Much has been written about the power of Web 2.0 as a marketing tool and for good reason. Its power to help you market products to potential customers is undeniable. However, besides marketing your products, Web 2.0 can help your business in other ways.
Web 2.0 technologies are increasingly being used within organizations to improve productivity and efficiency and to improve communication between organizations. Take web video for example. Videos can be used for employee training, customer follow-up, as well as frequently asked questions. The purpose is to provide more types of media to fit more customers. Some people learn better by reading. Others by hearing or seeing.
The flexibility and usability of Web 2.0 applications ensures that IT departments can give other workers more power to customize applications to better suit themselves. This not only improves efficiency but also boosts morale and productivity.
Good communication is an essential part of any successful organization. The ability for employees to communicate in real time through instant messaging adds to efficiency. And, with freely available client applications such as Skype coupled with existing bandwidth, the costs are negligible.
Customer support is a must for any business that wants to retain its customers and has become an area where Web 2.0 has been used extensively. Customer support teams can communicate in real time with customers online providing another layer of support and reinforcing a strong customer service environment.
Many companies use blogs as a form of customer support. By posting content for common problems, a company can solve most common issues upfront -- cutting customer support costs. And because of the collaborative nature of blogs customers will often add their own problem resolutions.
Blogs are also a great way for a company to gauge customer satisfaction. But, you must be open to criticism. Deleting critical comments is not the way to establish credibility. By giving up a certain amount of control, a business is more likely to respond to customers quickly. What better way to get a solid testimonial than from a customer who had a complaint that was resolved as a result of a blog post.
Finally, Web 2.0 offers excellent opportunities in training and education. A quick browse on YouTube will show that online video training is growing fast in popularity. Several large organizations already use video extensively to provide product training.
From the smallest start up to the biggest multi national, Web 2.0 is revolutionizing the way people work, both within and outside the organizational structure.
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