What's important for every organization to realize is, while social channels are constantly evolving, they are not new anymore,” said Mitch Lieberman. “The most successful customer service program will happen for businesses who incorporate social into their overall customer engagement practices, and really keep pace with the way their customers are communicating with them in all areas.

A hybrid cloud solution provides some degree of freedom. As Lieberman says, "Hybrid cloud solutions, by nature, are built atop standards-based platforms and database solutions. You simply need to ask the question of any provider: 'How may I access my data, when I want, where I want, and in the format that works for me?'"

The Social Education: Studying Social to Learn About Customers. Noted as the year of "understanding what social means for customer service," 2012 marks the first time in years that strategic customer relationship management outranked cost-savings as the top goal for customer service…

Increased customer satisfaction and meeting customer expectations lead the reasons that companies are moving to new methods of interacting with customers. Surprisingly, reduced cost and increased revenue don’t rank high, even if these are often leading outcomes.

The reasons behind the move of all companies, regardless of size, to social customer service are still based on the maxim "the customer is always right.