The Future of Customer Service report, written by ItsOpen on behalf of first direct, has featured in an article in the FT. The piece by Paul Taylor is titled “Social CRM mirrors rise in customer power.”

See also previous posts over on the Social Media Leadership Forum, as well as the slide-deck and the full report embedded below:

• first direct collaborates with customers online
• Podcast interviews of the author Dr Andrew Currah and first direct’s Natalie Cowen
• Downloads of the report and presentation

This week we held an event to launch our new research report, written by Dr. Andrew Currah, examining the impact of digital media on the future of corporate reputation.

The report’s executive summary was written by Stuart Bruseth, Vice President, Shell Global Media Relations, and the first member of the Social Media Leadership Forum.

As its key finding the report recommends a ‘satellite’ model of digital communications in which a specialist network of advocates orbits and reports back to the central communications team.

Recognising the collaborative possibilities of digital media, the report argues that it is more scalable and cost-effective for companies to empower their employees to contribute to digital communications activity.

The following slide-show presents a summary of all the key findings of the report:

Below you can read the report in its entirety, either here on the site, or by downloading a copy from Scribd.

We hope you find this an informative and helpful read as you plan your company’s next steps towards a strategy for managing reputation in an increasingly hybrid digital landscape.