2007 will be a watershed year for online business with a large number of companies planning to adopt web 2.0 features in order to engage with their customers, according to a survey by publisher E-consultancy and digital agency cScape.
A majority of organisations are either already using or are planning to adopt user-generated content (UGC), corporate blogs, podcasting and videocasting in the next 12 months, says the Customer Engagement Report:
• 42% or respondents are planning to apply UGC to their sites in the next 12 months - 23% are already using it
• 35% are planning to use corporate blogs - 17% are using them
• 33% are planning to use podcasting - 18% are already doing it
• 35% plan to use videocasting - 17% are using it already.
While it's great that companies are looking forward, it's worrying that some e-retailers are still not getting the basics right and delivering good customer service.
A lack of resources and time were deemed to be a "great barrier" to delivering "magnificent customer experience" by 66% of respondents. Other barriers were: disconnected systems and technologies (50%), lack of skills and training (38%), lack of finances (37%), and lack of regular processes and/or suitable methodology (36%).
The survey, to which over 800 people responded, did find that almost two thirds (63%) of respondents believe that "joined-up online and offline experiences are essential for engaging with their audience," but 60% of companies are either not very advanced at mapping customer experiences and identifying touchpoints (36%), or admit that they have to start looking at this because they are not doing it at all (24%).
"The majority of businesses say they plan to embrace features such as user-generated content and blogging but a significant number of organisations will stand back from this. There is no right or wrong way forward, but companies need to make sure they have a coherent and well thought out approach in line with their brand and customer expectations," said E-consultancy analyst Linus Gregoriadis.
See e-consultancy.com for more information on how to obtain a free sample of the report, or the full 63-pages.
Emma Herrod