“The Customer is King” is an often used marketing tag which reflects the important idea that the direction of a business is ultimately determined by its customers.

To better understand the move from CRM to social CRM (SCRM), it’s helpful to understand the evolution and management of customer-centric relationships. A business begins with a clean slate of customer relationships. Over time, these connections grow more complex as expectations are exceeded or not met, requirements change, and competition increases. Organizations develop a need to properly manage these relationships and share information across various teams.

A social CRM system does just that, using digital technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. It is the nerve center that allows a company to manage interactions with current and future customers.

How can SCRM be achieved? How do you make it a reality?

  1. Management Buy-in – The executive suite must make SCRM a strategic priority.
  2. Strategy – The marketing team must develop a holistic strategy to integrate CRM and SCRM, including standards, staff, budget, and technology.
  3. Consistency – The marketing team must live the guidelines and procedures to “walk the walk,” and consistently deliver customer service excellence to all touch points.
  4. Integration – Marketing team must also integrate existing channels to make the customer experience (CX) more seamless and less interrupted.
  5. Flexibility – SCRM technology and processes must be flexible, caring, and responsive to the customer base to facilitate open dialogue.
  6. Social Participation – Current and potential customers need to be engaged on social platforms to gain trust and establish thought leadership with the organization’s target audience.
  7. ROI – Marketers need to be active in measuring and evaluating SCRM strategies to determine their effectiveness and contribution to achieving organizational goals.
  8. Value – SCRM strategies must create value for customers and the organization.

What value can SCRM bring to your organization?

• Is SCRM a priority in your organization?

• If customer service has such a high ROI, why is it not a priority for your organization?

Let me know!