Welcome to the World of Care 2.0 – and the Entitled Consumer

Technology has transformed the world of customer care, putting the consumer firmly in control.

The advent of the worldwide web gave everyone 24x7 access to information……increasing expectations of – and demand for anywhere, anytime support.

Then internet search came along enabling increased independence. All of a sudden it was easy as a consumer to compare and find new sources for products and services, resulting in increased churn.

Today, the consumer’s voice is impossible to ignore. The proliferation of social media - peer networks, blogs, chat rooms, public rating systems, YouTube and more - combined with growing media interest in consumer issues, has made it easy to get the word out, both good and bad. The consumer has unprecedented public influence and a business can no longer hide from bad experiences.

Meanwhile, the skyrocketing proliferation of mobile devices is fueling consumer demand for portable, timely and location-based content and services, increasing access expectations and taking the concept of anywhere, anytime to a whole new level.

Couple this with the fact that technology is speeding the velocity of innovation and as a result collapsing product life cycles. Companies can no longer rely on price, quality and product features to differentiate them. Today differentiation is all about the customer experience that is delivered with that product or service.

Welcome to the World of Care 2.0, a new environment in customer care where companies are required to provide great service to satisfy the expectations of increasingly savvy, highly mobile customers, who feel entitled to excellent service. And in a Care 2.0 world never has the customer care operation had a more important role. Care is pivotal to the customer experience, to business performance, to enterprise growth expectations, and to the company brand.