Lithium recently conducted a study of 300 executives that yielded some alarming results:
- 82% of execs say their customers demand much more from them now than 3 years ago.
- And 79% feel their product is becoming more and more commoditized.
So customers are more demanding. And if businesses can’t differentiate on the product front, it makes delivering a world-class customer experience all the more important. As Gartner says, “Customer Experience is the New Competitive Battlefield.”
This is why I’m so excited that we’ve partnered with Microsoft, to help businesses take on these challenges by reaching customers and stakeholders in new and engaging ways. First announced at our annual conference earlier this year, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Lithium Total Community integration will give the full service agent the power of crowdsourced customer care, backed up by real-time insights and data into customer behavior, expertise, and interests.
Jujhar Singh, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, offered his thoughts on the partnership and the integration, “The Dynamics CRM and Lithium integration gives our joint customers a way to quickly respond to service issues as well as to consistently engage with their best customers. Online communities benefit customers, partners, and organizations by giving them a forum to discuss and resolve their most important issues.”
Specific benefits of the joint Microsoft and Lithium solution for businesses include:
- A higher degree of engagement with customers and greater insights across all channels.
- Mission-critical business results—including improved customer satisfaction, stronger brand advocacy, improved Net Promoter Score, increased customer lifetime value and lower service costs.
- A complete set of customer information that combines transactional CRM data with customer context from Lithium.
If any of you are lucky enough to be headed to Convergence 2015 in Barcelona this year, Lithium will be hosting a session on the benefits of a true social CRM and demoing the joint solution on the show floor. Feel free to drop by and say hi.
