Riverside, California (NAPSI) - Just as social media and mobile technologies are changing how individuals connect with friends and family, they are also changing how consumers and businesses interact. For small businesses to respond faster to change and deliver better customer experiences, they need to work like a network so they can listen, adapt and grow in new ways.

Gone are the days when customers would write a letter to a company if they weren’t pleased with the service they received. Now they just take to posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media channels to vent their displeasure. Today’s customers demand better service, and companies need to adapt to this changing world.

There are four trends driving the transformation of the workplace:

• Information overload. Data is abundant, and employees need to make sense of it all and translate to action.

• Power of the network. Network technology enables people to access information and insights from both internal and external sources in real time.

• Flexible work styles. Companies and employees are adopting more flexible and mobile work styles, making physical workspace less important and collaboration tools more important.

• Distributed teams. People work across organizational and geographical boundaries to get things done.

At the center of it all, social technologies are making it easier for companies to stay ahead of these trends and become more responsive organizations. Social technologies are transforming businesses for the better in many ways, by enhancing the way employees work together, as well as how companies interact with clients and customers.

For example, companies that want to do a better job of communicating with employees and enabling employees to share information and insights with one another in real time are choosing to roll out social network solutions. One such option is Yammer, a private social enterprise network for businesses that’s designed to help employees connect and collaborate across departments, locations and business apps to get things done.

Businesses that want to do a better job of managing customer relationships are turning to customer relationship management over the Internet—such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, software that provides customer insights so businesses can serve them better. It helps businesses of all sizes to manage contacts, monitor social media activity, and manage the sales cycle with new and existing customers.

Finally, companies that want to create a more flexible work environment are turning to cloud productivity solutions such as Office 365. It was created to make it possible for businesses to connect people to information and each other more quickly than ever before.

To learn more, visit https://about.yammer.com/product/office365.