The theme for CCA Convention 2011 is Connected Customer - but what does it actually mean? 

One of the biggest changes for organisations to deal with is the reality that relationships are becoming less one-to-one and more one-to-many.  For some new organisations built on a blend of social and traditional channels, this may not be such a big challenge.  However, for those organisations that have large traditional channel infrastructures in place, providing great service to the connected customer is more difficult.

The ability for customers to talk to one another has the potential to be one of the biggest catalysts of change for businesses today - something which was echoed by Guy Stephens on today's Wake Up Call.  The whole issue of listening to customer feedback is magnified by the advent of new channels and customers talking to each other.  Winning organisations will be those that are quick to seize on the opportunities of listening across all of their channels in a consistent fashion and translating the data into useful insights to drive the business forward.  There are some great new technologies in this space and our hope for the future should be that we develop better ways of really listening to customers in order that they feel their contact with us matters and that they trust us with their problems.