A Tactical View of Social CRM – The Social Business Framework

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I spend a fair bit of time reading Paul Greenberg’s blog on Social CRM; it’s called the Social CRM: The Conversation and I’ve learned quite a bit about the industry-at-large, about the people thinking big thoughts on Social CRM and some of the definitions the industry is trying to establish around this concept. I think Paul defined Social CRM back in 09 as:
"CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It's the company's response to the customer's ownership of the conversation."
There was a lot of debate around this; you can go back to 09 and see a number of posts devoted to trying to get a handle around this idea. A few years on from this stake in the ground moment and I thought I would examine how our approach to Social Business measured up to this definition. It’s a bit of seque – Social CRM to Social Business – but it allows us to work within our client’s efforts to “define their response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” This is the high-level outline of how we approach helping our clients begin to integrate and take action from their social media analytics. We represent the Social Media Analytics piece that can help an organization tie social media data to existing traditional information, which can be used to inform outreach efforts. We recognize that while social media data is important, it represents but a single component of the social business framework. But this view aligns with the savvy enterprises that know the consumer is now at the center of everything, and that brand to consumer relationships are shifting from transactional only to include content and social-based experiences. And that each of the components feeds into and relies upon the other, because:
  • Enterprises need real-time, relevant signals to manage and nurture new sales, cross-sell and upsell opportunities, and to improve customer service/support/experience
  • Enterprises need to use signals to create better content and connect to customers in valuable ways to both the consumer and brand symbiotically
We believe that brands should listen to their consumers. Consumers are constantly sharing their ideas about what they want and need, what they like and dislike, and what is most important to them. Brands that listen to their consumers can offer them better products and learn how to best engage with the right consumers in the right place at the right time (and increasingly that is mobile). In a digitally connected world, intelligent listening makes the difference between a brand winning or losing. Of course, social data can be defined as any user-generated data: surveys, customer service chat transcripts, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. This data presents companies with a unique opportunity to begin associating consumer data with sales, customer service activity, and product development in measurable ways. So, how do we measure up against Paul’s definition? We definitely are a critical piece of the technology platform that enables the ‘collaborative conversation’. Only with precise social data – the why, what and who behind the conversation – can a company interact with a customer with the right message, at the right time and on the right platform. Here’s a great example of how social data could be used equip a company with the right message at the time right time from CNBC. Imagine if Kohl’s had had this social data insight and the infrastructure in place to route consumer insights. It could have meant the difference between exceeding consumer and market expectations or following short. How companies implement Paul’s vision of Social CRM will continue to evolve. I expect the real-time, organic nature of social media data to have much greater influence how companies will interact with their customers.