With the explosion of social media, the idea of customer engagement is taking on an entirely new meaning than simply offering a 1-800 number. Adobe, recognizing that it wanted to establish Acrobat.com — a suite of online collaboration tools — as a major player in that market, had to turn users into loyal evangelists.

A suggestion box wouldn’t do — company executives wanted to foster a real conversation with (and among) users. Lisa Underkoffler, principal product manager at Acrobat.com, decided to turn to Brightidea’s WebStorm software to help create an online forum unveiled in March 2009 called Acrobat.com Ideas.

It started as an experiment, but since the launch, Acrobat.com Ideas tallied more than 155,000 visitors from 195 countries. Nearly 500 ideas have been submitted from more than 1,700 users, 40 of which have already been implemented.

I had the chance to speak with Underkoffler and Matt Greeley, Brightideas’ chief executive officer, about the implementation.

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Summit must be the secular name our species came up with when we decided that certain business meetings had to have the same weight as religious conversions.

I’m not trying to be contentious by using this vaguely religious metaphor, so please consider me a radical centrist. But after a few months of vendor meetings for the analyst community in which each took us to the mountaintop to survey — via PowerPoint — a future vision for the valley below, I am almost all summitted out.

The religious reference struck me this week at the SAP Summit, the vendor’s very good analyst gathering in Boston, because, like some religious conversions, there seems to be a necessary pain component intended to make the conversion stick. (In most analyst meetings, the pain comes from sitting still for many hours of the aforementioned PowerPoint presentations.)

So, what did I learn? Well, lots — though I’m a CRM guy and much of what was proffered involved visions of a broader valley. The biggest impression I came away with was intramural since, having been to this year’s Oracle OpenWorld and Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce, I’m in a mood to compare, contrast, synthesize, and perhaps even prescribe.

"Will It Blend?" What do you get when you puree a season's worth of vendor events?

Put everything I saw at these and other conclaves into a food processor, run it on high until something resembling peanut butter forms, and the result, to me, looks like this:

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) computing has won the battle, maybe even the war, but the victory is not enough to secure a homogeneous peace.

Translation: SaaS is important and remains the future of software, but there are multiple reasons why it will not reign supreme — not for a while at least.

[More, after the jump...]

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I don’t know about you, but I am nowhere near completing my holiday shopping. In my defense, I aim to finish up in Kansas City so as to not travel with too many gifts. Not surprisingly, my email inbox this month has been filling up with releases about holiday shopping statistics. I’ve been waiting (procrastinating?) until something really sparked my attention to do some sort of holiday shopping post. Apparently I’m not the only person who waits until the last minute to accomplish tasks. A survey from America’s Research Group (ARG) indicates that one fourth of American consumers are planning to complete their shopping just before Christmas. The reason for procrastination? The hunt for better sales.

According to the ARG survey, 95 percent of those waiting to shop are holding out for greater discounts.  Of the shoppers waiting until right before the holiday, 33 percent want to see 70 percent marked off, 32 percent want to see 60 percent off, and 25 percent want to see 50 percent off.  Britt Beemer, the founder and chief executive officer of ARG, remarks that the expectations for discounting is higher than in previous years.

Another interesting statistic I found comes from a comScore survey about social media’s influence on holiday shopping. According to the survey, 28 percent of online shoppers say that Twitter or Facebook had some sort of influence on their purchases. Additionally, comScore reports that holiday spending hit $16 billion for the first 36 days of the November-December shopping season. That represents a 3 percent gain from the dismal time last year.

Have you used social networking to aid in your holiday shopping this year? I admit that @sephora had a bit to do with an in-store purchase the other day. The retail handle posted something about “great gifts under $20,” so I checked out their online store, and then decided some in-person browsing was necessary. After heading to the 34th Street location on my lunch break, I ended up purchasing a make-up set for my cousin. And the greatest part? When I returned to my desk after my impromptu Sephora excursion, I had an email from them, thanking me for my purchase and giving me a $15 off coupon for next time. Sephora has a pretty impressive loyalty system. I definitely will be back — and that next purchase will likely be a gift… for me.

What facet of social networks do you find most useful when it comes to online shopping? Are you apt to follow a company or become a fan if the retailer offers discounts or promotions on its Facebook or Twitter page? Or are you mostly in it for the peer reviews?

THIS JUST IN: Sephora must have some crazy intuition because I just got another email from them, reminding me of my $15 off coupon. Well played, Sephora… Well played.

by Jeremiah Owyang, partner, Altimeter Group

Surveying the Social CRM Industry

At the Altimeter Group, business partner Ray Wang (focused on enterprise strategy) and I (customer strategy) are undertaking a major project for a client in the nascent social CRM arena. We’re surveying the landscape to learn about a variety of vendors in the space, and to assess their capabilities and deployments. A small portion of our survey involves seeing who’s eating their own dog food, and truly demonstrating they understand the “social” aspect of social CRM — by living it.

Companies That Sell Social CRM Should Demonstrate Credibility by Living It

While critics may be quick to cite the mere inclusions of a blog or community to a product landing page, the message goes much deeper. Social CRM isn’t just about bolting on a plugin to your system like a new air foil on your minivan but instead is a new way of doing business. The promise of social CRM — responding, anticipating, and making the commitment to improve products and services — says that companies are truly listening to their customers wherever those customers are. Vendors that are assisting brands in bringing this promise to the marketplace need to demonstrate they fully understand the ramifications of social CRM — not just a keyword checklist of the buzzword du jour.

Criteria: How We Graded the Social CRM Vendors

There are four major areas of assessment:

1. Simple sharing of social content from the corporate product page.
2. Surfacing a developer or business community, and a look inside of the discussions in each community, with bonus points for integration with product page.
3. Thought leadership with relevant blogs on the subject, and a gauge of their level of interaction and any Twitter accounts they may have.
4. A subjective look at the overall page experience in the context of a company that’s offering a “social experience.”

Findings: Overall, Social CRM Vendors Aren’t Walking the Talk

We’ve decided to make our findings public (at least for this part of our client deliverable) to see how some of the leading vendors in the Social CRM space are walking the talk.

[See the table after the jump...]

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The “official” start to the holiday shopping season on Black Friday has not left us without myriad statistics regarding shopping preferences. According to a recent holiday survey of more than 2,300 consumers by Prospectiv, an online performance marketing firm specializing in connecting women to brands, found:

• 25 percent will use coupons more often this holiday season;
• 16 percent will shop online to find the best deals; and
• 35 percent will utilize email to share great deals they either receive or find with friends.

Convergys, a relationship management provider, also unveiled findings from a recent survey:

• 86.1 percent of respondents will plan to shop online;
• 37.3 percent will do all or most of their shopping via the Web;
• nearly nine out of 10 consumers say the most desirable attribute is the ability to shop whenever they like; and
• 61 percent of shoppers prefer the online channel because they can “get customer service on their own terms.”

No matter which numbers you scrutinize, one thing is clear: online retailing is rapidly taking the hearts — and wallets — of consumers. I had the chance to speak with Doug Farmer, Convergys’ senior director of customer management, about his company’s survey results, one statistic that shocked him, and what he has seen in his work with Convergys’ customers in the retail industry.

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By Ken Redekop, director, customer experience management solutions, Telus

With the holidays around the corner, many are looking forward to spreading holiday cheer with families and friends. But, the period leading up to the holidays often brings less than good tidings when a flood of stressed-out shoppers start making their holiday purchases en masse. The crowds. The lines. The staff shortages. All of these experiences prove frustrating to customers and can even impact a company’s bottom line.

As the busy holiday season draws near, companies would be wise to take stock of their customer experience programs. This involves listening to customers in a multifaceted way, including in-person, online, and over the phone, to provide personalized service and educated answers.

[Editor's note: Check out the December issue of CRM magazine for more on the customer experience.]

[Suggestions after the jump...]

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