Social media – the first step to customer centricity?

Let us jump back in time a decade or so – do you remember all the rhetoric about the dot-com revolution and how it was going to change everything: The way we work, the way we think, the way we communicate the way we shop? Bill Gates said it best “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten”.

Ten years on from dot-com we see evidence of a paradigm shift in communication, a shift in the way that people want to be engaged by businesses, how we define business relationships and even friendships. The rise of social media is not the shift itself but simply a symptom of it.

The socialisation of business relationships began on-line, actually probably with mass access to email at work, was given impetus by the dot-com revolution and is gaining momentum by the day with the adoption of social media tools. I believe that although this change started on-line it’s not going to stop on-line, it won’t stop until the process of socialisation it has penetrated every aspect our businesses operations. We can see the impact of social media on sales and marketing but has it changed the way you recruit, the way you innovate, hold meetings, communicate internally, manage change and mange people? No- Well just because you Tweet and have a good LinkedIn profile don’t think you are almost there – you are just about to get started with this social thing.

I use the term social media marketing a lot, mainly because its what my prospective clients expect to hear but I very quickly drop the “media” bit and just talk about social marketing.

The key question I like to get my clients asking themselves is not what social media tools can we use but rather how can we socialise all of our businesses processes? Sometimes the answer involves the use of social media tools but often the biggest results come from off-line socialisation. Showing a genuine interest in others beyond the social media tools is key. A lot of my clients were getting good at social media marketing and attracting inquiries but then the reality of actually dealing with the company was a big disappointment.

In every business I work with it becomes more and more evident that there are opportunities to socialise key business processes. I will post a couple of detailed case studies next month but a good example would be the work I am doing with a couple of my retail clients who are very good at social media marketing but when you enter their stores you get an old fashioned retail experience! The question I asked them is “how do we socialise the retail experience and bring all that on-line energy engagement and excitement into the stores?”

The answers don’t involve the use of social media but have resulted in some of the most exciting and interesting marketing projects I have been involved with and the return on investment for the clients could be game changing.

What question can you ask that changes customer centricity, engagement and socialisation from buzzwords to the driving force in placing your business at the forefront of the paradigm shift in customer engagement? Hit the comment button and let me know what you think / challenge me with questions.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp Intelligise – Be Brilliant