Earlier this week I shared 10 Links on Content Farms. As I said then: “When I’m *predicting the future* I find it helpful to look at the recent and recently past developments of an industry.” I think sometimes us bloggers jump to quickly in to trying to provide our readers with the answers instead of helping to provide the right context first.
Social CRM is a topic that comes up a lot and I get frequent questions about. If you’re still grappling with what exactly Social CRM is, I hope these posts will give you some of the needed background to wrap your head around it properly.
1) Social CRM Deloitte Slideshare
2) Social CRM YouTube Video
John Perez has several great videos on his YouTube channel. Here’s a good primer:
3)Altimeter Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM, The New Rules of Relationship Management
Companies are unable to scale to keep up with the social phenomenon
We know that customers are using these social technologies to share their voices, and companies are having a very difficult time to keep up.
- For companies, real time is not fast enough. Companies need to be able to anticipate what customers are doing to say and do, in order to keep up. Although Motrin responded to angry mom’s within 24 hours –it was too slow.
- Companies are unable to scale to meet the needs of social. No matter how many community managers Dell and ComcastCares hires to support, they’ll never be able to match the number of customers happening. They need tools, and they need them now.
- Customers don’t care what department you’re in they just want their problem fixed.Dooce’s support problem with Maytag quickly became a PR nightmare –had the support group known she was an influencer (and what it means), they could have serviced her better.
4) Social CRM is the First Step Towards Social Business and World Domination
What is Social CRM? Is it a sales tool? Is it a support tool? The answer depends on your company and your business objectives. I can tell you this, Social CRM is not a Twitter key word search juxtaposed next to CRM data. (Sorry, personal rant.) And if you’re wondering about the title, everything with me is about World Domination (more at the end of the post).
5) Is Social Media Distracting to Core Business Functions?
More and more companies are using social media for customer service. Social media isn’t just the domain of marketing. It has huge value for product development, customer support and CRM/sales. To keep these tools valuable, you need to use them properly and set up the right infrastructure to manage them. For example, a good monitoring system with a decision tree and ticketing to flag comments and determine what part of the company they should be routed to and then assign them to a specific individual who can address appropriately.
6) Social CRM: A recycled buzzword or a sustainable business strategy
I am on a quest to understand Social CRM. Not so I can be an early pundit shouting “to dos” at companies or pointing out their mistakes; but so I can really understand the value proposition it can bring to an organization, their constituents and ultimately my clients. I even joined the Social CRM Pioneers Google group to start marinating in what influencers are talking about and it’s been good, real good.
I have read several excellent definitions of social CRM but I am yet to be satisfied. I often try and put myself in my client’s shoes and evaluate whether a given definition (program or strategy) makes sense for the business. So far, a lot of what I have read is either fluff or so high level that it’s not actionable. And from my experience working in the enterprise, a strategy that is not actionable is usually just someone’s really good idea that will never get implemented.
7) R-Buttons and the Open Marketplace
Three things happen in a marketplace. One is transaction, another is conversationand the third is relationship. Let’s talk about what you, as a customer (not just aconsumer), can do with each.
Transaction
Let’s start with price. Here in the industrialized world, price has been something that sellers have set, and buyers have paid, ever since John Wanamaker invented the price tag in the late 1800s. In some cases buyers have had room to haggle (such as with buying a horse or a car), but on the whole we customers pay what sellers ask. Or we move on.
8 ) How Insurance Companies Will Influence Rates Based On Your Tweets: Social Insurance Rates
Expect insurance and wellness companies to monitor social data, then reward –and penalize member actions.
Companies Want Accurate Customer Data and Social Data Promises a Gold Mine
In our recent research report on Social CRM, we studied how companies will use social data to amend existing customer databases. We mapped out which use cases are ready now, and which ones we expect to see in the future. We expect in the future that companies will give customers an improved customer experience, or improve innovation of products and services by using customer data. (SCRM use cases: CX1, 2 and I1). Just as companies use previous purchasing behavior, demographics, psychographics and other studies, we expect companies to take advantage of the social data that customers are providing to the public, in order to make better decisions.
9) Jive Named Leader By Gartner In Social CRM Quadrant
Jive Software is one of the fastest growing Social Business Software companies in the world. Communication has been drastically altered with the advent of the social web, rendering traditional corporate communication, both internal and external, archaic. Social Business is a concept that has risen out of the emergence of the social web and indoctrinates new ways to engage employees, customers and others out in the turbulent waters of the social web. Helping manage these processes are social software providers, with Jive coming out on top according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social CRM, 2010. Read more after the jump.
10) Weekly Poll: Is Salesforce.com Chatter Really That Unique? Does it Matter?
It all sounds good when Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff is on stage like he was today, stirring the faithful with his rousing presence. If you ever get the chance, go see Benioff present. He has a style that’s part P.T. Barnum, part passionate geek.
With Chatter, Salesforce.com is embracing the concept of the activity stream. And customers do seem to like the flow that comes with a river of news. Geeks have been shouting about this style of receiving news for years. RSS initiated many of us to the way data can flow into our aggregarors. We first heard Dave Winer talk about the concept. It has since become a foundation element in the user experience for a line of apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed.
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