Mobile and Social Technologies: Organizations Engaging Customers but not Achieving Greater Internal Productivity

By the DynaSis Team

Another interesting survey came across our desk recently - this one about the use of social and mobile technologies. According to research from UK-based Advanced Business Solutions (ABS), companies* are using social and mobile outlets to increase their customer engagement, but they’re not putting them to full use to power greater business productivity.

According to the research, 85 percent of surveyed organizations use social and mobile technologies for external (customer/client marketing). Additionally, 69 percent use social technologies as response mechanisms for customer and prospect queries, comments, complaints and other communications.

However, only 17 percent of respondent companies are using these technologies to help workers share information and collaborate with one another. We found this interesting, given that approximately two-thirds of respondents stated that social and mobile technologies are valuable for employee collaboration. Nearly the same percentage thought that using them more effectively could improve efficiency.

A 2014 Constant Contact survey of U.S. small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) appears to correlate these findings, at least regarding mobile technologies. According to the survey, 92% of SMBs either have a mobile-optimized website or are planning to create one in the next six months, and 23% are interested in using mobile advertising. In both cases, the focus is on using mobile technology for external, not internal communications.

It’s important to note that neither survey addresses other forms of productivity for which we view mobile, at least, to be pivotal. Among these is remote working―what we call “mobile officing.” Having access to properly managed mobile devices can give employees the ability to work as safely and productively as if they were at their workplace.  (The ABS survey did recognize the definition of mobile technologies as “creating an always-on work force that can connect and access information at any time and from any place.” That’s essentially how we view it.)

These surveys made us wonder how our customers and other readers are using mobile and social technologies. Are you using either or both to enhance internal collaboration? Are you focusing on externally facing messages and collaboration only? Do you feel you are achieving greater internal or overall workforce productivity with social and mobile technologies?

We’d love to hear your feedback―and talk to you about how you can achieve all these goals easily and affordably. To learn more, please give us a call.