Mexico had some key events in the recent weeks about Internet, Twitter, Marketing, Technology and Public Relationships. I had the opportunity to participate has a speaker and moderator in two of these events. MundoContact and 140Mexico. By attending these two events and monitoring the other events via Twitter, I learned 5 things about the state of Social CRM and Social Media in Mexico.
1) Unified Communications (UC) have a new layer: Collaboration. Companies like Alestra and Mitel presented how the UC convergence is now affected by Enterprise 2.0 and Social Media tools. Affected in a positive way, where it is not longer about communication but about collaboration within the enterprise and with customers. I noticed that may attendees where very interested in this new layer of collaboration.
2) Social Media will be soon part of your call center. Avaya calls it context center and TellWare (local software provider) calls it social media center. I think we all know this will happen, but it is already a topic of discussion in Mexico – how to integrate social media with the call center. Keep in mind that the call center industry in Mexico is very strong.
3) Twitter is a source of revenue for some Mexican companies. During my hour long panel with BestBuy, Ford, Movistar, Volaris, Cinepolis and Cerverza Indio, I asked the 300 plus audience who bought a service or a product from these brands thanks to the conversations they had via Twitter, 75% of the audience raised their hands. This shows that there is potential to engage the customer via Twitter and other social channels. Mexico has seen an explosive growth on Twitter – from trending topics to Twitter apps. Even the Mexican government is using Twitter to communicate and collaborate with the citizens.
4) It is about innovation and business growth. Axeleratum has develop a Social Business methodology to help small business companies excel in business and find ways to innovate. The methodology helps companies identify strengths and weakness by analyzing how to open, transparent and collaborative the company really is. They are quite busy helping companies innovate.
5) Brands are looking to move beyond Facebook and Twitter. During my Social CRM seminar and other events, companies are looking for solutions, practices and methodologies to establish business practices in Social Media – not just in CRM or marketing, but for support, human resources, public relationships and internal collaboration. However, the cultural and financial aspect is still a challenge.
The CRM and Call Center industries are evolving in Mexico, and social media is somehow helping with this evolution, faster than we think.
