[ This is a post from our sponsor, Sprinklr. Each month, they’ll be delivering you with some insights into how you can use technology to make your marketing more efficient and effective. ]

By now, most global businesses recognize social media as a viable communication channel. It’s something you publish to, interact with customers on, and occasionally buy new tools to manage.

While this is all true, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Social media is also a disruptor.

It has given rise to a new breed of customers. Empowered and connected in ways that weren’t possible before, they’re accustomed to frictionless experiences – on-demand and on their terms. They expect to be understood not as data points, but as people.

Social has given rise to a new class of companies, too – disruptors that were born in this previously unimaginable world, and more traditional businesses that are rethinking everything to succeed in it.

Sprinklr is working with these visionary companies to transform themselves.

How Sprinklr Helps 1,200+ Brands Rewire Themselves

Every large organization has a collection of, what are now considered, legacy technology systems. They house valuable data about customers – information like purchase history and customer service interactions.

This well of data is essential, but it’s often locked within organizational silos and disconnected systems of record – far away from the various customer-facing teams that need it to deliver the instant and intuitive experiences today’s customers expect.

This data doesn’t paint a full picture of who the customer really is. It doesn’t tell you what happens when the customer leaves the store or hangs up the phone. How she really feels about your brand. Or what she’s telling others on Facebook, Twitter, and beyond about her experiences.

In an age where customer experience is the new battleground and word-of-mouth is everything, global brands need a way to tap into these unstructured customer interactions. They need a new approach to building real customer relationships at scale – one that goes beyond traditional notions of “relationship management.” They need a foundation that models not just structured customer attributes like age and address, but one that also makes sense of and allows them to act on unstructured data, like a recent Instagram post or review on Yelp.

This is what the Sprinklr platform was designed to do.

A New Infrastructure for a Customer-First Front Office

Purpose-built for an unstructured world, Sprinklr’s technology is helping 1,200+ global brands, including more than half of the Fortune 50, manage everything they do on social media – from listening to planning, publishing, engagement, analytics, and more. It’s allowing them to unearth and extract new value from their legacy systems. And it’s uniting their marketing, customer care, and other customer-facing functions.

It’s is becoming the underlying infrastructure for large organizations that want to truly put the customer first.

It’s Time to Reset

Think back to a time not that long ago. You could walk into your local grocery store and be greeted by name. You’d be recognized instantly. And you’d be made to feel like you really mattered – because, well, you did.

Somewhere along the way, business changed.

That little grocery store became an international supermarket chain full of faceless customers. Humanity was exchanged for automation, process, and efficiency. And businesses stopped having real relationships with the individuals they were meant to serve – it simply wasn’t possible at global scale.

But driven by the internet, by mobile, and especially by social – the world is changing once again.

We’re proud to support visionary companies McDonald’s, Microsoft, P&G, and Samsung as they drive digital transformation and reset themselves for a customer-first world. And we’re excited to partner with future clients – the ones who see this unprecedented opportunity – who are ready to take that first step.

Ragy Thomas is a technology visionary, entrepreneur, and investor who has played an instrumental role in the evolution of two business-critical channels for the enterprise: social media and email. As founder and CEO of Sprinklr – the world’s most complete enterprise social technology serving more than 1,200 brands globally – he is empowering companies to reimagine their customer-facing operations to manage consumer experiences across every touch point.