lowered entry barriers and made available complex, full featured CRM applications to small and medium sized firms – what so far was available to only companies with large IT/Marketing budgets, empowering smaller firms to compete with their larger rivals on equal footing.

And last but not least, predictive analytics has made it possible not only to analyse past customer behavior, but predict future behavior too based on statistical models. When combined with real-time Social Network data feed, it is THE killer app for next gen CRM system. Predictive analytics can help in identifying minor issues and help in taking corrective action before they become a crisis. For example, if a customer (or a group of customers) tweet about their dissatisfaction with a product or service, predictive analytics can help in identifying who among them are most likely to defect so that company can take corrective action before it is too late. Better still, if they happen to be customer(s) of a competitor, company can make an attractive offer and win them over. And thanks to SaaS model, this level of analytics functionality is available to small and medium sized companies with no large scale investments requirement upfront.

Given this CRM Paradigm Shift, how well your organization is prepared? Will it effectively engage “empowered” Social Customer? Will it compete against competitors who use low-cost “SaaS” model? Is your CRM system smart enough to predict customer behavior and help in taking corrective action before minor issues become crisis? Would love to hear from you on this Paradigm Shift.

To answer some of the questions, here is a list of eight must read blog posts on Social CRM. Happy Reading!

• 2010: Year of Social CRM
• Definition of Social CRM – Explained!
• Definition of Social CRM – Questions & Answers
• How Customer Engagement Will Determine Winning Brands in Social Era
• Social CRM: Take the Leap of Faith
• Brand Crisis and Social Media
• Social CRM: Don’t wait for Social Media “Oil Slick”
• 5 Lessons Social CRM can Learn from CRM

Given this extensive hands-on experience as program and project manager implementing CRM solutions for some of the largest corporations in the world and having witnessed the CRM revolution from close quarters, right from its inception as eCRM, through growth and maturity phases and the rise of Social CRM now, what lessons can I think of that we learn to avoid some of the common pitfalls associated with CRM?

We can learn five important lessons before we start implementing Social CRM solutions:

Lesson 1: Social CRM is a Strategy

Social CRM is a business strategy, it is not technology, tools or platform. Social CRM can be defined as the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty.

CRM too started out as a business strategy, but once software vendors came out with application to address CRM requirement and called it “CRM Application”, CRM became more of a tool than strategy. As a result, limitations and failures of tools became that of CRM – earning CRM its bad name.

So the first lesson is that Social CRM is a business strategy. Strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Social CRM is a plan of action to build Trust and Loyalty. Calling Social CRM “technology”, “system” and “processes” is a misnomer. While executing Social CRM (strategy), technological tools will be used to achieve the goal – but tools are different from plan. It is very important to remember this distinction between Strategy (plan) and Tools (technology, systems). For more, see this and this.

It is important to have clearly defined and objective goals before selecting tools and technology. Not other way around, else limitation of tools will become limitation of your goals and strategy.

Lesson 2: Optimize Business Processes

Reason why many of the CRM implementations failed over the last decade is that the underlying CRM related business processes were not re-engineered or optimized for the CRM system.

As a result, CRM systems became more of a drag on the employees using it. And to force them to use it, many of the companies resorted to “carrot and stick” policy to force employees to enter information in the CRM system. Naturally, the word “CRM” quickly became unpopular. This could have been avoided had the underlying business processes been re-engineered or optimized before implementing CRM solution.

Lesson 3: Data Quality is Very, Very (and Very) Important

Any information system is only as good as data in it. We have all heard of the phrase “Garbage in, Garbage out” and this aptly describes why some of the CRM implementations failed. Not enough care was taken to ensure data quality.

Quality is critically important for both, transactional and non-transactional data. This is especially true for Social CRM as the volume of data emanating from Social Networks can be huge and as people use multiple accounts & profiles on Social Media channels. It is very important to have data governance framework and best practices in place before implementing a Social CRM solution.

Lesson 4: Leverage Analytics

Another key lesson we can learn is to leverage analytics. Thanks to their CRM systems, organizations were able to collect vast amount of data and have 360 degree view of their customers, but the same data could have been used much more effectively by applying Predictive Analytics.

Before implementing Social CRM solution, we should have a clear idea of how we are going to use the information collected and how we can apply advanced analytics not only to analyze the past, but also predict the future consumer behavior and fix problems before they become crisis.

Lesson 5: Project Ownership and Leadership

While discussing about project ownership and execution of CRM projects, I am reminded of this maxim: “a camel is a horse designed by committee”. In any large and complex project with multiple stake-holders, it is very important to have a clearly identified “owner” and an effective “leader” who will be responsible for the success of the project.

Absence of “clear” ownership and “effective” leadership is a recipe for disaster. This may sound common-sense, but you will be surprised to learn how many organizations attempt implementing CRM solution without first having in place a project owner and/or effective leader. This is all the more important for Social CRM as multiple stake-holders like Marketing, PR, IT, Legal are involved. It is very important to clearly highlight roles and responsibilities, procedure and protocols for each involved department/person before implementing a Social CRM solution.

What do you think? Would love to hear your views on common pitfalls associated with (Social) CRM implementation. I look forward to your comments:

Engagementdb has published a study that shows strong evidence that Social Media Engagement correlates to Financial Performance (see the report on The world’s most valuable brands. Who’s most engaged? http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/ENGAGEMENTdb_Report_2009.pdf )

According to this study “”Engagement via social media IS important — and we CAN quantify it. There is statistically significant correlation between social media engagement and the two most meaningful financial performance metrics – revenue and profit”. This study further states that:

• It pays to engage meaningfully in social media. Emphasize quality, not just quantity.

• Engagement is more than just setting up a blog or Facebook profile and letting viewers post comments,  it’s keeping your content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status.

• To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. You must do something, else risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.

• Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest.

This clearly illustrates the importance of engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards the brand – the essence of Social CRM (http://hkotadia.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/what-is-social-crm/

What do you think? Are you convinced that brands have to engage customers via Social Media or SM is just a passing fad – will go away in the next couple of years. Pls share your comments: