Speaking with the marketing hat on, I say the value of an open conversation in SM instead of a call centre closed telephone call is so superior, yet organisations knee jerk is to label the call centre, the “call” centre. In the “customer centre” many of those exchanges of information, even the repetitive ones can still be held in one to one manner online that are equally public. As long as there is a method to transfer the public exchange to a private one at the right point, then the process is highly preferable to a tel. call relationship.

And if I as a consumer can view the above as a more enjoyable and quicker interaction, because I´m not held in a call queue, then surely that is a good experience which I can share online.

Most people I’ve seen that appear happy with their tools are those single employee experts that are only monitoring conversations, and then “engaging” in random ways. When a company sells millions of units, it is critical that solutions scale. Today, no one is generating scalable solutions.

Yes, a few PR-specific tools have been sold through as useful because they enable users to “capture” and track new mailing lists of reporters or influencers. But these same experts then bombard journalists or suspected influencers with pitches.

The most useful tools, thus far, are the ones that support customer service usage. But, look at the expense being incurred. These corporations might have been smarter to simply provide good phone support in the first place.

And the marketers flogging deals and products are likewise kidding themselves. This is pure experimentation. The Dell example everyone uses is not a profitable, nor scalable, experiment when you apply all the Overheads that were required to make it work.

What concerns me is how many tools suppliers I’ve met that simply think DIY monitoring is a business. Those providers may make enough to cover their mortgages this year, but I suspect they won’t be around in another year.

In my opinion, these are all false starts.