Harish Kotadia has posted an interesting piece on CustomerThink titled 'Social Media: The New Front End of CRM System.' Run by the boyishly handsome Bob Thompson, CustomerThink has become quite the source for such thought and opinion pieces recently.

Customer Relationship Management systems 'have undergone a fascinating technological transformation over the last decade,' Kotadia thinks, 'starting as client-server apps, followed by web-enabled CRM apps (where users can access CRM application over the Internet using their Web browsers).'

Yes, that's a lot of technological transformation, as well as 'progress in system architecture,' Kotadia finds, but notes that 'all CRM systems essentially record transactional information using pre-determined fields on the screen (front-end) to capture information in the database, and company is in total control of conversation -- should I say interrogation -- with customer at every stage.'

In other words, it doesn't matter how you gussy it up or how flash the technology, CRM is CRM. And Kotadia sees an increasing role for knowledge management in this new landscape.

But Kotadia thinks that social media channels are about to change all this: 'Social Media has empowered customers like never before,' since now you and your acquaintances can discuss, i.e. criticize, brands and products on channels that the companies have no control over. And making it even more terrifying, 'this discussion is visible to all including other customers, potential customers and competitors.'

So what to do in this brave new world? 'The best any marketer can do is to listen and learn from what customers are saying, and engage them in meaningful conversations,' Kotadia recommends. 'In other words, treat social media channels as the front-end of CRM system, capture all relevant information from channels in the database and use predictive analytics and knowledge management tools to derive insights and help in decision making.'

It is 'the responsibility of the company,' he declares, to 'record and store all relevant information from social media channels and derive value from it by using predictive analytics and knowledge management tools for effectively engaging customers.'