Newtek Business Services announced the findings of its SB Authority Market Sentiment Survey, a monthly window into the concerns of independent business owners. Based on a poll of approximately 2,200 respondents, one of the key findings from the October survey is 57 percent of business owners are using social media to attract new customers and over 58 percent are using these tools to communicate with existing customers. In addition, 55 percent of business owners state that Facebook and Twitter are significant engines of growth for their business.
The full October 2011 results showed the following:
Do you use Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media to attract new customers in your business?
Yes 57%
No 43%
Is social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) a significant engine of sales growth for your business?
Yes 55%
No 45%
Do you use social media (Facebook, Twitter) to communicate with your current customers?
Yes 58%
No 42%
More information on CRM and social media can be found at www.CRMindustry.com
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Are you listening? Twitter users want complaints read, addressed
It’s no secret that social media has revolutionized how consumers communicate with businesses. Instead of complaint letters exchanged over weeks, a quick 140-character tweet can garner a direct response within minutes. A recent poll conducted by Maritz Research and its social intelligence arm, evolve24, found that frequent Twitter users who have used the social media tool to complain about their customer experience with a company overwhelmingly want those companies to be listening to their comments. And, these tweeple want their public complaints addressed.
According to the September study, while only 1/3 of these respondents actually received some type of follow-up after they tweeted their complaint, 83 percent of survey participants who received a follow up to their tweet said they liked or loved hearing from the company they complained about. And just under 75 percent of those people who received a response were very or somewhat satisfied with the response they received. A little more than 15 percent said they were either very or somewhat dissatisfied with the company’s response.
For the two-thirds of respondents who didn’t receive an answer to their complaint, a similar number, 86 percent, also would have liked or loved to hear from the company. However, a striking 63 percent said they would hate or not like it if the company contacted them about something other than their complaint.
More information on customer service and support can be found at www.CRMindustry.com
According to the September study, while only 1/3 of these respondents actually received some type of follow-up after they tweeted their complaint, 83 percent of survey participants who received a follow up to their tweet said they liked or loved hearing from the company they complained about. And just under 75 percent of those people who received a response were very or somewhat satisfied with the response they received. A little more than 15 percent said they were either very or somewhat dissatisfied with the company’s response.
For the two-thirds of respondents who didn’t receive an answer to their complaint, a similar number, 86 percent, also would have liked or loved to hear from the company. However, a striking 63 percent said they would hate or not like it if the company contacted them about something other than their complaint.
More information on customer service and support can be found at www.CRMindustry.com
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
New Study Finds IT Execs View Security and Privacy, Cloud Computing and Social Media as Top Priorities
New and complex information technology (IT) risks and changing business priorities challenge today’s IT leaders, according to a new survey from Protiviti, a global consulting firm. The results of the study reveal six areas of priority for CIOs and their organizations: information security and privacy; virtualization and cloud computing; social media integration; data classification and management; regulatory compliance; and vendor management.
The Protiviti 2011 IT Capabilities and Needs Survey asked participants to assess their skills and professional development priorities through more than 100 questions covering three major categories: technical knowledge, process capabilities and organizational capabilities. Protiviti also offers insights about the areas that IT leaders expressed the most concerns about, including:
-- Social media applications and sites such as Facebook and Twitter have exploded in popularity in the past few years and new social media sites are coming online at a rapid pace. Some firms have vague or out-of-date social media policies in place that are unenforceable if inappropriate activity occurs.
-- Monitoring and achieving legal and regulatory compliance ranks high among IT leaders as an area in need of improvement. The volume and pace of regulatory change has been significant in recent years, and there are a number of regulatory issues that require IT involvement, including Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, Solvency II and PCI-DSS.
-- For every law and regulatory requirement, the company must also ask: What portion of my data does this affect? How do I classify and manage this data in accordance with the law? It also is important to note that, as a byproduct of the proliferation of new and emerging technologies, there are rapidly growing volumes of data being generated daily. By ranking, managing and classifying this data as a top “Need to Improve” competency, respondents may be saying they and their organizations are having difficulty understanding the increasingly complex regulatory landscape and how to comply with various new laws.
-- With more and more organizations transitioning to virtualized solutions as well as applications and activities in the cloud, external service-level agreements (SLAs) with an array of third-party vendors and other providers are a key concern for IT executives, according to the study. Similarly, determining a sound strategy and approach for outsourcing and off shoring are another critical area of focus, particularly given that many companies continue to seek innovative ways to save costs. However, many of these organizations lack clarity or direction about how to accomplish this effectively while continuing to deliver a high level of service and maintain compliance with company policies, applicable laws and regulations.
-- Because data breaches are costly and affect not just operations but also brand reputation, information security is another top priority for IT executives. Key considerations for leaders to consider are: How robust are our information security measures? Is our organization in compliance with industry standards for security and privacy as well as applicable laws and regulations, and do we have efficient systems and processes for tracking compliance?
More information about IT Exec's top priorities can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com
The Protiviti 2011 IT Capabilities and Needs Survey asked participants to assess their skills and professional development priorities through more than 100 questions covering three major categories: technical knowledge, process capabilities and organizational capabilities. Protiviti also offers insights about the areas that IT leaders expressed the most concerns about, including:
-- Social media applications and sites such as Facebook and Twitter have exploded in popularity in the past few years and new social media sites are coming online at a rapid pace. Some firms have vague or out-of-date social media policies in place that are unenforceable if inappropriate activity occurs.
-- Monitoring and achieving legal and regulatory compliance ranks high among IT leaders as an area in need of improvement. The volume and pace of regulatory change has been significant in recent years, and there are a number of regulatory issues that require IT involvement, including Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, Solvency II and PCI-DSS.
-- For every law and regulatory requirement, the company must also ask: What portion of my data does this affect? How do I classify and manage this data in accordance with the law? It also is important to note that, as a byproduct of the proliferation of new and emerging technologies, there are rapidly growing volumes of data being generated daily. By ranking, managing and classifying this data as a top “Need to Improve” competency, respondents may be saying they and their organizations are having difficulty understanding the increasingly complex regulatory landscape and how to comply with various new laws.
-- With more and more organizations transitioning to virtualized solutions as well as applications and activities in the cloud, external service-level agreements (SLAs) with an array of third-party vendors and other providers are a key concern for IT executives, according to the study. Similarly, determining a sound strategy and approach for outsourcing and off shoring are another critical area of focus, particularly given that many companies continue to seek innovative ways to save costs. However, many of these organizations lack clarity or direction about how to accomplish this effectively while continuing to deliver a high level of service and maintain compliance with company policies, applicable laws and regulations.
-- Because data breaches are costly and affect not just operations but also brand reputation, information security is another top priority for IT executives. Key considerations for leaders to consider are: How robust are our information security measures? Is our organization in compliance with industry standards for security and privacy as well as applicable laws and regulations, and do we have efficient systems and processes for tracking compliance?
More information about IT Exec's top priorities can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com
Monday, October 17, 2011
Study Finds Global Executives Struggling to Find Sweet Spot with Social Media
Becoming social is an imperative for brands today, and while many are embracing the digital revolution, substantial improvements are yet to be made to build a brand with a distinctive social identity, according to a new global Weber Shandwick study in partnership with Forbes Insights.
"Socializing Your Brand: A Brand's Guide to Sociability" offers brand and communications executives with a starting point for developing their own best-in-class practices when creating an authentically social brand. The research was conducted online among 1,897 senior executives from high revenue companies across 50 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
According to the study, global brand executives believe that sociability is growing rapidly as a contributor to a brand's overall reputation, from 52 percent today with a projected estimate of 65 percent three years from now. Yet, a large majority (84 percent) report that their brand's sociability is not yet up to world class brand standards, despite the fact that nearly all of them (87 percent) say they have a social media brand strategy.
Socializing Your Brand – The Risks vs. The Rewards
Global brand executives consider that the rewards of using social media outweigh the risks, by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Among the rewards of social media, global brand executives count strengthening customer loyalty, improving brand recognition, helping locate new customers and prospects and improving customer service.
Nine Drivers of Leading Brand Sociability:
It's not the medium — and it's more than the message: World class brands are much more likely than the average brand to create original content. 45 percent of them create content specifically for social media purposes, compared to 28 percent of all global companies. World class brands depend upon much more than just the medium to make themselves social.
Put your brands in motion: World class companies do more than build an inventory of social media tools. They apply their tools in more social ways than the average global company. For example, they are 44 percent more likely to offer brand-related mobile content, 43 percent more likely to participate in "check-in" apps, 41 percent more likely to do proximity marketing and 40 percent more likely to have their own branded YouTube channel.
Integrate or die: World class organizations are much better integrators of brand personality — they are nearly twice as likely as other organizations to have a consistent brand personality across all social and traditional media channels and are much more likely to include a social media element to their traditional print or broadcast messaging.
Make social central: 61 percent of world class brands have a dedicated social media strategist or manager, vs. 41 percent of all global brands. According to one global executive respondent, "The most important thing we can do is to centrally plan social media activities across all channels to amplify key messages."
Listen more than you talk: World class companies fine-tune their messages to customers and integrate what is on their fans' minds into their brand stories. Nearly twice as many world class brands have changed a product or service based on fan recommendations compared to the average global brand.
Count what matters -- meaningful engagement: World class brands place more weight than other brands on their number of contributors when measuring social media effectiveness. Social contributors are ranked #1 by world class companies but #6 by other companies as a key metric.
Think global: Executives managing world class brands consider global reach as important as customer service as a driver of corporate reputation while the average global executive ranks global reach last.
Go outside to get inside: World class companies are nearly twice as likely as average global companies to engage outside support to measure their brand's social performance.
Be vigilant: To protect their social brand integrity, world class brands are always on high alert. They are 85 percent more vigilant since Wikileaks has been in the news and are 58 percent more likely to be concerned about privacy violations.
More information on Social Media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.
"Socializing Your Brand: A Brand's Guide to Sociability" offers brand and communications executives with a starting point for developing their own best-in-class practices when creating an authentically social brand. The research was conducted online among 1,897 senior executives from high revenue companies across 50 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
According to the study, global brand executives believe that sociability is growing rapidly as a contributor to a brand's overall reputation, from 52 percent today with a projected estimate of 65 percent three years from now. Yet, a large majority (84 percent) report that their brand's sociability is not yet up to world class brand standards, despite the fact that nearly all of them (87 percent) say they have a social media brand strategy.
Socializing Your Brand – The Risks vs. The Rewards
Global brand executives consider that the rewards of using social media outweigh the risks, by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Among the rewards of social media, global brand executives count strengthening customer loyalty, improving brand recognition, helping locate new customers and prospects and improving customer service.
Nine Drivers of Leading Brand Sociability:
It's not the medium — and it's more than the message: World class brands are much more likely than the average brand to create original content. 45 percent of them create content specifically for social media purposes, compared to 28 percent of all global companies. World class brands depend upon much more than just the medium to make themselves social.
Put your brands in motion: World class companies do more than build an inventory of social media tools. They apply their tools in more social ways than the average global company. For example, they are 44 percent more likely to offer brand-related mobile content, 43 percent more likely to participate in "check-in" apps, 41 percent more likely to do proximity marketing and 40 percent more likely to have their own branded YouTube channel.
Integrate or die: World class organizations are much better integrators of brand personality — they are nearly twice as likely as other organizations to have a consistent brand personality across all social and traditional media channels and are much more likely to include a social media element to their traditional print or broadcast messaging.
Make social central: 61 percent of world class brands have a dedicated social media strategist or manager, vs. 41 percent of all global brands. According to one global executive respondent, "The most important thing we can do is to centrally plan social media activities across all channels to amplify key messages."
Listen more than you talk: World class companies fine-tune their messages to customers and integrate what is on their fans' minds into their brand stories. Nearly twice as many world class brands have changed a product or service based on fan recommendations compared to the average global brand.
Count what matters -- meaningful engagement: World class brands place more weight than other brands on their number of contributors when measuring social media effectiveness. Social contributors are ranked #1 by world class companies but #6 by other companies as a key metric.
Think global: Executives managing world class brands consider global reach as important as customer service as a driver of corporate reputation while the average global executive ranks global reach last.
Go outside to get inside: World class companies are nearly twice as likely as average global companies to engage outside support to measure their brand's social performance.
Be vigilant: To protect their social brand integrity, world class brands are always on high alert. They are 85 percent more vigilant since Wikileaks has been in the news and are 58 percent more likely to be concerned about privacy violations.
More information on Social Media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Digital Era Transforming CMO’s Agenda, Revealing Gap In Readiness
A new IBM study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries reveals that the majority of the world’s top marketing executives recognize a critical and permanent shift occurring in the way they engage with their customers, but question whether their marketing organizations are prepared to manage the change.
At the same time, the research shows that the measures used to evaluate marketing are changing. Nearly two-thirds of CMOs think return on marketing investment will be the primary measure of the marketing function’s effectiveness by 2015. But even among the most successful enterprises, half of all CMOs feel insufficiently prepared to provide hard numbers.
And most of these executives -- responsible for the integrated marketing of their organization’s products, services and brand reputations -- say they lack significant influence in key areas such as product development, pricing and selection of sales channels.
The IBM study found that while 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years, only 26 percent are currently tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies.
Customers are sharing their experiences widely online, giving them more control and influence over brands. This shift in the balance of power from organizations to their customers requires new marketing approaches, tools and skills in order to stay competitive. CMOs are aware of this changing landscape, but are struggling to respond. More than 50 percent of CMOs think they are underprepared to manage key market forces – from social media to greater customer collaboration and influence – indicating that they will have to make fundamental changes to traditional methods of brand and product marketing.
While they identify customer intimacy as a top priority, and recognize the impact of real-time data supplementing traditional methods of channel marketing and gathering market feedback, most CMOs say they remain mired in 20th century approaches. Eighty-percent or more of the CMOs surveyed are still focusing primarily on traditional sources of information such as market research and competitive benchmarking, and 68 percent rely on sales campaign analysis to make strategic decisions.
More information on CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com
At the same time, the research shows that the measures used to evaluate marketing are changing. Nearly two-thirds of CMOs think return on marketing investment will be the primary measure of the marketing function’s effectiveness by 2015. But even among the most successful enterprises, half of all CMOs feel insufficiently prepared to provide hard numbers.
And most of these executives -- responsible for the integrated marketing of their organization’s products, services and brand reputations -- say they lack significant influence in key areas such as product development, pricing and selection of sales channels.
The IBM study found that while 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years, only 26 percent are currently tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies.
Customers are sharing their experiences widely online, giving them more control and influence over brands. This shift in the balance of power from organizations to their customers requires new marketing approaches, tools and skills in order to stay competitive. CMOs are aware of this changing landscape, but are struggling to respond. More than 50 percent of CMOs think they are underprepared to manage key market forces – from social media to greater customer collaboration and influence – indicating that they will have to make fundamental changes to traditional methods of brand and product marketing.
While they identify customer intimacy as a top priority, and recognize the impact of real-time data supplementing traditional methods of channel marketing and gathering market feedback, most CMOs say they remain mired in 20th century approaches. Eighty-percent or more of the CMOs surveyed are still focusing primarily on traditional sources of information such as market research and competitive benchmarking, and 68 percent rely on sales campaign analysis to make strategic decisions.
More information on CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com
Monday, October 3, 2011
Survey Reveals 95 Percent of Respondents Expect to Maintain or Grow Use of SaaS
More than 95 percent of organizations expect to maintain or increase their investments in software as a service (SaaS) and more than one-third have migration projects under way from on-premises to SaaS, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.
In June and July 2011, Gartner surveyed 525 organizations in nine countries spanning 12 vertical industries to understand their usage patterns and key trends for SaaS in the enterprise.
Nearly 70 percent of organizations have used SaaS for less than three years, also indicating a continuing stream of net-new users for this deployment model. More enterprises are renegotiating contracts early not only to satisfy demands for more functionality and an expanding user base, but also to take advantage of improved financial terms as downward pricing pressures continue in the wake of economic turbulence and increasing vendor competition.
A comparison of Gartner SaaS user-survey results from 2008 and 2010 indicate that the percentage of decisions made at the executive level is increasing. The latest survey results show that the decision process is shifting to a joint decision between the business and IT.
Analysts found that deployments of both horizontal and vertical-specific SaaS solutions (VSS) vary greatly by industry, as do planned deployments for 2012 and those considered beyond. Many industries that have not pursued SaaS in the past are beginning to do so.
Currently, communications (52 percent), utilities (51 percent), and banking and securities (49 percent) industries rank highest with respect to SaaS deployed across the horizontal and vertical-specific categories sampled. In 2012, those industries ranking highest with respect to their plans to use SaaS include federal government (33 percent), banking and securities (22 percent) and wholesale trade (20 percent). Beyond 2012, top industries considering SaaS are manufacturing and natural resources (37 percent), wholesale trade and retail (each 29 percent).
When respondents' 2012 deployment plans are combined with those considering SaaS beyond the coming year, federal government ranked highest (60 percent), followed by manufacturing and natural resources (50 percent), wholesale trade (49 percent) and retail (46 percent).
More information on CRM and SaaS can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com.
In June and July 2011, Gartner surveyed 525 organizations in nine countries spanning 12 vertical industries to understand their usage patterns and key trends for SaaS in the enterprise.
Nearly 70 percent of organizations have used SaaS for less than three years, also indicating a continuing stream of net-new users for this deployment model. More enterprises are renegotiating contracts early not only to satisfy demands for more functionality and an expanding user base, but also to take advantage of improved financial terms as downward pricing pressures continue in the wake of economic turbulence and increasing vendor competition.
A comparison of Gartner SaaS user-survey results from 2008 and 2010 indicate that the percentage of decisions made at the executive level is increasing. The latest survey results show that the decision process is shifting to a joint decision between the business and IT.
Analysts found that deployments of both horizontal and vertical-specific SaaS solutions (VSS) vary greatly by industry, as do planned deployments for 2012 and those considered beyond. Many industries that have not pursued SaaS in the past are beginning to do so.
Currently, communications (52 percent), utilities (51 percent), and banking and securities (49 percent) industries rank highest with respect to SaaS deployed across the horizontal and vertical-specific categories sampled. In 2012, those industries ranking highest with respect to their plans to use SaaS include federal government (33 percent), banking and securities (22 percent) and wholesale trade (20 percent). Beyond 2012, top industries considering SaaS are manufacturing and natural resources (37 percent), wholesale trade and retail (each 29 percent).
When respondents' 2012 deployment plans are combined with those considering SaaS beyond the coming year, federal government ranked highest (60 percent), followed by manufacturing and natural resources (50 percent), wholesale trade (49 percent) and retail (46 percent).
More information on CRM and SaaS can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com.
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