Expectations Customers Have With Regard

¶ … expectations customers have with regard to responsiveness and thoroughness of support changing as a result of social networks and the continual adoption of them by companies and marketing platforms?

Greenberg, P. (2009). CRM at the Speed of Light, Fourth Edition: Social CRM 2.0 Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/CRM-Speed-Light-Fourth-Strategies/dp/0071590455

The premise of CRM at the Speed of Light, Fourth Edition: Social CRM 2.0 Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers (Greenberg, 2009) is that enterprises have greater opportunities and potential for listening, understanding and aligning their enterprises to the preferences, needs and wants of customers. The foundation of this book is based on over a dozen case studies that the author has gathered through personal interviews and contacts throughout the CRM industry. The challenges of change management and clarity of customer relationships also pervade this book, which at over 400 pages, provides an exceptional level of depth and insight into how companies are re-evaluating and redesigning their value chains today. As Mr. Greenberg has subsequently written, the role of CRM systems is to establish a level of communication, collaboration and trust with customers to ensure congruity of customer expectations over time (Greenberg, 2010). The conclusions that the author reaches in the book and his subsequent articles also points to early adopters of integrated social media and CRM systems being able to track the level of adoption and long-term customer satisfaction as a result. Researchers across manufacturing and services industries continue to evaluate these specific aspects of customer relationships and have devices approaches to measuring customer satisfaction using a variety of service-based techniques. The inclusion of Service Quality (SERVQUAL) metrics in the measurement of social media-driven responses is now occurring in the hospitality industry as well (Luck, Lancaster, 2013). What emerges from this area of analysis is an aggregated set of expectations surrounding the customer experience, with specific focus on how to best align the many channels of communication a company relies on to attract, sell and service their customers. In conclusion, this book shows conclusively that customers' expectations are continually increasing while the most forward-thinking companies are attempting to continually integrate social networks and social media into their marketing, selling and service platforms. Based on the assessment of Mr. Greenberg and his case studies, the early adopter companies are very successful with this strategy of meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

Xu, M., & Walton, J. (2005). Gaining Customer Knowledge through Analytical CRM. Industrial Management + Data Systems, 105(7), 955-971.