Much has been written about social customer relationship management (CRM), but what exactly is it? First and foremost, social CRM is still very much about CRM, which remains a strong business strategy to keep the company profitable via customer satisfaction and loyalty policies. A good CRM solution will collate data to provide a holistic view of each customer, in real time.
That’s the traditional definition and companies continue to use CRM solutions to influence repeat business and upsell to a more lucrative end result.
But given the social context of any business or marketing plan, can CRM really fall behind when it comes to digital engagement? Typically, the customer was not part of the CRM structure, except to provide the relevant information needed. And that too very often was accessed with minimal customer interaction. Today, the customer needs to be and wants to be involved and that’s when social CRM steps in.
The customer is not only the focal point of any data gathering, he often volunteers to contribute information and collaborates to design and develop a brand. And when the customer gets involved, the game rules can change. A simple example could be customer service hours, which used to be 9-5, and now are 25/7.
Twitter and facebook have already revealed themselves as excellent marketing and branding tools; so it seems like a natural progression that companies would dive right in and begin creating successful CRM applications around social media.
A few of them –Jive software, Oracle (Oracle Social CRM Applications), Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Salesforce.com with Chatter –have successfully proven that it’s possible to build a CRM around social media habits. These tools comprise of a wide spectrum of easy to use options including activity feeds, micro-blogging, and conversations, all designed to let executives and employees share customer and industry information in real time.
So what’s the key defining difference between a social media channel and a SCRM?
Social media is great for building brand awareness and even for developing a certain customer interaction. There are plenty of examples of how it’s worked as a sales strategy. Social CRM however takes it one level further and actually allows a complete statistical analysis of the customer –who he is, what his purchasing habits are, how often he uses the Internet, and where he shops.
A social CRM solution would also ideally allow executives to source opportunities based on the data presented and use the analyzed results for better decision making.
In an article by IBM entitled, From Social Media to Social CRM, it shows that two thirds of the 350 executives surveyed felt their business would suffer if they didn’t engage with their customers online, and sixty percent said that social media will change the way they do business. However only one fourth believes they have the key operational aspects of a social CRM strategy –defined KPI”s, flexible business models, consolidated guidelines, and integrated cross-functional governance to name a few –in place.
With social media developing in leaps and bounds, the core question that arises is how much data should I collect and how can that be integrated into a social CRM solution without losing sight of the fact the customer remains centric to all actions?
As businesses’ continue to evolve in a social setting, there’s no doubt that social CRM will play a more well defined role in determining how customer service and eventually how company sales play out to the advantage of both the business and its customers.
