The Web Equals or Surpasses Traditional Face-to-Face or Phone Contact for Finding New Customers
How profoundly the internet has changed the way business is conducted is clearly illustrated in the new CohnReznick - New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Spring 2016 Business Climate Survey of New Jersey business leaders released today.
More than a third (34 percent) of the business leaders surveyed said their company now generates most of its new customers via the World Wide Web, making this approach equally productive as the more traditional face-to-face contact (35 percent of respondents said face-to-face was how they typically generated customers) and more productive than phone contacts (29 percent).
Executives responding to this survey also reported a slightly more optimistic attitude about New Jersey's economy over the next 12 months compared to the survey last spring.
Customer Data Challenge
Most business leaders (58 percent) believe their companies provide customers with a seamless experience whether they contact the company in person or via mobile device. But most (57 percent) of them believe their companies are not effectively collecting customer data.
"Even businesses that believe they are providing customers with a great web/mobile experience are missing an opportunity if they are not collecting customer data," said Philip Mandel, regional managing partner NY/NJ at CohnReznick "Without an effective way of collecting, analyzing and applying customer data, it becomes a significant challenge for businesses to provide customers with the personalized offers they demand."
Tech Spending is on 'The Cloud'
All the business leaders surveyed indicated their companies have budgets to invest in technology. When asked to pinpoint where they are spending, nearly two thirds (63 percent) said their companies plan to invest in "the cloud" for storing, managing and processing their company data offsite.
And 38 percent said their companies plan to invest in mobile technology to increase their customers' ability to do business with the company through their mobile devices. Another 38 percent said their businesses would be investing in "analytics" to help crunch customer data. For this question, respondents were permitted to choose more than one area of investment.
"It's remarkable to see how quickly electronic technologies have transformed the entire business process, from marketing and generating customer leads to fulfilling demand for products and services," said Tom Bracken, president and CEO of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. "For any business, the survey results reinforce the idea that innovation is an investment with a tremendous upside, and warns us of the dangers of not keeping up with technology and trends."
Facebook Leads the Way
When asked to rank the social media platforms their companies use for promotional purposes, Facebook was ranked first most frequently (31 percent), followed by LinkedIn (ranked first by 25 percent of respondents), Google+ (ranked first by 15 percent of respondents) and Twitter (ranked first by 8 percent).
Executives Remain Mostly Upbeat
Despite the state's challenging issues, business executives in New Jersey remain optimistic about the future.
More than four in ten respondents (46 percent) said they expect the state economy to improve over the next 12 months, while only 18 percent said they expect it to worsen. This is a slightly improved outlook from the N.J. Chamber survey results from the same period a year ago, when only 42 percent of respondents said they expected the economy to improve.
A large majority of respondents - 81 percent - said they expect their companies will either maintain or increase their staffing levels over the next 12 months. And more than eight in 10 (83 percent) of the respondents said they expect their companies' revenue to stay even or increase.
Survey Details
The CohnReznick - New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Business Climate Survey is designed to measure the outlook of the state's business leaders, ranging from single entrepreneurs to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in a wide array of fields. A total of 118 business leaders were surveyed between May 16 and June 6. Most said they are presidents and CEOs, or senior level executives.
Complete results can be found here.