Social CRM – Social media as a channel for customer management

Along with “standard” managing channels for a relationship with the customers and your communication with them, almost all companies today are using social media as one of their communication channels, some even as their main one. An increasing number of companies see their fans as potential customers for their service or product. At that very moment, when fans/followers/friends (3F) become (potential) customers, it is necessary to find a way to manage them and to lead them.

Paul Greenberg defined social CRM:

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 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.

When we first started to talk about CRM, back in 2012, it implied something a bit different than it does today. CRM is an evolving business strategy, and it’s essential to keep up with its trends. When we’re talking about Social CRM, it is, first of all, a strategy, which is supported by all kinds of different tools. The strategy is based on two things: involvement with your clients plus interaction with them, along with transactions as the by-product of those two things (source Social Media Examiner). Social CRM is still CRM, a background process for managing the relations with your clients.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

The companies of today use CRM strategies and tools that are connected to standard channels of client relations.

The whole marketing message and relationship used to flow in only one-way. CRM consists of sales, marketing, and support, whose main purpose is to push the client through the funnel for the purpose of maintaining your client for a longer period of time. In order for your business to function properly, it is imperative that your two departments (marketing & sales) work together.  Traditional CRM is highly based on data and information about the customers gathered by the brand. That data and information are being stored in the CRM system which enables the company a better targeting of their potential clients.

Social CRM

In traditional CRM, a customer is basically not a part of the CRM, because, a big collaboration and a relationship simply aren’t there.

The whole marketing message and relationship used to flow in only one-way. CRM consists of sales, marketing, and support, whose primary purpose is to push the client through the funnel to maintain your client for a more extended period of time. For your business to function properly, it is imperative that your two departments (marketing & sales) work together.  Traditional CRM is highly based on data and information about the customers gathered by the brand. That data and information are being stored in the CRM system which enables the company a better targeting of their potential clients.

Evolution

Social CRM isn’t something new that replaces the classic CRM; it’s a simple the evolution of CRM. Before maintaining a good relationship with your clients and customers, you should first of all, establish a good managing system for your employees so that they could empower your business strategy. If every single person follows the same CRM philosophy, the communications with your clients, customers, and buyer instantly become much more effective. At Kontra, we used Active Collab, but then switched to Productive. It’s a great project management tool where you can keep track of time spent on projects and (more relevant to this topic) communicate with your clients by adding them to a certain project related with them.

When it comes to communicating with your customers (and buyers), 25% of Facebook and Twitter users expect an answer to their requests via social media within an hour. With proper CRM, you can make that happen.

Where’s the (R)evolution?

The tricky part today is making your CRM work in today’s conditions. Whether your sales department is just one person or a team, it can be quite challenging for them to keep a quality relationship with all of the clients, not to mention your customers on account of their possible immense number in total. This business obstacle can be solved with the smart utilization of tools like pipedrive and cloze. Remember, every client, every social media user likes to feel essential and absolutely loves to feel the custom approach towards them. Use it for building a better and stronger connection with them, it will empower your business.

What to do?

• Listen to what your customers are saying
• Analyze those stories
• Connect those stories with already existent data inside the CRM
• react to those stories

What is your way of managing your customers on social media? Do you have a developed strategy of managing and communication with your customer?