Ctrl-Shift - Understanding Consumer Empowerment

So what trends will take shape in 2012 as the control shift continues in this era of consumer empowerment?

Consumers will continue to assert their ‘voice’ harnessing social media to organise themselves and share information. This level of active participation as people engage more vocally with organisations and each other is likely to grow and increase in momentum.

Using technology people will connect and collaborate in new ways causing disruption to established order. People’s shopping habits will continue the trend from ‘bricks’ to better-informed ‘clicks’. Consumers will be more active and demanding in their relationships with businesses; ‘I like this’ or…

So much has happened and changed in 2011 and the control shift is well underway. We've captured below some of the significant milestones that have unfolded this year with links to the relevant news items taken from our Market Watch.

Consumer empowerment

Consumer habits are rapidly changing driven by technology and use of social media. Consumers are becoming hyper connected and active participants in markets and they are recognising the power of acting collectively (think Occupy London). They are changing their shopping habits: according to Reevoo’s research nearly 90% of respondents would not purchase a product before reading others’…

We are setting out to track the ‘control shift’ through a tracking survey that will, over time, provide evidence of which changes are unnfolding, where, at what pace, with what impacts and implications. Our initial research is now available and it sets a benchmark to track that progress.

The research is based on a GB representative sample of nearly 1500 consumers surveyed in April 2011. Fieldwork was conducted between 28 April and 5 May 2011, with 1464 adults responding.

After the raw data was collated (data tables are available), Ctrl-Shift analysed the data to draw its conclusions. The analysis looks…

A new EU-wide research survey published in April 2011, has shown that the UK lags behind many other countries according to a consumer empowerment index. The research revealed that less than 50% of the 56,000 respondents (in 29 countries answering 70 questions) felt confident, knowledgeable and protected as consumers.

The European Commission said that the "results show that consumer awareness and skills are worryingly low. However, there is a considerable potential to empower consumers and thereby to improve consumer welfare and reduce consumer detriment. The internet and the media have a key role to play in…

We're still progressing our thinking on how to provide the consumer side of the evidence of the control shift. Thanks to those who commented on the original (either on site or via email). We are now close to our final questions (see below). We're looking to get these out on a survey before Easter and reporting back at our Explorers' Club in May.
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Our Questions:

Trend: information as a tool in the hands of the individual (decision-making)

1. When making a non-routine purchase, the first thing I do is seek out independent information…

We're about to start our longest ever project - one that we think will take us to 2020 and maybe beyond. And we need your help.

We're setting out on a simple task: to track the change in control from provider to buyer. Much has already happened but much more is still to come. We want to be able to provide evidence of that change. We're already looking at what companies are doing and how their behaviours and practices are changing.

Now it is time for the consumer or buyer to have their say. We're going to be running a…

40 Ways to Engage with your Customers

People use the words ‘Customer Engagement’ to mean all sorts of things, so we talked to a wide range of businesses to see what's actually happening.

Something more profound than just channel change is happening. New, digital, ways of engaging with customers are:

bypassing traditional gatekeepers to customers such as retailers and media owners,
creating new, direct connections with customers for brands previously without a direct customer relationship,
opening up opportunities to add new forms of value for customers,
creating simultaneous opportunities for organisations to elicit valuable information from…

More than 50% of marketers think that opt-in customers are now less willing than they were in the past, to allow them to use the data they have provides, says new research from Ctrl-Shift.

"Next Gen CRM" is a new report that examines the current landscape of customer relationship management (CRM) activity to identify where investment in customer information is taking place and what lessons can be learnt by those responsible for managing customer relationships. Based on 50 interviews with current practitioners, it seems that the decade long drive for CRM and data shows no signs of abating. Worryingly,…

As part of our research into The Recipe for Successful Customer Engagement we talked to Dell about the apparent success of Dell Outlet on Twitter.

If you don't know the background then Dell's outlet store was set up by the company to provide a route to sell PCs that were cancelled orders, customer returns etc. Dell sells direct, of course, and makes the claim that all PCs are built to order. As such managing a system for selling returned goods probably isn't as routine as for a true-blood retailer. What drew our attention to it…

A number of stars seem to be aligning to transform the role and content of customer touchpoints (wherever and whenever a customer and an organisation ‘touch’ each other). They could be adding up to a strategic revolution for organisations.

Behind this revolution lie a number of converging trends. They include:
1. Increasing competition for customers’ time, attention, trust and for access to customer information.
2. Customers gaining increasing control over who they engage with, when and how.
3. Organisations becoming increasingly aware that customers have more to offer than just money e.g. ideas and suggestions, word…