Social media and mobile care are important for businesses to succeed. But instead of offering social media alone – which some organizations attempt – it has to be part of a larger customer relationship management (CRM) program.
Social media should be part of a CRM program of phone calls and e-mail, according to industry analysts. “CRM is an extension of your customer, and social CRM is a technological extension of your CRM strategy,” Zach Hofer-Shall, an analyst at Forrester (News - Alert), explained in a recent report from SearchCRM. “Companies have spent the better part of a decade with CRM. They’d be hard-pressed to replace it with social media. They’d have a lot more success with social media fitting into their CRM technologies.”
An ad-hoc approach should be avoided, because it can lead to poor communication between departments.
“The problem there is it doesn’t scale and you can have problems,” said Bruce Temkin, a managing partner at Temkin Group.
Instead, a business should define a strategy for social CRM, and include those CRM technology and practices that have worked well in the past.
Also, larger companies with an IT department and customer support unit tend to run independently. To succeed with CRM and social media, there needs to be strategies in place that go across departments, Zach Hofer-Shall said.
In addition, it’s better not to set up a distinct social media unit. “All those efforts need to be coordinated across the company,” Temkin said. “You need critical mass, where almost everyone in the company understands it. When you have companies that have standalone social media, they’ll think of it as a standalone lab. But at some point, it needs to be propelled and immersed in the organization.”
Also, setting up technology for social media is time-consuming for a business. It’s quicker if it’s outsourced.
It was also reported that some social CRM platforms deal with inbound items, which include listening to customers, Hofer-Shall said. On outbound matters, social CRM tools send information to social media sites like Twitter or LinkedIn (News - Alert).
In addition, technology needs to be used to analyze unstructured data. Social media, after all, has a lot of unstructured data. “You need to analyze email and calls as well as what people are saying in social media,” Temkin said. “Companies will need to make sense of all of it.” Analytical tools, too, are needed to help clarify key trends.
Social media training should also integrate with CRM goals. Change needs to occur in an organization to implement social media tools. Train and empower employees to manage social CRM, analysts recommend. Bigger companies need to give guidelines to employees and freedom for them to act on their own, but advise employees to stay within relevant company policies.
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Edited by Braden Becker