See if this scenario sounds familiar: your customer relationship management has been working its butt off to send out direct marketing campaigns, calling customers, and collecting data, but none of it is working.
Guess what? You probably need some social skills.
No, not social in the “I’m outgoing and upbeat” way, but social as in genuine engagement and interaction. Social is a game changer in the customer relationship management world. So if you’re floundering with keeping customers interested in your company, combining traditional and social CRM techniques will definitely keep you afloat.
What’s the Deal With All This Social?
Today’s consumers prefer to be treated like people and not stats, and they are looking to digital means over traditional marketing to make a connection with you. Econsultancy.com and Forbes recently published some stats about how social CRM is making a serious impact in the business world:
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By the end of the year, 20% of the world’s population will be on some sort of social network. And 53% of Twitter users don’t hesitate to recommend companies in their tweets. (Econsultancy.com)
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More than 50% of consumers now rely on social media to contact a company with their praises or complaints, and one in three would rather interact via social media than phone. (Forbes)
With the rise of social and digital media, social customer relationship management can no longer be ignored if your company is serious about staying in business (which doesn’t even need to be asked, right?).
How Traditional CRM and Social CRM Complement Each Other
Traditional and social customer relationship management actually fill in each other’s holes and complement drawbacks really well:
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Traditional CRM is predominantly sales-focused. Social CRM instead chooses to focus on customers first and creating conversations with them (sales are just a nifty side effect).
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A traditional CRM system works on gathering and managing customer information. Social CRM, however, is simply a way to generate customer interaction and engagement.
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Your company has to put a LOAD of effort into marketing and reaching out to customers with traditional CRM. Alternatively, customers tend to come to you with their experiences and concerns about your company through social CRM.
After looking at these complementary systems, it shouldn’t be a surprise that if you harness the power of both of these, your company will start to kick some serious CRM butt.
Picking What Works From Each CRM System (So You Can Kick that Butt)
Your next step to improving customer relationship management is figuring out what strategies you can use. Obviously, you know your company’s needs and processes best, but these are some tips that every business can benefit from.
First of all, hop on that social CRM train ASAP. The sooner you get your social profiles and accounts set up, the sooner you’ll see customers coming to your door, digital and physical.
Also, gathering data the traditional way shouldn’t be tossed out the door entirely. Even if you start interacting with customers through social means, you still need to learn about them and save that information to better serve them.
And finally, don’t assume that these two systems will always be your only options. Just as traditional customer relationship management had to change with the arrival of social, another CRM system could just as easily break in and prove its worth. Be ready to adopt that if necessary, too.
So stop working your butts off for CRM that doesn’t produce results. Instead, start kicking butt through integrated traditional and social CRM; your customers will thank you for it.
How do you plan to kick some serious CRM butt?