Forrester help us see the social media future for customer communications…

It's Social Media Baby...

The second day of the PBBI EMEA Partner conference saw a mix of PBBI and guest presenters. Most interesting for me, was Peter O’Neill, VP & Principal Analyst from Forrester Research. The nice thing about presentations from an analyst like Forrester is they’ve done their home work. Whether or not you agree with what is said or not, at least they’ve got some interesting research and facts to go on. So when I saw Peters topic of “Cloud and Social Media transforming IT and Customer Communications” I thought this could be good. The danger of these kind of topics are the listener being over powered with buzz word (or similar phrase) bingo and the title alone risked this. Peter chose to break down the subject into three to observe what is happening today compared with how things used to be, beginning with “social media empowering consumers.”

The merging of technically enabled people with new tools (defined as Web 2.0 tools) to create social media. Fortunately we didn’t get bogged down with terms like Web 2.0. I think we’ve covered Wed 2.0 on the blog before – over used, seldom really understood. Too often I think I’ve had to sit through self promoted “guru’s” who try telling us the latest tool is social media. A bit like Google Wave was going to be the next great social media thing – but as it turned out, no one used it. Maybe I’ve missed some more recent articles on the subject, but it was refreshing to hear someone talk of marrying real people and their behaviour along with the emergence of new technology.

In the old way of marketing there was a classic linear process. The seller offers, the buyer responds, and the seller fulfils – or not depending on how great the offer is. But at the point the buyer calls in the seller, they may have very little knowledge of what is being offered. By contrast, in the new world, the buyer may seek out a vendor based on their own market research, gathering countless sources of evidence (often via social media) prior to ever talking to the seller. According to Forrester the purchaser could be as far as 80% through the buying cycle before they even talk to a vendor. That’s great if you’re the seller and someone is already very favourable to you, but imagine you are looking at buying a smart phone this week. You go online to various social media outlets to start your research. How many of you are calling RIM in to talk about Blackberry?

In that theme Peter went on to discuss how consumer choices are creeping their way into businesses. Employees are not waiting for permission to use what they believe to be technically superior devices they own at home for work purposes – occasionally without realising the security risk to the firm. Or at least in contradiction to company policy. Led by the generation Y’ers – Forrester research shows 50% of the group now believe they have better technology at home than at work. Even those closer to their retirement age in the older boomers group are progressing that way. Two years ago 21% of that group believed they had better technology, that’s already 35%. This isn’t a trend that has escaped the GIS industry. How many people hear the phrase “well I can use it in Google maps at home, so why not at work”. That’s not to say it’s a threat to our industry, but it is to say we need to learn how to harness and take advantage of that awareness being generated. Something multiple partners and on occasion PBBI have already demonstrated.

Dear It Dept. The phone you gave me is rubbish. I'm using my own, I'm sure you won't mind!

Coupled with this social media effect is the changing of the tech industry channels. From something that has grown into a myriad of routes and options through VAR’s, partners, tech partners, retail outlets to a simpler route. From our PB aspect the predicted shift of product sales from partner or other associate towards the “mothership” will be mixed depending on where you are. But as an overall IT trend you can see the logic. As a consumer of software I would now rather purchase the application direct from source, and preferably online so I can get it immediately. For the partner world the predicted decline in straight product would then be offset in managed services, application hosting and service support. Again, something which many PBBI partners are already successful with. Whether its hosting of MapInfo Exponare to local government clients in Australia or creating highly specific applications through professional services in Russia, our partners have been forging successful paths in this direction for a long time, and I see that expanding as suggested.

Peter started his third section with the shift in customer communication from physical to digital. I’m sure it hadn’t escaped Peter’s notice that he was at a Pitney Bowes conference. I think we all know that PB hasn’t been acquiring software companies because they see a great growing future for the physical mail business. Forrester research explained how the decrease in physical mail by no means meant the decline in communication. Moreover via the various methods now at our disposal a dramatic increase – email, text, letter, etc. But as organisations seek to generate mega-profiles (I’ll trademark that I think!) on us, someone has to store it, manage it and allow real people to make sense of it. Step in solution providers, document management systems, and full life cycle management of communications. How do we make sure the purchaser gets the communication most relevant to them in a method that suits them? One to one communications based upon this mega profile. For example I ordered a product online earlier today which came with a 5 minute packing guarantee. A low value product I had done my research via websites and blogs. The company went through the following steps:

• Email confirmation of order
• Email me 5 minutes later to confirm dispatch – including a photo of my package addressed and franked to go
• Text/SMS me to confirm despatch

I’m pretty sure the next time I see that will be tomorrow when the post drops. Impressive so far but what next? I’ve bought from this company before, and yet their emails to me are very generic. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever bought from them based on an email promotion. And while I don’t like to be spammed on the phone, I trust them enough to give them my mobile number. Peter concluded that this multi channel communication in a coordinated and relevant approach has a long way to go. On the one hand I’m excited, so long as I trust the vendor I’m happy they may offer me things I might actually want – having put some thought into it. On the other hand I’m a little nervous. Am I really comfortable with someone second guessing what I might want and linking these great profiles together? Either way, there is a long way to go.

Whatever the case, surely location plays an ever increasing role, as indicated by the gartner hype cycle placing location based services in the mainstream technology section. Adding in a location

Enjoy, and thanks to Peter for a great presentation and providing some material afterwards. For more information on Forrester please click here.

Chris M