International companies and their agencies fail to embrace mobile as a means of engaging customers
International companies and their agencies fail to embrace mobile as a means of engaging customers
Companies are missing opportunities to engage through mobile channel and to use online engagement tools to help product development
Many companies are turning their attention to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter but are neglecting mobile as a channel for deepening customer relationships, according to the 4th Annual Online Customer Engagement Report, published today by Econsultancy and digital agency, cScape.
While presence on social networks has almost doubled from 23% to 44% of companies and use of micro-blogging (i.e. Twitter) has gone up five-fold (from 7% to 35%) year-on-year, only 11% of companies surveyed are planning ‘significant investment’ in the mobile channel despite increased use of smart phones and the ‘mobile internet’.
A large proportion (41%) of companies are not planning any investment at all in mobile in 2010, while a further 49% are planning only ‘limited investment’. Over half blame this inertia on lack of resources (which was also cited as an obstacle to improving engagement in general in the last 12 months by 52% – the same percentage as last year).
In addition, while social media usage has ballooned since last year and 61% (almost double last year’s figure) say that they expect consumers to be less tolerant of poor service over the next year, only a quarter are tapping into user feedback and ratings for product development and innovation.
With only 29% saying senior staff members are encouraged to use social media to build customer dialogue and an even smaller percentage (17%) having processes and workflows in place to encourage staff use of social media, it’s clear that the Enterprise 2.0 vision is not yet a reality.
Linus Gregoriadis, Econsultancy’s Research Director, said: “Companies should be thinking hard about their strategies for mobile and for channelling online feedback from customers back into the product development process but the research suggests that this is not the case.
“Lack of resources, skills and experience are cited as obstacles, but today’s customers expect a seamless approach when they deal with companies, irrespective of whether they are calling them up for information, commenting on a blog or trying to buy something online while on the move.”
Richard Sedley, Director at cScape’s Customer Engagement Unit, added, “Despite the predictions that handheld devices will soon become the main interface for social networking marketers are still holding off using this valuable marketing channel. However, what is also clear from the 1,000 plus participants is that marketers need to focus on quality, simplicity and customer service if they hope to engage their customer over the next 12 months.”
