Social CRM applications refer to the practice of CRM with social media platforms; which tools are available, how to use them and when.
Social Medias today offer a wide range of effective possibilities to communicate with customers or prospects. Thus these platforms are becoming the tools with which you maintain and manage your social CRM; these are the Social CRM applications.
Practically social CRM is practiced through the use if different social CRM applications – functions that run with the social platforms and assist you in interacting better with your customers.
The first Social CRM Application – the Chat Platform
Make it Easier for the customer to call you. Researches and case studies show that sales over the internet increase once you initiate a direct conversation with your customer.
The chat application is one of the oldest (if not the first) social CRM application. With chat application you gain a smaller but significant advantage over your competition – you initiate another channel of communication with the customer.
You can choose the standard chat applications offered by Google or Facebook or you can install plug-in on your website for chat; the customer visits your web site and initiates a chat. Make sure that the chat function saves the conversation with the customer – this is an important history.
Applications for Customer Profile
Create a customer database and customer profiles based on information gathered from the social networks. Off course the traditional address book of our days is no more relevant.
Field entries like fax number will not be necessary here. Instead to system should offer a solution to gather effective master data that will assist you communicating better with the customer on the social network; his Facebook, Twitter or Linked-in account. It is called building a customer profile.
Monitor your Interaction with Customers over the different Social CRM Applications
Plug-ins for operating the different social media applications and platforms are available today and they are getting more important every day. In order to systemize the social media communication with the customers you can use a software application that centralizes for the user all the platforms on one screen.
The user does not need to jump form one website to the other in order to follow, check status of customers or get updated on his or her tweets. The flow of information will be presented on one application– something like an “operations room”.
Effectively the system should be able to collect and save this data as history. Take it one step further and you will have a link from one data feed to customer’s data and history.
Saleforce suggests a tool for the service management – Service Cloud. Service Cloud consolidates all inputs of the social media platforms and uses it to increase service efficiency and revenues.
Marketing Campaign over the Social Platforms
This is a strategic decision. After establishing yourself as a business with presence on the social media you would like to start marketing campaigns over the social media.
Marketing campaign with social media is very different in its concept and tactic from the traditional marketing campaign. Techniques and methods will be discussed in another article. But the fact is that the social media is an environment where a lot of potential customers and prospects are hanging out and willing to engage in a conversation. You need to be there and initiate this conversation.
The Idea is to create a campaign from within the CRM software and have the ability to follow its impact: the number of likes, the re-tweets, the replies. The extent of the campaign or its budget does not matter. The goal of these a marketing campaign over the social network is to create leads based on the reaction on the social media.
Functional Social Friends
If your business is ran by many function; sales and delivery, service and accounting – I would recommend that each will have its account on the different social platforms in order to communicate with the customers on the social media.
For example the service technician may have a designated Facebook account with which customers (who are now his friends) can ask questions or post inquiries. Personal management can have an account on Linked In or Xing in order to “hunt” the best talents. The stock management may have communication channels with its customers with which they are informed about their deliveries.
Comments are closed.