Please join me for a webinar on September 23 entitled: "Multichannel Customer Service in Retail Sector &mdash Trends, Innovations & Best Practices"

Retail sales around the world continue to grow and online commerce is growing at a faster clip. In the US alone, Forrester projects that online commerce will grow 21% to $204B in 2008, compared to 2007. European retail sales increased 58% in 2007, compared to 2006, and the trend is expected to continue in 2008. However, the retail industry is also one of the most competitive industry sectors, affected by economic cycles and cut-throat competition. The hypercompetitive business environment and the growing use of emerging communication channels such as web self-service, email, chat, SMS, web collaboration and kiosks, in tandem with the traditional phone channel and retail stores mandate that retail businesses provide superior and seamless customer service experiences within and across channels and across the customer lifecycle. And at the same time, they must do more with less in order to sustain operating margins. What are the latest trends, innovations and best practices in multichannel customer service? How can you do more with less in customer service?

There were lots of recent announcements in the mobile space around adress book / calendar back-ups, tools to save and share content (from pictures to video and messaging).

Vodafone's acquisition of ZYB (still wondering which services were really available commercially or if they only bought competences), o2's launch of Bluebook or SFR's Ma Sfere are good examples on the operator front.

Bluebook is by far the most advanced project with a significant marketing campaign launched last March. I quite like the idea that memories are goind digital and that "now, when you lose your phone, you won't lose your memories". But let's face it, this all about controlling the social adress book. Operators are often viewed by other stakeholders as players who consider to "own the customer".

Reality is that customers own their contacts and use communication services not only from operators but also from Internet players (social networking sites, Instant Messaging,...), particularly the younger generation.

I thought I'd give you a heads up on some of my forthcoming speaking engagements:

On Thursday I'm giving a presentation in Paris to the "Charge de mission Socit de l'Information" which my French colleagues tell me is a governmental organization that advises the President on cultural affairs. And with the French Minister for Culture attending it looks like it should be a really interesting event. I'll be presenting on why Europeans just won't pay for online content and on the impact of piracy.

The following week I'll be moderating a roundtable discussion at EconMusic in London on the 23rd. The event is being run by Content Next (the people behind Paid Content.org) and has a very impressive line up for a first time event (that's the pulling power of Paid Content.org for you). The fact this music conference is being held in the natural history museum is going to be the source of endless fun for the media no doubt. I'll do my best not to refer to the dinosaurs in the lobby.

On Monday 6th I'll be moderating a panel at the long running In the City in Manchester. This will be the first year fully run without any involvement from the late Tony Wilson. You always had some almost imperceptible sense of his personality on the event in previous years. It'll be interesting to see if that's still there this year.

This Japanese expression relates to books or short stories written for mobile phones. There is a good article published in Le Monde the other day. Nothing really new in the sense that these have been available for a while in Japan and recently introduced in Europe.

However, I was really amazed by the high level of downloads. Apparently, one the latest books (just made available in physical bookstores), Koizora, has already been read by 25,000,000 Japanese.
The buzz around Amazon's Kindle should be put in perspective.