What is Social CRM and all the hype around it? According to Wikipedia there are many varying definitions of the term but Paul Greenberg’s is the most frequently quoted.
“Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”
Given this definition, I believe the time for social CRM is finally here. Businesses are re-wiring their systems of record to connect with social data, and becoming more customer-centric, relationship-focused, and transparent. By doing so they are gaining the best possible outcomes in terms of strategic thinking and planning as well as actual tactical execution. This webcast, “The Roadmap from Social Listening to Integrated Social Intelligence”, with SymphonyIRI, Forrester Research, and Visible®, represents a great example of how SymphonyIRI correlates social data with POS (point of sale) results to drive in-store merchandising.
And if that’s not enough proof, here are some other top reasons why integration will be critical in 2012:
1. Social Media & the Internet: No one can really be on the internet anymore without having read a blog, viewed a video, or posted a status update or comment on a social network/channel. Social media and the internet are viewed as one in the same.
2. Customer Engagement: Expect 2012 to be the year where social media monitoring platforms and other engagement tools are integrated into CRMs. Whether the engagement is for marketing purposes, to sell more and build brand loyalty, and social CRM for servicing, are the top two social priorities for 2012.
3. Mobile: With smart phones and other mobile devices, customers are going to demand faster, better, and more integrated customer experience. Customers will expect a business to know what they’re outstanding issues are even before speaking with them, and they’ll expect to get these services via mobile and tablet devices.
Social CRM relies on integrated technologies. In 2012, companies must integrate everything – internal departments, strategic objectives, you name it. Think as one, not as siloed departments or in terms of singular customer interactions. Social media value comes from integration with existing customer data and now is the time to start connecting the output.
