DestinationCRM.com provides us with an choice excerpt from CRM thought leader Paul Greenberg’s CRM At The Speed of Light, now in it’s 4th edition.

Here is one of my favorite observations by Greenberg:

What the social customer is expecting is a human being who’s not selling products at them or just following a particular path, but providing a relationship that will be mutually beneficial.
For the salesperson, this experience will be the purchase of something by the customer. For the customer, it will be an experience that provides her with what she needs to solve a part of her personal agenda—be it in a B2B environment (such as meeting an equipment need) or in a B2C environment (purchasing a family vacation package). But the expectation goes beyond that. The customer is looking to have a relationship—if not with the salesperson then with the company the salesperson represents. Skeptical? Think about your own relationship to Amazon.com, and why you shop there: It’s convenient, and the site “knows” you.

This change in customer-salesperson interactions has certainly occurred in my industry, for those companies who are prepared to embrace it at least. How has this affected your industry?