Australia is a world leader in mobile and social customer engagement innovation, Bluewolf CMO Corinne Sklar recently told The Rust Report.

 Speaking during a visit to Sydney, Sklar noted that local companies like Vodafone and Veolia are “pushing the boundaries in enterprise innovation”, as customer engagement becomes an imperative for continued growth.

 

Citing recent Gallup research, Sklar said only 20 per cent of customers are fully engaged. As a result, almost 90 per cent of CEOs rank customer engagement as their top priority. To bridge the gap, Sklar said companies are looking at ways to break down their internal silos and get closer to their customers using cloud, mobile and social technologies.

 

“Making a 3x investment to attract new customers is no longer feasible,” Sklar said. “Companies need to keep their existing customers and make them advocates for their brands.”

 

Due to these changing dynamics, Sklar said the focus of CIOs is shifting from simply deploying technologies on-time and on-budget, to partnering more closely with other functions like Sales and Marketing to drive business value and customer engagement.

 

To view Sklar’s full interview with The Rust Report, click here.

To read the Vodafone social customer service story, click here.

To read more real-world customer examples, download The Essential Guide to Customer Obsession.