Working this morning through my daily routine of reviewing some 300+ blogs, articles and newsletters continue to see a trend that refers to what today’s customer wants, needs and commands. The trend touches on customers in all age groups, what brands need to do, and, of course, technology and its ever increasing role in business. But the common ground that everything centers around is customer experience and information access.
I believe the days of worrying about being too intrusive with consumers is behind us. The thing we must learn, and fast is that today’s consumer wants information and wants it now, in real-time. They are more sophisticated and technologically advanced than ever before. Small business owners must follow suit and adapt accordingly. In the franchise space, franchisors must lead the charge and do so, in part by leading by example – embrace and adapt to change!
Below are three interesting articles that lend towards the common ground defined above and indicate major changes already taking place across many industry segments. Would love to hear your thoughts on the same.
Social Customer Expectations as published on Social Media Club
In a study from this year, Gartner predicts not responding to customers via social channels will be as harmful in 2014 as not answering the phone is today. The reason? Customers simply expect it.
Customers have long complained about the lack of attention via certain channels when dealing with companies. Ever stand in line at a store while they answer the phone and have a lengthy conversation? That’s the feeling customers get when they try to reach a brand via social media and are ignored.
All Eyes Turn To Boomers and How They Use The Internet as published on ReadWriteWeb.com
Eighty million Boomers live, work and spend in the United States, nearly a third of the population. If you add the previous generation, the number of 50-plus Americans is 98 million, a segment of the population that’s expected to grow 34% between now and 2030, when nearly half of the nation will be aged 50 or over, according to a recent study from The Nielsen Company.
That is a huge economic force, one that has been shaping the U.S. private sector for a long time. But unlike previous generations, where the members “age out” of active spending and societal influence, the sheer size of the Boomer generation means that it will continue to be a force for a long time to come. By the middle of the 21st century, Nielsen reckons, there could be around 161 million 50-plus citizens in the country.
Already, this is a generation heavily influencing technology, just from it’s buying power. 41% of Apple customers are Boomers, the Nielsen report states.
SoLoMo Update: Mobile-only Social Networks to Reach 1B Users by 2014... as published on TechCrunch.com
Crystal ball-gazing time from Gartner… The analysts, which last night published some stats on how PCs continue to reign as the woolly mammoth of the tech world, today followed up with a list of predictions for one of the areas still on a big upswing: mobile services, and specifically on smartphones and tablets (AKA the devices that are causing all that doom and gloom for PCs). Gartner predicts that we will see 1 billion smartphones sold in 2015, with a further 350 million media tablets sold by that time (as a point of comparison it looks like worldwide PC sales will be under 400 million units this year, using Gartner’s figures).
And it also wrapped those up with a list of suggestions of what services may still have some growing to do.
Acceler8Success Cafe 
Since the boom of social medias consumers and businesses where already using social medias for better customer experience and as the days pass and technologies getting highly advanced each day consumers continue to seek information thru social media and networking sites.