A New Approach to Customer Relationship Management

Analysis of some major Social Customer Relationship Management platforms
The emergence and use of social media and other Web 2.0 tools has drastically altered how organizations connect with their customers.  There are so many social networking sites and applications today with some more popular than others.

Twitter is one of the best examples of a fast growing social media that is changing the face of marketing today. According to Solis (2010), Twitter is more of a series of interconnected social nicheworks and less of a social network. It brings together different social networks, communities of like minded individuals and professionals. Twitter offers an interest Graph which allows individuals access to indexable, organized and searchable streams where they can freely express sentiments, directly and indirectly communicate with one another and share thoughts and information on various brands or general trends. The company recently acquired Tweetdeck. TweetDeck is an Adobe AIR application that allows uses to access various social networking sites at the same time. Some of the networks one can connect to using tweetdeck are, twitter, facebook, google, Buzz, MySpace, LinkedIn and Foursquare. The application is compatible with several operating systems including Mac, Linux, OSX and Windows. An Android version was added recently (Wikipedia 2011).

Twitter purchased TweetDeck on May 25, 2011 for almost $50million which included both cash and stock. According to Empson, (2011), A deal was on the way between TweetDeck and Bill Gross’ UberMedia for a sale between $25 & $30million. Twitter made a counteroffer of almost $50million which Tweetdeck could not refuse. Tweetdeck makes social networking more interesting for users. The program allows for multiple interfaces to be shown all that the same time. It also allows users to split the people they follow into groups, a very useful feature to many users. The client supports URL shortening which can be done on-the-fly. It is obvious that the management of twitter see the need to expand their business through acquisition to prepare for the continued growth that is to come in the social CRM industry. Twitter is yet to go public however, investors value twitter to be worth about $4.1 billion. (Yin, 2011)

Twitter represents much more than real time focus groups and connectivity. Information contained in certain tweets published by notable individuals possessing the capacity to influence agendas and resulting activities. And even in aggregate, everyday users define the direction of the stream and ultimately impact the subjects of their conversations. Monitoring and analysis activities of individuals and potential customers on a platform like twitter can help sharpen an organizations strategy

A recent study by ExactTarget and CoTweet which surveryed about 1500 respondents reveals an important part of the social ecosystem that demonstrates why businesses need to consider not just a 360 approach, but a socialized approach. Of the consumers surveyed, 72% publish blog posts at least monthly, 70% comment on blogs, and 61% write at least one product review monthly. The social consumer is vocal and they’re connected.  Considering now that audiences are shifting from content consumers to curators and creators, our market is now defined by audiences with audiences with audiences. Individuals maintain active and expanding social graphs and as they grow, the network effect only escalates (Solis, 2010).

Linkedin is a good example of a social networking site for business. LinkedIn according to CrunchBase, is the world’s largest online networking site for professionals. It has over 100million users representing more than 200 countries globally. It is the fastest growing networking site for professionals. It is free and allows people that join to create business contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients. Individuals have the ability to create their own expert profiles that can be viewed by others in their network, and also view the profiles of their own contacts.

68% of LinkedIn users are 35 or older, 74% have a college degree or better and 39% make more than $100,000 a year. As those stats illustrate, although LinkedIn may not have the buzz of Facebook or Twitter right now, it has an enviable demographic base (Wasserman 2011).

According to LiveWire, Business Smiths claims to have used linkedin to achieve their set out gaol to drive traffic and build brand awareness without spending. The company’s management notes that with linkedIn they hit a record of over 500 hits in a day after just an hour’s time spent.

Facebook is also a big name in the industry for social networks. Facebook made between $280 million and $300 million, according to many reports by the end of 2008 even when there was an economic crisis in that year.  The company’s revenues likely reached between $600 million and $700 million for 2009, according to reports.

50% of mobile internet traffic in the UK is for Face-Book. One can only imagine what this could mean for a bad customer experience. The network is big in the area of brand advertising too making huge amounts in cash through advertising brands on pages. A Ford Explorer Lanuch on Facebook recently generated more traffic than expected that the company decided they were going all out on the social networking site.

Dell as an example of an Organization utilizing SCRM

Dell used a similar strategy when it got into the computer market; it organized a program whereby the firm listens to its employees to get feedback on products and new product ideas. This is almost what social customer relationship management is all about. These networks allows dell to listen not just to staff but also to customers on a much larger scale. Dell runs an active facebook and twitter page that allows the company

Dell computers have been on Twitter for years as part of their business strategy. Dell uses Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in our products and services, gather real-time feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other influential people. The company is so into the network that it has almost all departments represented on the network from sales to corporate to support and more. The company claims to have make about $3 million through twitter since 2007.

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Before social media companies would spend heavily on mass media advertising and promotions, investing in costly research to better understand their customer base and sometimes these expensive researches might not yield results and many still do. There was one occasion when I placed an order with McDonalds for some burgers after placing the order I decided I didn’t want what I ordered anymore. There was a need to call them up for a change of order as soon as possible. I tried many times to get the operator but could not. The line was busy every single time I tried. Come to think of it, if that particular McDonalds outlet that I called had a functioning Twitter account or Face-book, I could have immediately sent a tweet or instant message to the outlet stating that my order should be changed. Software like TweetDeck would make it possible for a staff of the outlet to read messages from anyone following them instantly. Spending heavily on advertising and promotions with less in the area of after sales could be detrimental to the reputation of any business venture.

Erik Qualman stated that “We do not have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it.” A McDonald’s outlet might have a running twitter or Face-book page but if their social CRM strategy is not properly aligned to the overall business strategy, the SCRM strategies might fail in the long run. There are companies with presence online but hardly update their sites. This might be because they feel much stronger in the offline arena however such companies imagine will be affected. Consumers see them as non productive and non-proactive even if they were. If online perception of customers on social networks affect brand image now wait a couple years from now. The influence is bound to grow to higher heights that companies that fail to embrace social customer relationship management get left behind. The diagram below obtained from a recent Chess Group research shows how companies can align social CRM as a part of their business strategy. From just looking at the diagram one can already envision the influence medias like blogger, facebook, twitter, linkedin, and many more is having on various industry right now and what it could be like in the near future.  

The diagram below fig 1.0 is a good outline of how an organization can better embrace social CRM in its activites. Facebook, twitter, blogger and more are all utilized to reach out to a much broader network of potential clients. They serve here as listening tools which the company uses to evaluate market trends and customers behavior. All information derived can be stored for future reference and analysis using the organizations CRM software or platform. Based on information drawn using these networks, the organization is able to better reach and react to its customers immediate needs and even use analysis derived to come up with future market strategies. Social networking sites should not just be used for promoting brand awareness and discounts. There is a lot more to it that those, it should can be used as a form of KPI to measure performance based on feedback got from people who use these media

Fig 1.0 Diagram of an overall Social CRM Process. Source: Jmorganmarketing

With Social CRM product information, purchase advice and technical help is disseminated from consumers to other consumers and sometimes it is even without the involvement of the product of service provider. Such a shift could result in opportunities and might be risky for some organizations to implement.  For any organization to derive better value from social communication channels, they have to be able to properly adopt a “social CRM” strategy. Such a strategy could help with customers all though the buying process and any other point at a much lower cost compared to traditional marketing and advertising channels. 


In conclusion, organizations need to take social CRM more seriously has the sector is bound to grow at a much faster rate in the years to come. Companies must remember that social media and Web 2.0 will not work for all customer needs and segments, even though they can significantly alter the role played by more traditional contact channels. However, Social CRM presents many opportunities to build a distinctive capability that can serve as a building block of high performance: a method to potentially connect more tightly with customers at lower cost and in a way that provides a real differentiation from competitors.