Web 2.0 is the future for CRM

Businesses need to open up far more avenues for interaction with their customers, said Gartner vice president and fellow Mark Raskino, with companies needing to do more to embrace emerging technologies.

Opening the annual Gartner CRM summit in London, Raskino said that there needed to be a two-way relationship between businesses and their customers, rather than the traditional flow from business to customers.

"Web 2.0 is a powerful and important thing. In this time of economic weakness, this type of IT is a lifeline. We have to become more transparent, and prepared to talk to the customers," Raskino said.

Even at the largest companies, there is not enough dialogue, Raskino added. "There is something wrong with the cultural attitudes towards web 2.0 at corporate companies. Steve Balmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, points out that any large company website today it tells you everything you need to know about how much they have assimilated the message of web 2.0. In most companies, it is hard or impossible to find a named person to interact with."

Raskino called for a massive shift, with businesses experimenting with far more open models of interaction with their customers.

According to Gartner, CRM is more important now then ever. Raskino pointed out that the need to retain customers, as well as attracting new ones, made CRM one of the top issues for both CEOs and CIOs.

However, businesses also needed to be careful, Raskino cautioned. The abundance of emerging technologies could easily become overwhelming.

Raskino warned against CIOs adopting a "new kid in a gadget shop attitude", and taking on too much. "There's a risk with so many technologies and so many applications that businesses will go mad and do things they may regret later," he said.

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