Social CRM ideas by Mark Tamis

I think the actual paradigm shift is the realisation of the consumers that they now have power derived from choice and the means to share and influence others with a far greater reach through the use of Social Media. We can now interact in far greater numbers, when we choose and share our experiences about how happy or unhappy we are about your business. Happy customers can drive more people to become customers. When we voice our gripes, you had better listen and meet our expectations to make us happy again. We have no obligation to do business with you, there are others out there and we’ll go elsewhere. As a group we have power, but you’d better listen to me as an individual!

The current reaction of business to adapt to this shift is to become customer-centric, to listen and adapt their offer to the changing needs and expectations and ensure a happy customer that come back and and influence others to come. CRM is the touch-point between the business and the consumers and can serve to formulate and coordinate the response of the company to ensure a positve experience. Social CRM is about extending the touchpoints to include Social Media, both internal to the company and external.

This customer-centric response plays into consumer risk-averse behaviour to obtain and repeat a positive experience. By taking away the risk of dealing with the company, the company will incite the consumer to avoid taking a risk of not meeting expectations when going to the competition, a potentially negative experience.

Technology is only but a means to give the customer the experience she is expecting. Social CRM is an attemp to optimize a company’s organisation in order  to realise this experience in the manner that is most adapted to the Customer’s needs and expectations, whilst keeping in mind the company’s business continuity objectives.

Currently the focus is mainly on the external-facing tools that link CRM to Social Media - such as Online Customer Communities - mainly because this is where businesses can measure ROI, do profiling, monitoring and analysis (Helpstream, Lithium, Fuse, Radian6…). Other companies have been focusing on internal-facing tools, such as CRM with Web 2.0 Collaboration tools for helping the salesforce do their business better (Oracle etc.). As the market matures, these two approaches will become better integrated and like include what we now specify Enterprise 2.0, and evolve into “Social Business”.

Social CRM is about people and engagements, and about organizing the enterprise to nurture and value relationships to optimize the Customer Experience to co-create value that is mutually beneficial. The balance of power is changing with the (very!) main-stream adoption of Social Media, formulating a response (such as Social CRM) will be a fun journey!

Scorpfromhell recently wrote and excellent article [Enterprise 2.0 vs Social CRM - Fight or Tango?] that I suggest you read – good insights!

To summarise, Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 need to walk hand in hand. One of his statements that I would like to elaborate on is that ”"efficient employees lead to better customer experience” – I would say that you can react to external threats and opportunities more efficiently in a more timely and apt fashion. We could then say that Enterprise 2.0 is a prerequisite for the ‘better customer experience’, or at least a competitve advantage in customer service. When you go to a Four Season’s Hotel, the service you result is the result of many people interacting to make your stay as pleasant as possible – check-in clerk, hotel manager, room service, pool attendants, restaurant staff and whatnot, and they have all been taught to work together to make this happen for you.

So, Experience 2.0 is a prerequisite for gaining a competitive advantage in the field of Social CRM, but likewise implementing Social CRM tools without organising the company to communicate and collaborate can potentially be very damaging.

As the market for Social CRM matures, customer expectations in terms of customer service will increase – Enterprise 2.0 may not only be a prerequisite but also a necessity to maintain a competitive advantage and – hopefully – customer loyalty.

Having been in Enterprise Software for most of my active career, I am now looking into how companies can use “Social Media” to improve the way they do their business. We have now come to the point where a definition is bubbling up (Paul Greenberg et al) that is useful to build upon.

The communication tools that are now available allow us to not only push our marketing messages out to potential customers (B2C) but also allow these customers to interact with our company, leading to higher satisfaction levels or even to customer-driven innovation (C2B). Furthermore by providing a channel accessible to all customers, everyone that is a (potential) stakeholder of our company’s products or services can communicate, facilitating peer-to-peer communication and support and Brand advocacy (C2C).

Through Social Media analytics and datamining we’ll be able to better understand what makes our customers tick and use that information improve our Customer Service and nurture Brand Loyalty.

In this blog I will try to talk about the abovementioned subjects as I expore and assimilate ideas that I come across.