• On average, over 40% of customers resolve their issues in the online community
• Of those 40%, 30 – 50% also solve the problem there – which means an overall reduction of 15%+ of all service cases.
• The average ROI on a peer-to-peer community has been 100% within 15 months. Try that with your ERP or SFA or HCM!
• Overall customer satisfaction grew, while time spent interacting with the Brand went up

If you want to see an in-depth case study and are a Gartner client, you can check out some new research at: http://www.gartner.com/resId=1910415  .

We will have several more of these at our Customer360 Summit this March in Orlando (http://bit.ly/gLhUKZ ).

I had a great call with a client this morning where we were discussing forums and knowledge bases and her company’s next steps. I said that now might not be the best time for her to discuss results because the program was still midstream. She laughed and said, “You know what? I don’t know if we’ll ever be out of midstream.”  I am always touched by the IT folks who work hard for companies that can hardly recognize their effort, who look forward at the possible and are not handcuffed by the past.

John F. Kennedy, who was my idol by reasons of proximity temporal and physical, said, “For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” And it is truly a mystery and a testament to people’s dedication and commitment that they often work so long and hard for rewards that largely accrue to others. We need all be grateful that they do.

Thank you all, as always, for sharing your stories – successes and challenges.

What got me to laugh, aside from the restaurant’s clientele, which one of my children defined as the newlywed and nearly dead, was how much social software and concepts seemed to be (and yes, I have always wanted to say this) ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. At school I was not a sharp enough knife in a very sharp drawer of knives to ever really get that expression, but now I think I do: the Social Endeavour is leading us in stages that have the shape of things past. Why? Because for all of the Madison Avenue advertising and carnival barking, the reality of the small town was that the local business had no choice but to engage with the customer. The customer could communicate at City Hall, and the coffee shop, and in the local paper, and at the PTA meeting – basically they could project themselves – or ‘scale’ the message.

I think this is where we are now. We are scaling globally to act ‘locally.’ Social may or may not ‘sizzle’ this year for IPOs or corporate agendas, but we are on an inexorable path to deliver tools to the employee and to the customer to help each understand the other. I have been calling this the Intent Driven Enterprise for the past ten years, mostly to deaf ears, but not entirely. The idea is that customers sometimes do and sometimes do not know their value to the enterprise, and quite often the enterprise fails to capture and make available the value of the customer to those people and channels where decisions are made during an interaction. The failure to align the customer’s intent with the business intent – and all of the corporate and social information that such an interaction entails, results in asymmetry. The engagement fails one side or the other. But when we get it right, we are returning the relationship to a form last experienced in the small town.

I hope that the ardor for ‘Social’ does not dampen in 2012. If it does it will be the Igby Goes Down of the enterprise. If you did not have teenagers in 2002 you may have missed Clare Danes and Digby as he failed to deal with the complexity of growing up, but unless our plans for Social mature, you’ll get to live it for yourself. There is still a tremendous amount of work to do. I have two presentations at our March Customer360 Summit in Orlando, http://bit.ly/AnxS5V that expand on this: one that looks at how marketing and customer service will emerge as best friends, and why, and a second looks at the future of customer service and the Contact Center/multichannel interaction. I hope that I will get to discuss this with some of you then.

Examining how your organization/business/government/utility/school will succeed in providing an engaging experience that is profitable to you and rewarding for them will eventually be seamless. It will be driven by principles of the Intent Driven Enterprise. Thanks this week to Jeff Hagen of General Mills for allowing me to look at how his global organization is advancing customer engagement – and the mutual benefit that it is yielding.

Ah – why did I say that two weeks away from work is an anachronism? For the past decade I can’t say that there is a beginning or end to work. I walk the streets of Manhattan and I’m watching customers at the Apple store or Barney’s. I’m at a restaurant waiting for a table and I’m observing consumers on their devices. I’m on a plane or in the lounge and I am meeting other IT professionals and exchanging ideas on how their businesses operate. Am I working? Am I on vacation? Does work begin or end so neatly anymore for you? Would you really want it to? That is a whole other day’s conversation.

As always, I enjoy your emails and posts.

Speaking of journeys: I am off to spend time with a wonderful person who is a part of the Great Generation. Not yet 90, he lived through economic depression, war, great joy, the birth of a new nation, great sorrow that would have crushed others, small recoveries, greater joys that never eclipse sorrow but keep it from capsizing the ship – and is still hopeful. I recommend to anyone in this business who is not spiritually dead to spend time with the fading remnant of the oldest generation. Then the dross of our petty feuds, software vendors quibbling over maintenance, new Cloud Models, claims and counter claims, or IT teams under the ‘gun,’ – you are never under the gun unless you ARE under the gun. A new sense of balance will return to you.

This has been a remarkable year. I thank our clients for opening their doors and asking advice, but often in the asking reveal tremendous heart, passion, and dedication to the craft of IT and process improvement. You are such heroes, perhaps in a confined context, but great nonetheless – so thank you again. I started the year in Connecticut, but found myself, like so many of my wonderful colleagues, in cities large and small across the world. I try to engineer a three-year sweep of the world. This year was Boston, New York, Chicago, Austin, LA, San Francisco, Denver, London, Glasgow, Paris, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Gold Coast, Melbourne and about six others. Next year will take a different course. But uniformly, Gartner clients are unbelievably good people, and the source of our best ideas. Wow.

May you experience calm, peace, and success in 2012, and we’ll see you next year.

I bring this up because a fair number of readers regularly point out that X, whatever process “X” is, is often confused with technology. Examples might be CRM, Social, Peer-to-Peer Support,Customer Service, or Social Network Analysis. They might go on to suggest that technology is never the solution, and the problem is always bad process design. Here’s the thing: technology matters, and it matters a lot. Without location-services, WiFi, NFC, HSPA+, HTML5, VoIP, SIP, UCC and Cloud Application Development Platforms, and the like, many interactions would be impossible. Full stop. We’d be back in the 1980s and the IT director would have hair like one of the Thompson Twins.

It is usually essential to first nail down the process and then go for technology, but not always. Often times we have to place small bets and see what happens. Like introducing gamification in the buying or marketing process. Or inserting QR Codes or deploying Google Goggles. Is anyone sure of where these technologies and concepts will lead? Would you prefer to ignore the possibilities inherent in them?

Getting past the trauma of 1996 – 2004, when many of us fell for the next big thing in Client/Server business applications, with the mistaken notion that business could only get better if we deployed a new sales force automation system, is not easy. And many of the same magazines and consultancies that offered the snake oil of “SFA technology equals better relationships” are back. The fear is real, but aren’t we better prepared now? Don’t blame the technology, and don’t ignore the technology. During the period around 2008 when businesses were suffering the most (and there may be no small degree of whistling past the graveyard today), no one blamed the CRM-focused software for the drop. But here we are in a shaky recovery and I have read several journal articles attributing better business results to the software. When things get worse it is not the software, but when things improve it is? Interesting.

So on we go, prepared, realistic but willing to take some risks to realize rewards: Social, Mobile, Analytics/Big Data, Cloud-Applications supporting (supporting!) a customer-centric organization and customer-centric processes. Cart behind horse. Horse collar, shaft, pole, fifth wheel: Form following function. Technology yoked to process. I’ll be talking to many of you this March in Orlando (http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/na/customer-360/index.jsp ) and in London in June at our conferences. I’m looking forward to it – the ‘buzz’ is getting louder already.

The reason that the CIOs must go is that they are like the TV managers of Phil the weather forecaster in the 1993 film, “Groundhog Day.” Phil (Bill Murray) is disgruntled and kicks and bridles against the stupidity of his managers, but eventually gets the picture: if he stays in this job, he is going to have to show up every year and cover the same inane story to please the commanders of the status quo. And this is where corporate IT is today.

Let me step back: This week I had the good fortune to spend a couple of days interacting with several high tech teams from a start up. One in particular just knocked me out. The young CEO was demonstrating his next generation product – slick interface, open system, Cloud-architected, scalable, highly Social – when I just had to stop him mid-sentence with a question:
“How many developers did it require to build this?”
“We were just four guys.”
And that is when it hit me, again: 98% of corporations do not have “Four Guys,” – I.E., woman and men with the talent, vision, and freedom/drive to build new and innovative technology. I have had this argument with businesses before – many times. Even in a company with 1,000 IT staff, or 5,000, or 50, I will say: you don’t have three innovators.

At first blush it sounds cheeky – a little insolent – to say this to a CIO. That is not the intent at all. The CIO is caught in a dilemma of innovation versus conservatism. CIOs are our IT J. Alfred Prufrocks, best summed up by: “ - Do I dare
Disturb the universe?” And if they dare, by whose authority and with whose support? Where do they find the resources with the skills? We have eviscerated corporate IT, sucked the bones dry of their hematopoietic compartment. I asked the group of developers and product marketers in the room the other day – from the start up – why they had risked a start up and not gone to work for a solid corporate IT department. Their faces fell. It was as if I had insulted them.

What is that when young, creative IT savvy people eschew the idea of working in corporate IT? These people are clever, ambitious, post-enterprise. They have never been inside of a ‘department.’ To them that is like living in a Roach Hotel. A place the weak or gullible go to die. Houston, we have a problem. The issue is not about brains. Corporate IT has brainy people to spare. But they may not have the right skills, and the right initiatives under way. Just look around your organization – do you have a small, agile team that could build/procure, set up and manage a social enterprise system? Could they create processes for end-customers to participate in an ongoing idea-exchange with the enterprise and be real partners in co-creation? Then why are they not doing it right now?

The challenge is not software, and not hardware, and not budget – it is a leadership crisis that only mindful boards of directors and CEOs can re-mediate and set right. The time is now, the customers are waiting, and a new generation of precious young talent can’t approach you because you are surrounded by a sandbar of predictability versus deep water and a current of innovation.

In businesses where innovation flourishes, the difference is often driven by the CIO. It can happen, and when it does it is electric, and businesses thrive.

I had the privilege to Keynote a CRM Summit on the Gold Coast after meeting clients in Sydney. A poll of audience hands raised showed 80% lines of business leaders and 20% IT. Once one untangles the regional sense of humour (like the organizers insisting I wear a business suit and tie onstage and then discovering no one in the audience had either), it is easy to plunge into very granular discussion about the tools, frustrations, and business value measures that drive customer experience initiatives.

It could in part be the distance from the United States vendor hype machines, but in the region leaders just want to get things done. There is clear frustration at how stymied marketing and Customer Support feel in bringing more real-time marketing into the customer service process. Yet everyone said the same thing: software as a service, and Cloud Computing, were like log-jam clearing for CRM. Rather than queue behind logistics and finance and sales, Customer Service professionals are deploying products to support CRM processes with minimum help or involvement from IT. There is keen desire for local data centers and a fear of placing customer information in the United States, but these are minor issues.

The region is in the throws of a massive focus on customer excellence, and I heard at least ten separate success stories, some of which we hope to highlight at our European CRM Summit next year.

Thanks, Oz. Our Gartner Symposium starts here next week, and if you are not already registered – get over here! http://bit.ly/sosTpL

When we really look at the hard reality of creating a comprehensive, multi-industry set of business applications to support the Customer Strategy, we start to mumble like Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Talking to a Telecom client’s IT team yesterday in Europe, they were lamenting the multiple versions of just one system from a major enterprise application vendor needed to support the different lines of business, different functional areas, and different geographies. They were under no illlusion that there was the panacea of a CRM Application Suite. Still, what’s not to dislike?

What happens when a “CRM” vendor builds out their software through endless acquisitions? The brittle table synchronization and data management and functional overlaps and rationalizations of portfolios? Thank you for the gift, Dionysus, but not everything should be gold.

We should give up on the idea of anything close to a ‘universal’ CRM application suite. There will be nice offerings for different industries and processes, but SOA, HTLM5, XHTLM5, RESTful interfaces, and so many other advances will make the “Suite” idea less appealing than choice – some home grown software, some Cloud-based, some on premise, and from a variety of best of breed vendors. Give up this perfection idea. The best companies play the hand their dealt and get on with it. The CRM Suite is dead, and we can all move on.

Why Big Data? Maybe start with “What is Big Data?” Essentially, it is big when standard, stand alone relational databases are inadaquate to search, gather, analyze and operationalize data. That can happen because it is coming from multiple sources and in multiple forms: Facebook posts, Tweets, YouTube video, QR codes, phone logs, IVR feeds, customer and product data.

Even when you capture the data, it is still a long way from becoming “information.” Think about it: 01010100011011110110010001100001011110010010000001101001011100110010000001100001
001000000110001001100101011000010111010101110100011010010110011001110101011011
0000100000011001000110000101111001001011100000110100001010  
Sure, any binary brain knows that means “Today is a beautiful day.” But I’d rather have it in five words – subject, predicate, object: thought and meaning. This is a big problem for almost all existing CRM systems, and beyond any Social CRM tool. There are software companies working on the problem, and trends in in-line memory and pattern based systems are all accelerating the creation of new forms of business process in sales, marketing and customer service.

The issues are as big as the data. Consider the case of making an offer during a sales or service engagement. Old school: make the pitch and maybe it will work. Big Data: Run sentiment analysis on the customer, match with ‘best agent.’ Run profitability analysis in real time, look at a statistical analysis of the customer’s psychographic profile. Cross reference with their “Social Graph” position for influence and clout. Determine offer. Yikes is that a lot of computing, and it needs to happen in real time.

So: if you are down in Orlando, whether one of the 1700+ CIOs or a line of business manager or BI guru, let’s talk about how you are going to respond to the opportunity of Big Data to Insightful Information for your customer initiatives.

Enjoy the show.

Ah: take the train. And when it arrives at your station on time and makes it all of the way to your destination, it is nice. Yes, the train cars are dilapidated, and many sections smell vaguely of urine or beer, and it is much pricier than in Europe, but at least it is marginally less stressful.

Don’t try entering a city on a bicycle. Potholes, lack of bike lanes, crackpot drivers, indifferent police forces (last week I was in a pedestrian cross walk at a Stop Sign when not one, but two cars, whizzed past me in New Haven. Two policemen on bicycles stood by as this happened. “Hey guys,” I said, “Aren’t you going to do anything?” They didn’t even lower their Dunkin’ Donuts Styrofoam cups from their lips.) make this tough.

And don’t get us started on airports and airlines. Or these mobile providers from Canada who kind of let a day or two pass and a few thousand social messages become aggressive before letting us know there is a problem. And the funny thing? If you own one of these devices, and you call up about it but you are a corporate customer, here is what happens: You call them, but they don’t ‘manage’ your service because you got it from your company. So you call your company’s designated support service. They take your information and call the telecom provider. The telecom provider keeps the support service provider and you on the line while they call the manufacturer/service provider. Now the four of us are all on the phone simultaneously, some on hold, and some connected. You either want to shout, “Who’s on First?” or the great line from Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 script in Network: “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore.” Four people, one problem, four separate processes running, three systems, and zero screen sharing amongst any of the parties in this support problem. And why not? Because the technology is too immature, and no one has wanted to invest in the infrastructure or process improvement.

OK, this is neither rant nor complaint: it’s just a fact – shareholders (and if you have a retirement plan, 401K, corporate bond, MUNI, or Mutual Fund, you too are a shareholder!) want to squeeze profit, not fix problems. Better transportation, better streets, better cars, better interfaces, better processes all take money, and that money, like taxes, has to come from somewhere. In the corporate world that means from executive compensation, employee compensation, shareholder profits and from the end price charged to consumers.

Yikes: this sounds like each person needs to take a bit of responsibility for the challenges and opportunities in front of us. There is so much incredible technology out there to solve problems, but in order to get things rolling we are all going to have to actually vote differently: through our stock purchases, through our investment choices, and when we enter the ballot box.

One thing on the technology front: read more, interact more, look for case studies. Whether it is Cloud Computing, of web-oriented architectures, or Smart Infrastructure, or bar coding, or location services, or Clean Technologies or Business Process optimization or real time decision support systems, or new GUI principles to streamline work – there are billions to be saved, and made, for those with the will to take chances.

In the words of the POGO comic strip: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You’d think that would make peace easier to achieve, eh?

Great things happen when the conversation is with the head of customer experience, or the head of social media, or the director of customer service. The big chill is when either the CEO or CIO get mentioned. It is as though Yama, Lord of Death, were there in the background. It is exceptionally rare to see one of the line of business heads who is connected tightly with the CIO with a co-commitment to customer excellence in any measurable way. Something akin to (to paraphrase the American Benjamin Franklin): they both hang together or certainly will hang separately.

The terrific news is that there is so much vibrancy between the heads of marketing and the heads of customer service. This is an area where I spend a large part of my time. Marketing is taking the great work in Social Media, listening, monitoring Twitter and Facebook, and mining customer interaction data, and extending it into the Customer Service and Support functions. This can be on the website, mobile device, kiosk, social media, peer-to-peer communities, or the telephone.

The next super development is the range of new software providers in the nascent ‘social’ and customer analytics space delivering great products. They are mostly as a service in a Cloud model, but not all. Companies and products like ExAudios, Dimelo, Attensity, Lithium, Conversocial, AddressTwo, TRG Satmap, ZenDesk, FuzeDigital, Nimble, and DoveTail – are just a few of the newer generation of products with a Social twist.

Do everyone a favor, suck up a bit to the CEO. Help her or him understand the fantastic things that Social-centric processes are doing for your department or function. Be specific and be passionate. What are they going to do – fire you for enthusiasm? Someone else will want you even more. That is a promise.