Gartner CRM: Ignore customers' online ways at your own peril

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Fail to take your customers' online habits into account and you may regret it, warned analysts at the Gartner customer relationship management (CRM) conference in London today.

Firms have long sought their customers opinions on products and services, but now those opinions are showing up across the web - word of mouth for the digital age.

"Any experience somebody has with your firm - usually negative - can be posted on the web for all to see," said Scott Nelson, managing vice president of Gartner, the research and consulting firm staging the conference. "A customer can become your worst nightmare."

Companies need to learn how to access that power, he said. "It's one of the biggest challenges in CRM in the next few years, which firms haven't taken into account," said Nelson.

People are increasingly conditioned to having their opinions and thoughts listened to, said Mark Raskino, a vice president and fellow at Gartner. "They find it empowering," he said. "Companies that don't listen look arrogant and twentieth-century."

It has become fashionable to debate with the customer before releasing a product, Raskino said, but it's not just a fad. Knowledgeable customers can offer much to a firm which is willing to listen, he added. "You can't just squirt the same information down a new electronic channel," said Raskino.

Companies that use understand the web can use it to their advantage. According to BT customer experience consultant Dr Nicole Millard, savvy customers can be a boon to CRM. She said that customers were calling into BT contact centres asking how to use gaming consoles with their broadband service. Agents in the contact centres didn't know the answer, but other customers had already solved the problem. So BT started a web-based forum called Hubbub, which allows customers to share solutions with other users and provide contact centre staff with another source of information.

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