I don't do predictions anymore: I got tired of getting them 100% right every year.
Just kidding.
I prefer to do resolutions, instead of telling you what may happen I am going to tell you what I am going to be making happen in 2011.
Resolution #1 -- I won't use the word Social anymore
If you have been following me in my exclusive posts here in TheSocialCustomer.com you know that I have been calling for the end of Social for some time. If you have not, look at my post Further than Social (award winning, by the way, voted as one of the best of the year - thanks!) where I shift the conversation from Social to Collaboration.
I am going to be spending a lot of time in 2011 spreading the word and the model for the Collaborative Enterprise. Organizations have already experienced Social in some way or another (point me to one executive who did not hear about Facebook, Twitter, or other Social Network or tool in the past two years, I dare you), and for the most part either they decided it was not focused enough, not worth pursuing, or actually attempted something with it (mileage will vary, results have been mixed).
These attempts are what are guiding the next step in this market. We realized that the value of social was not the engagement (yes, heresy - I know), or the better relationship with the customers.
No.
The real value came from the collaboration models we build around these Social Tools. And these collaboration models (if you go back and read the Altimeter Group's 18 use cases, you will see that they all rely on some sort of collaboration) are how we will build the Collaborative Enterprise. Much like I did for Social CRM, I am going to be laying out a framework and models for the Collaborative Enterprise.
Resolution #2 -- I will focus, again, on boring business functions
Of course, if we are going to use collaboration to build better functions, processes, and experiences we will need to focus back on those boring business functions. The incredible amount of attention paid to Marketing, PR, Branding and Advertising in the past few months / couple of years unfortunately only yielded an understanding that the message does not matter (actually, it never mattered to the customer). It is no longer controlled by the organization and the best they can hope for is to influence opinions and create advocates by delivering -- wait for it -- better experiences!
What? You mean the same stuff we were doing before this whole social "thing" started?
Precisely.
The world of customer relationships does not change because we can tweet/blog/communicate with them 24/7/365 in real time. They still have their jobs to be done, and they would prefer to have a good experience while doing it. In the same manner that you cannot resolve a Customer Service issue via Twitter in 98%+ of the cases, you cannot handle confidential information in most other public social networks.
Who wants their account number plastered on a Facebook Wall for everyone to see (has happened)? Or their Social Security Number (or other National ID Number) sent over an unprotected Twitter connection (also happened)?
Customers want to get their expected outcomes delivered -- and they will use whatever channel we offer. But, make no mistake - the channel matters little to nothing --and the message even less. Get results delivered against expectations and you can use the Pony Express.
And, guess what, the Pony Express is about boring business functions.
Resolution #3 -- I am going back to my first, second, third, nth love: Feedback (which has not changed much).
Wait a minute. Feedback has changed dramatically now, what with communities and social networks, and all that. How can you say that Feedback is the same as it was before?
Well... this is the deal.
As I tweeted last week during the #CustServ Twitter Chat (incidentally, you could use those 60 +/- minutes for fewer things more valuable - Tuesday, 9 PM EST, Twitter), the only purpose of Social Channels is to collect and find unstructured feedback. Which is parsed, analyzed, and converted to structured feedback (in reality semi-structured, but you will need to wait a couple months to dig deeper into that), and then used as Feedback.
OK, I can see you saying "So, what? More feedback -- big deal".
Actually, huge deal.
The unstructured feedback is over 20x (some of the people I talked to confessed to having 100x and 200x social volume comparatively speaking) the amount of traditional structured feedback (I can see that little vein in your forehead going throb-throb by now), which cannot be handled by most any system today under normal circumstances. Alas, social channels are never-ending, never-stopping sources of critical information (there is some noise there as well) for the organization -- can you afford to miss a 10 minute conversation between two remote users that could give you all the answers you need in regards to making your product better?
What we are realizing, and I will go way deeper in this during 2011, is that Enterprise Feedback Management can get great results when tackling the three feedback models (structured, semi-structured, and unstructured) simultaneously and differently. Yep, different strategies apply. As I am attempting to do with the Collaborative Enterprise, I want to explore this further.
However, don't be deceived - this is not simply about feedback. This is the answer to the perpetual question - what do we do with the "social data" we collect? If we can figure out how to use it in three different ways, maybe more, and the value we can analyze out of it - huge payoffs.
Resolution #4 - I am going to be spending a lot more time in Customer Service, Yes, it is back.
Speaking of boring business functions - you will see a huge upswing in investment in the Contact Center, and a large portion of that is going to go to collaborative models (Chatter with Service Cloud 2 is a neat idea, but goes nowhere near where it should be going - wait until you see some of the products that will be introduced in 2011).
Customer Service, the function, has not changed in the 80+ years we have been offering it as a structured business function - nor will it change soon. It is still about handling exceptions to pre-established operations. We lost track of that, we tried to make it do what it could not do - but as I said before, after Marketing is done playing with CRM (Sales started it, remember?), it is Customer Service's turn to see what they can with it. Expect to hear lots of talk about customer experience, self-service, and collaboration - all in one in most situations.
In brief, 2011 is not going to be a sexy, snazzy year like the year we discovered Social Media and re-connected with high-school sweethearts and family and friends. It is, however, going to be the year that organizations begin to figure out what to do with their investments in Social (dead word, use collaboration instead) and how to reach rewards from them.
What are your resolutions? What are you going to be working on next year?