Paul Greenberg talks Web 2.0 with attendees at SugarCon 2008
Author, blogger, and CRM industry pundit Paul Greenberg kicked off Day 2 at SugarCon 2008 with a great presentation about the new era of the social consumer and its impact on businesses. Speaking to the prevailing economic changes taking place thanks to up-and-coming Gen Y and Gen X generations, Greenberg said “This transformation is social, not business. It impacts all institutions and thinking, not just business.”
In a nutshell, Greenberg explained how the pendulum has shifted in favor of the consumer. And for all the developments we’ve seen within the CRM industry, such as the maturation of the Web and software-as-a-service, the customer is still the king. That well-worn platitude is developing a life of its own, argued Greenberg, and I couldn’t agree more. What has been seen as a means of managing customer data in order to understand them is now viewed as a vital two-way link between customers and vendors centered on the overall customer experience. CRM in other words, is incorporating customer experience management in conjunction with consumers, in what many, including Greenberg, are calling CRM 2.0.
To that end, Greenberg gave a number of great examples highlighting this emerging trend. Carnegie Mellon conducted a study of all its students with Facebook accounts and discovered that 52 percent wouldn’t trust the information on their account with family or friends. “They rather trust a one-night stand,” Greenberg jokingly remarked. “And you wonder why consumers don’t trust marketing anymore, because it’s become a two-way conversation.”
Greenberg also relied heavily upon the video game industry. Noting the original iteration of the video game Doom, Greenberg tied CRM 2.0 and open source together by tracing the game’s development into a multi-billion dollar brand. Shortly after its release, the game was hacked by a group of 15-year olds. Rather than calling the cops, the CEO of Doom owner ID Software opened the source code to mod communities, users, online forums and wikis, and provided authoring tools online for future releases. This joint cooperation lead to future versions that sold to the tune of 18,000,000 retail units and a 88 percent domination of the P.C. online market.
And for those consumers that aren’t happy with a brand or company, Greenberg heeded listeners with the following example, which was viewed more than 3,000,000 times within a few days of being posted on YouTube.
I know you guys are dying to check out the new Speech Tech blog that I’m writing for ITI. Check us out: http://www.speechtechblog.com.
Once I figure out how to use a computer, I’ll post a link to this blog. But, alas, I’m a woman, and my peanut-sized brain cannot understand basic HTML. I can’t believe I even managed to write that sentence.