Social CRM

Social CRM is a relatively new business strategy that claims to improve the customer satisfaction with the company that embraces it, and the profitability of that company as well. These are two advantages that any business would strive to achieve. The title of the article begs the question: What is Social CRM? The most obvious starting point, when beginning to explain this business strategy, is to define the two individual elements of the phrasing of the strategy: social, and CRM:

CRM

• CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, except in French GRC –gestion de la relation clients. It is a business strategy that began as a philosophy that concentrated solely on improving all of the interactions between a business and each of their customers. It is a strategy that influences every department of a company, making it more streamline and creating a better experience for both the employees using the system and the customers interacting with the system, either via the website of the company or by talking to one of the employees of the company.

Social

• When used alongside CRM, ‘Social’ stands for the various platforms of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and some popular blog websites. These websites have really grown in popularity over recent years, and the combination of this popularity and the business expertise of CRM is one that is veritably successful.

To ensure one makes the best of social CRM they must be prepared to fully embrace it, and work with it treating it as a tool, and not the answer to all of the company’s problems to achieve the best results. CRM has been proven to work for a number of different companies that range from the very small and the large. Because of what CRM teaches improving the interaction between company and customer it is a necessity for every company.

The popularity and common usage of social media platforms, as stated, make it a perfect place for a company to reach out to customers. These are some of the reasons why, and one has to admit that they make quite a convincing argument when grouped together:

• Social media is the cheapest way in which to speak to a customer. In some cases social media is even completely free of charge. This can only increase the profit of a company. This alone would not be enough for social CRM to be a beneficial addition. It must improve the customer service as well as saving the company money.

• And it does improve the customer service. It offers the customer an alternative to the test of patience that is sometimes so true with the call centre experience, and it offers an alternative to the uncertainty of sending and then waiting for an email too. An interaction over a social media platform is more immediate than any other.

• Marketing is improved. Businesses can gather important information regarding their customers and their potential customers. This involves learning how customers prefer to be addressed, realizing the amount of sales pressure a company should exert on a customer, and discovering which customers are more likely to purchase an item.