The Blog

Get Sat’s Fancy New Widgets

Well, this is interesting.  On the very day that CRM Idol launches its second season, last year’s winner is launching a passel of new products.  It’s just coincidence, you can’t plan something like this.

The new Get Satisfaction widgets are interesting for many reasons.  First, they’re widgets, little bits of applications designed to be embedded in a company’s web outreach to its customers.  They are not websites that link to your web properties, just things that make your existing properties better for your customers.

As Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction said, “For the first time, companies now can blend social conversations anywhere on their website instead of relegating social to separate ‘destination channels’ such as Facebook or forums.”  I agree, I think this idea has legs.

So what do these widgets do?  All kinds of things.  I count ten capabilities including self-service, social marketing, e-commerce and product development.  In other words, something for everyone with the focus on leveraging the community to crowd source great ideas.

To me, this is the promise of social media in business.  It provides the ability to have social conversations without necessarily getting off topic and discussing weekend plans.  And unlike other products that have an in-house collaboration slant, this solution set is all about giving customers access to processes that are increasingly collaborative but which not too long ago were closely held by the vendor.  So, good luck to Get Satisfaction on the new products.

What a difference a year makes!