I had a recent conversation with a colleague who has been in the CRM business for many years and was thinking about the relationship between social media and the art and science of CRM. When I first got involved in social media it occurred to me that social media is CRM in its purest form. Going back a few years ago, all you could do was “manage” customers through outbound email, mail or phone contact. It was systematic, but – on balance – you were doing more “talking at” than “talking with” customers.
Social media is less systematic – you can’t just roll out a program and check off completed tasks. However, when done well, you are meeting your customers (and prospects) where they gather, hearing about what is important to them, and responding. This mirrors real-life relationships and, therefore, increases the quality of the contact. For some, it may seem time-consuming to have these one-on-one conversations, but – in reality – for each person responded to, there are many more that are listening in with the ability to send a link and get even more people involved. The reach is very long.
It seems artificial to separate out the concept of Customer Relationship Management from social media at this point in time. Customers, like all of us, don’t really liked to be managed. Maybe it should be renamed Customer Relationship Engagement?
http://catherinesherwood.com/2009/10/is-social-media-the-latest-iteration-of-crm/
Monday, October 5, 2009
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I agree that Social Media is the new form of CRM - without needing the massive expenditures of CRM systems. That is the key. You can use Facebook, Twitter and perhaps new tools coming out that we have not seen yet to satisfy this function. Lots of money saved for the business and customers being contacted in better ways for interaction.
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