CIOs Increasingly Focus on Engaging Customers

Healthy customer engagement is a vital part of any successful business. A recent survey conducted by IBM shows an emerging trend where CIOs from various companies are placing more focus on customer engagement.

Survey Says "Customer Engagement"

IBM asked thousands of CIOs from more than 20 industries to share their thoughts on building successful businesses. Here are some of the survey’s findings from the CIOs perspective:

• Close to 70 percent plan to employ cloud computing in the near future.
• More than 80 percent plan to find more collaborative ways to connect with customers through the use of analytics and to develop and use innovative platforms.
• CIOs want to develop partnerships with their organization’s CMOs to better understand their company’s customer service models, new business development strategies, and communication developments.
• CIOs are aiming to develop new technologies to improve customer’s experiences through mobile technology improvements and using social media.

Role of the CIO

This shift in focusing more on customer engagement shows the role of the CIO is transforming from implementing back of the house strategies to front of the house operations. There are many several reasons for this.

• With the continued emergence of mobile technology, it’s important that CIOs are able to understand the needs of their customers; that way, they can design and implement better technologies to meet their needs.
• It’s also important that they are able to work with customer service, sales, and marketing departments to ensure that new platforms are user-friendly for customers.

The Customer Benefits

As customer engagement becomes the primary focus for CIOs, there are many things that customers can expect to receive from these new developments. These include the following:

• Digital efforts by companies to create easier ways to communicate with customers through social media and mobile platforms.
• Cloud-based platforms that give customers easier access to programs where they have a reliable internet connection.
• A better understanding of what the customers want, as companies use analytics, data and new tools to communicate more efficiently with their customer base.

Overall, this is an exciting time for CIOs and customers alike. This IBM survey shows that CIOs are being very proactive in ways to improve their organization’s engagement with customers. As a result, it shows that the roles of CIOs transformed from back of the house operations to a more proactive role where they can create platforms that help their companies collaborate and serve their customers better.