Real Time Social CRM Phase I

So the term Social CRM has been thrown around a lot lately; due to the emergence of the “Social” audiences such as customers and prospects, with that it brings a requirement of bidirectional engagement and collaboration. The need to integrate traditional practices of CRM to accommodate this medium has added to the urgency of an effective and efficient CRM strategy. Recently Microsoft announced Public Sector On Demand putting Web 2.0 strategies into work by allowing their channel partners and general audience to utilize Neighborhood America’s first Business Service REVEAL for collaboration and idea generation. The need for more effective collaboration and the need to surface the best ideas for innovation are the main goals for the site but there is another level of collaboration happening with the integration of REVEAL’s database with Microsoft’s Dynamic CRM data base.
I have given several presentations called “Walking through your Social Media Blueprint” in preparation of launching a corporate Enterprise Social Network. There are 5 steps I discuss in Community Building:

• Foundation


• Mission


• Growth


• Plan


• Assessment

Step 3 Growth is where Social CRM integration can assist the most in getting your community off the ground by integration of your CRM database with the community:

Growth
How are we going to get this community off the ground?

• Assets- What resources can you tap into to build your community?


• Seeding- How will you initially draw prospects and customers to your community?


• Membership- What recruitment and retention tactics will be used to keep the community active?

Leveraging your CRM database in the Growth Stage is an effective use of information you currently have and hope to obtain. Using your CRM database will allow you to send a segmented invite to your current customer base offering up a multitude of incentives and benefits for joining and participation. By knowing your ideal customer target you can then use your CRM database for the purpose of sending out invites for prospects that fit your ideal customer pointing them to areas of interest focusing on earning their business such as ratings on your product, case studies and future enhancements. By offering invitees pertinent information and offers based on interest, demographics or geographic locations you can entice them to give more profile data such as interests, mobile phone numbers (for mobile campaigns), Twitter updates and other key information. When they join your community the information in their profile is updated to your CRM database. Their interests can be gauged by Lead Scoring and initiation of CRM workflow and processes to target marketing in future campaigns.

This is just a sampling of what can be done with a Phase I approach to Social CRM integration.
First let’s take a look at a diagram of Phase 1 of this integration to see exactly what is happening today and then we can understand the CRM mix of People, Processes and Technology. The Social Community in the diagram is Neighborhood America's Reveal and the CRM solution is Microsoft Dynamics. The diagram references Social CRM in a Public Sector setting but can apply to commercial as well. In this Public Sector On Demand the scenarios are:

1. Citizen (Any individual) joins the Reveal Community filling in the basic profile fields and is added to the community


2. The profile information is simultaneously added to the CRM database at the least with name, e-mail address, appropriate alerts and processes can be kicked off internally.


3. The CRM database can now interact with the individual with updates offers to get more profile information from the individual. Segmentation benefits, offers based on geographic information can be leveraged as trust builds.


4. Any additional updates to their profile by the individual can be made


5. These updates will be subsequently added to the CRM database

While this first Phase was created in a Public Sector environment let’s take a look at it in a general sense utilizing the concepts of Social Media and Social CRM. Companies are now taking a hard look at Social Media solutions and trying to map them to their Strategic Initiatives. This same mapping is done with CRM so why should it be addressed as separate entities?
I will start with the most common analogy utilizing CRM and Social Media:

• Customer Service- Forums and discussions, two common forms of Social Media has been around for as long as the internet (Ask Al Gore). The ability for customers to address issues with product, service as well as product enhancements are not new in Social Media but technology has enhanced that ability. I think this is one of the most frequented places for product and service support.


• Marketing- One of the key points in Social Media around marketing is “making sense of the noise”, harnessing the buzz, getting people to talk favorably about your product and company as well as knowing when they are not speaking positively about you. The weapons of social media are rampant and in the hands of everyone, owned by no one. It is kind of like the wild, Wild West! Not to mention the SEO benefits of your company and product being found when people are looking for a solution.


• Sales- The placing of this component predicates the above because what happens in Customer Service and Marketing definitely impacts sales in a positive and negative way. As in the above Customer Service reference people researching a particular item they are looking to purchase will visit the forum area to get an idea of what is being said about the product as well as how service issues are addressed. The one question I am constantly being asked is how does the utilization of Social Media leverage lead scoring strategies. This first phase of profile collection into the CRM system may serve as the first step in identification if handled in a non intrusive manner.

Keep in mind that this first Phase of Social CRM Integration is a big step in leveraging current CRM database to extend your reach to your Social audience.