Social media has arrived as a first choice channel of interaction for consumers to seek customer care and technical support. It's the next stage of evolution in the demand for a better online experience and real time customer service.

The slow and painful recovery in the Northeast from that fat, destructive, menace Sandy is truly maddening for those of us only able to turn on our flatscreen TV sets, huddle together on Facebook pages and retweet prayers from our iPads. Surely our efforts are helping, right? And the power companies are working hard on the ground, in the streets, at every door aiding each and every customer giving them everything they need, right?

Not long ago, the relationship between a customer and a corporation was relatively static and one-sided. Companies' advertisements and press releases were completely controlled by their marketing and management teams. Today's consumers, however, have usurped much of that power, catapulting the shift into "Social Consumers" evident today. These "social consumers" seek out information through sites like Twitter and Facebook, trust only relevant, value-added information and expect a conversation with brands - one that is truly personalized to this specific customer and their ask. This shift in consumer behavior has forced traditional Customer Relationship Marketing to evolve into today's social CRM. …

Most organizations regard customer relationship management as something that starts once the customer is, in fact, a customer: someone with whom the company plans to create a long-lasting connection. But if you're thinking about CRM only once the customer has started purchasing from you, you're already a few steps behind and may find yourself running to catch up-not a great way to begin anything!

We've all received customer feedback requests in one form or another. It could be at the end of a call to the cable company to rate the service provided or an email to rate your recent online purchase. Do you like completing these evaluations? In most cases, the answer is no.

For years, marketers have relied on lead scoring to identify prospects who are most likely to become customers. Scoring prospects based on two dimensions-who they are and how they interact with your brand-is no longer a sufficient measure to project future activity, let alone find and grow the most valuable relationships into revenue generating streams.