HP has upgraded their customer relationship management services and announced the same in a press release. The enhanced CRM Services are trying to stay more relevant in today’s time by incorporating social networks and trying to form direct links with the customer.

The new HP Social Enterprise Services seek to engage clients in direct conversations with customers and increase business productivity by gaining insight into their needs. Since, conventional CRM programs have been designed before the social-networking phenomena, HP has realized the importance of revamping its customer relationship management services. Thus, the enhancements announced in the CRM are based mainly around Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter and other social networks.

“Leading companies, particularly in business-to-consumer industries, have recognized the importance of tapping into customer-to-customer communications and engaging in these social conversations,” said Joe Outlaw, principal contact center analyst, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert). “Drawing on its strong analytics capabilities and deep CRM experience, HP has created a uniquely powerful social CRM service. This service offers companies a full set of tools, and methodologies designed for rapid start-up and seamless broadening and deepening of social CRM programs as strategies dictate.”

Some key enhancements made by HP to its CRM service are:

• Listening Service - monitors a client brand or product in social media channels to identify new engagement opportunities.
• Analysis Service - leverages various analytics to gain insight into client, competitor and industry trends to refine the company's social media strategy.
• Routing Service - directs engagement opportunities to internal stakeholders, such as customer service, marketing, sales and product development for prompt action.
• Engagement Service - leverages insights derived from analytics to rapidly respond to customer inquiries and comments in social media channels.
• Reporting Service - provides daily snapshots, weekly summaries and monthly reports of insights, analysis and opportunities to measure program success.

The new HP Social Enterprise Services not only improves communication between clients and their customers, but also enhances contact center performance. This is achieved by leveraging advanced analytics from HP Labs, along with Vertica and Autonomy (News - Alert), both HP companies, for structured and unstructured data. The revamped program has been designed to incorporate social media channels into existing contact center channels to deliver new products and services desired by the customer.

“Social media has become a game changer in company-customer interactions, and it needs to be integrated into an organization's contact center,” said Danila Meirlaen, vice president, Business Process Outsourcing, HP. “HP Social Enterprise Services take customer relations to a new level with analytic tools that make it easy to engage with customers via social networks, turning those interactions into positive outcomes for both the customer and organization.”