The World is changing – It’s all about connections Social, digital and mobile present awesome opportunities to engage customers with brands ecosystem. I call it CRM 3.0, the world doesn’t revolve around your brand any more, and you have to understand the connected consumer and were you have permission to play with their lives. Which levers to pull? In order to do it you need to establish a conversation engine to deliver real-time customer communications, when, where and on the platform your costumer wants it. Not when it suit you or when you’re ready to send out a batch run. Do you have single customer view? Are you getting the return they promised from that CRM platform? Are all your stockholders aligned? How you achieve this?

1. 1 The Social Business - Things to think about and get right
The Social Business
In the past, customers and other stakeholders could voice their opinions of your organization by
letters, emails or phone conversations. But, their ability to influence others was rather limited. With the
growth of the Web 2.0 customer ability to reach and influence others has increase exponentially.
Customer reaction to an ad campaign, service glitch or cool new product feature can reach millions of
people within hours or mints. This trend is on the upswing and at the heart of all this, a new breed of
consumers emerging - and they are changing the very foundation of business.
Business recognized that these new webs of influence present challenges to traditional sales
and marketing methodologies, but at the same time, present powerful opportunities
to develop more satisfying and profitable customer interactions and even turn former critics
into supporters or proponents. Today business and organizations cannot rely on marketing and
selling to the mass audiences. Customers have the power to demand individual treatment and to
broadcast their feeling about your company far and wide. The strengthen customer loyalty,
companies must engage them in personal relationships that extend beyond the point of purchase.
Having a Facebook page and setting up a Twitter account for your company does not make you
a Social Business! These are simply manifestations of a culture that embraces and promotes a
spirit of collaboration and community throughout the entire employee, customer, supplier and
partner eco system. You can’t develop a comprehensive unified communications strategy
without monitoring, analyzing and responding to social media interactions.
What are the advantages of a Social Business?
 An organization that is deeply engaged both internally and externally will collaborate in
more productive, efficient ways.
 When access to information, experts and assets is enabled, every action is aligned to
drive business results.
 Emerging opportunities can be better anticipated and addressed with information and In
order to become a Social Business you need to learn how to empower your employees,
communicate with your customers and maximise your business potential.
Business communications has never been more exciting!
Over the coming years, how you do business is going to fundamentally change? there has
never been a more exciting time to think about how your organisation communicates and
collaborates. Social Media, Consumerisation, Mobility and Cloud are changing attitudes
towards how you communicate with your colleagues, your business partners and your
customers. In isolation their impact is limited but collectively they are arming users with
something new and powerful? Choice.
Choice can deliver positive business impact? It can:
 Give your organisation agility
 Empower your employees
 Reduce costs
 Simplify management
 Enable innovation
 Help IT become a strategic asset
 As a result, the choice of communications tools and platforms can enable your
organisation to succeed where your competitors do not.

2. 2 The Social Business - Things to think about and get right
The World is changing – It’s all about connections
Social, digital and mobile present awesome opportunities to engage customers with brands
ecosystem. I call it CRM 3.0, the world doesn’t revolve around your brand any more, and you have
to understand the connected consumer and were you have permission to play with their lives.
Which levers to pull? In order to do it you need to establish a conversation engine to deliver real-
time customer communications, when, where and on the platform your costumer wants it. Not
when it suit you or when you’re ready to send out a batch run. Do you have single customer view?
Are you getting the return they promised from that CRM platform? Are all your stockholders
aligned? How you achieve this?
CRM 3.0 – The new commercial battleground
An always on, highly connected yet simple to use ecosystem in which your costumers will want to
stay and spend time with your brand. They might even happy to buy if you play your cards right.
It’s about brands connecting with their consumers and convincing them not just about their actual
products, but around a wider set of criteria such as ease, simplicity, excitement, rewords and
value.
Brand ecosystems are emerging. These are places where there is no need to leave. Where you
can get everything you need. Where you have fun, where you choose to buy interesting stuff
rather than have stuff push on you.
The brands and the data ecosystems are in the heart of the CRM 3.0. It is challenging, but comes
with huge opportunities. It’s real time, combining personal data geolocation and gameification
thechniquies with simple interfaces enabling customers to interact with ease.
CRM 3.0 flips the traditional consumer engagement model on in head. In the old world, brands set
the agenda. In the new world, brands need to think about progressivity letting go and allowing
consumers, within their social circles, to excise their own voice. The next generation of CRM has
five key levels that drive engagement with them. Effective communications and brand
conversations have to be Empowering, Relevant, Social, Fun and Simple.
Are you 'data ready’?
Most brands have responded to the changing marketing landscape and now have CRM, digital,
social, mobile and e-commerce strategies in place, no longer just to give them competitive edge,
but to survive.
The most significant outcome of this is the volume of resulting data which at best can truly deliver
competitive edge by enabling cost-effective marketing activity. At worst it can mean information
overload and paralysis if a brand does not have a single customer view and prevents them from
delivering data-driven consumer conversations.
To be able to deliver data-driven consumer conversations it’s critical that brands take a step back
and look closely at the data they have and how easily they can access, interpret and use it. It’s a
conversation that should bring together their data people, IT people, marketing people and sales
people. The result – key business stakeholders aligned not just around data and brand strategy,
but around the consumer and their needs, their behaviours and their actions.

3. 3 The Social Business - Things to think about and get right
Brands need to communicate and have conversations with their consumers in real time, when,
where and about what the consumer wants to talk about or they will not hear, let alone listen.
It is critical that brands take a step back and look closely at the data they have and how easily they
can access, interpret their data people, IT people, marketing people and sales people. YES it’s
about people, so get social!
Phew, you got to the end, or is it the beginning?
Gil Benchetrit, London UK
(T): +44(0) 20 8202 0194 (M): +44(0) 7711585181
Skype ID: miligiri
http://about.me/Gil.Benchetrit

4. 4 The Social Business - Things to think about and get right