Many companies now recognize that the process for buying and selling business products and services is being conducting online. Without an online presence, sales and customer service resources often find themselves on the tail end of any transaction, well beyond the point of being able to effectively influence the outcome.
The Aberdeen Group reported that 59% of best-in-class companies consider the use of social media collaboration tools within the sales department to be a priority to the organization. (Sales 2.0: Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration, 2008).