Michael MaozThe places where customer processes most need the influence of the ‘crowd’ or community are the places where they are utilized least. Banking and health insurance and government are areas where massive disconnects occur between institution and the end consumer of the services. So what if you have to ask around about the impact of ocean current on a kayak? How does that compare to medical forms and coverage versus out of coverage and efficacy of treatments? But the combination of regulatory issues, compliance, privacy and lack of incentive conspire to hamper innovation.
There are hundreds of terrific examples of Wiki tools and shared knowledge bases used to energize many processes in marketing and customer service and tech support. But there are two corrolaries in all of the success stories: the first is that they require just as much planning, care, feeding and investment as initiatives of similar scope ten years ago, and the second is that practically none of the social experiments is tightly integrated with CRM systems that update a customer record, or influence the treatment of the customer who has posted a blog or sent a Tweet or posted to Facebook. That means there is no process, no consistency, and no improvement.
Don’t be fooled by “Social” vendors that say that they have ‘solutions.’ They have bolt on widgets, and that is fine for now, but not sufficient. The heavy lifting of integrating the output of these initiatives into CRM systems where they can merge with existing customer records is only infrequently occuring today.
The reality in the enterprise is that “Social” is the debutante everyone wants to take to the ball, while so many initiatives (like process consistency, in-line decision support for service agents, and web analytics) take a back seat. It is time to move these social projects a bit away from the marketing departement and ad agencies, and get them closer to the core of the business. Then we will get some better process work going and a bit more synergy.
Category: CRM Customer Centric Web Innovation and Customer Experience Leadership Social CRM Social Networking Social Software Twitter Tags:
11 responses so far ↓
1 Scott Annan May 3, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Michael,
Great post – fully agree with the fact that social vendors are selling bolt-ons and not integrating with the processes.
However, I wonder if the processes that companies are using are the right ones. There is a lot of hype in the enterprise, as you mention, around social networks, but I’m not convinced that social networks are where its at for the enterprise (compared to small businesses).
Conversely, shared knowledge, integrating the customer in the business, and building stronger relationships should be the goal of every business. But this may not be a process problem.
Appreciate the insight.
2 Jon Ferrara - CEO - Nimble CRM May 3, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hi Michael,
I agree with your statement \The heavy lifting of integrating the output of these initiatives into CRM systems where they can merge with existing customer records is only infrequently occurring today.\
Many CRM vendors are rushing to bolt on \Social\ to their existing systems rather than finding ways to fully integrate the ability to Listen and Engage the customer and prospects througout thier entire CRM platform.
I find from my past experiences that these type of market changes benefit from a complete rewrite of the CRM concept from the ground so that the synergy that comes from integrating social listening and communications/dialog can be truly leveraged across all parts of a company; Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Tech Support.
It will be interesting to see the developments in this category as we move forward.
Happy to see you writing about this topic.
Best,
Jon Ferrara
CEO | Nimble – More Customers, Less Work
http://www.nimble.com
3 Jen Page May 3, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Michael – great post. You’re exactly right about the need for integration and the idea that a social strategy requires just as much hard work and planning as any other piece of the business.
For several years, I think a lot of us were truly expecting social networking to be a magic bullet. We were waiting to see what kind of fabulous benefits would fall out of the cloud (if you’ll excuse my outrageously mixed metaphors). Now it seems almost obvious that, in order for social interactions to mean anything to the business, they have to be integrated in our day-to-day processes. We have to be able to measure, act, improve, etc. And we simply can’t achieve that level of sophistication if social initiatives are managed by marketing/PR in a silo.
Thanks for the insightful post!
Jen Page
Product Marketing Manager, RightNow Technologies
4 Esteban Kolsky May 3, 2010 at 2:21 pm
So,
“Don’t be fooled by “Social” vendors that say that they have ’solutions.’ They have bolt on widgets, and that is fine for now, but not sufficient. The heavy lifting of integrating the output of these initiatives into CRM systems where they can merge with existing customer records is only infrequently occuring today”
Amen to that- glad I am not the only who sees it that way.
Esteban
5 Bas Zurburg May 3, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Thanks Michael, I like the points in your post. I agree with you.
Many social tools are marketed and run by ‘ad agencies’ as you call them. Many of these companies don’t really act social. The use these news tools (media) and channels for the same old tactics. One way direction of information, no listening and no integration.
There is still a lot of educating to do.
6 Social and CRM, but not much Social CRM. : : crm May 3, 2010 at 3:36 pm
[...] Więcej: Social and CRM, but not much Social CRM. [...]
7 Jon Ferrara - CEO - Nimble CRM May 3, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Hi Michael,
I agree with your statement “The heavy lifting of integrating the output of these initiatives into CRM systems where they can merge with existing customer records is only infrequently occurring today.”
Many CRM vendors are rushing to bolt on “Social” to their existing systems rather than finding ways to fully integrate the ability to Listen and Engage the customer and prospects throughout their entire CRM platform.
I find from my past experiences that these type of market changes benefit from a complete rewrite of the CRM concept from the ground so that the synergy that comes from integrating social listening and communications/dialog can be truly leveraged across all parts of a company; Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Tech Support.
It will be interesting to see the developments in this category as we move forward.
Happy to see you writing about this topic.
Best,
Jon Ferrara
CEO | Nimble – More Customers, Less Work
8 Most Tweeted Articles by CRM Experts May 4, 2010 at 10:55 am
[...] 2 Tweets CRM Magazine Blog » Talking CRM at #Convergence 2 Tweets Social and CRM, but not much Social CRM. 2 Tweets IBM Acquires Cast Iron Systems | Cast Iron Systems 2 Tweets [...]
9 Ms. Genevieve May 6, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Great Article! Interestingly enough, I’d just read the following news
” Parature Brings A Customer Support Tab To Facebook Pages ”
The have implemented a great use of FB and Social Media to support customers and encourage their (very public) positive feedback
“As customer conversations are increasingly taking place on the walls of Facebook Pages, Parature’s application allows companies to actually integrate a branded “Support” tab. Customers can post a comment to a corporation’s Facebook Support wall, which is then pushed into Parature’s software as a ticket with the Facebook customer listed on the ticket. And the customer service representative can push an update by responding directly on the wall…Parature allows the option for a customer to start a live chat with a customer service rep directly from the Facebook Fan Page. Of course, one of the goals of these features is to get the customer to share their positive support experiences with their friends through Facebook streams.”
Read full article here:
http://wannabegeek.org/latest-news/285798-parature-brings-a-customer-support-tab-to-facebook-pages
10 Social and CRM, but not much Social CRM. May 7, 2010 at 12:11 am
[...] here to read the rest: Social and CRM, but not much Social CRM. If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it! Tagged with: crm • [...]
11 Munish Gandhi May 17, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Michael,
Your post prompted me to write about 3 patterns used to integrate social data into CRM systems. The first pattern is named “Bolt-on Integration” in homage to this article
.
The article can be found at: http://munishgandhi.com/2010/05/implementing-social-crm-3-patterns/ and references the article on this page.
Munish