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What is the value in integrating social media with your CRM system?
Our company runs an older version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I found out that the latest update is going to include some social media integration and thought that would be a good way to pitch an upgrade to my management team. Do you agree? In this day and age, is social media integration a worthwhile tool to invest in?
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7 Answers
Lisa,
The answer to your question is it depends on your company's customers and prospects.
If they are active in social media, then incorporating social into your CRM is a huge benefit to help you collect actionable intelligence.
Social tech platforms comprise multiple components: traditional (transactional) CRM, social CRM (scrm), branded communities, social monitoring, plus additional bits and pieces. And right now to get all the components requires building best-of-breed platforms.
The best place to start is by determining your goal for an social platform. A focus primarily on monitoring will lead you in one direction while one on engagement in another.
Here are two; pre-funnel prospecting - giving your sales teams more information about protects, giving them the opportunity to have more meaningful conversations & the ability to enhance customer relationships - and work to create customer evangelists through social media.
Integrating Social Media with CRM, from an internal perspective unites the organization in terms of the customer experience. Externally, listening on social channels offers new insight and engagement opportunities. I've seen support, sales and marketing transform the biggest nay-sayers into the best evangelists, thanks to social media tools. Integration makes these efforts even more productive.
I would think the investment in an upgrade of customer relations software depends on benefits the upgrade brings. Often software upgrades don't add features you really need. So, if your company is actively engaging customers on social networks then an upgrade to include social media integration would be of benefit. A great benefit of social networks in customer relations is the information customers provide about products and services. That information is a form of intelligence when sifted and sorted with other customer data. If you plan to argue an upgrade make your points regarding benefits to your company in terms managers can relate to and not simply that the software includes social media features. Good luck.
easy.. it helps you to better connect with your customers, to improve your relationship with them. Once you have a relationship, they tend to be a repeat customer, help you improve your product and increase add-on sales.
All really great points above... one other point that is more forward looking:
Upgrading your CRM software to allow you to include social network attributes to each customer prepares you for the inevitable channel switching that will occur with certain customers. If you already have their networks attached to their record AND have the ability to specify push communications via those networks, you can (in the future) allow the customer to define their preferred communication channel. No more email, email, email. Some people want to hear from you via twitter, some on facebook. You can't keep track of that preference without some type of socially-enabled CRM system.
Social media IS interaction with your customers. In some cases it is just a minor touch in their lives but in most cases social media is an integral part of your customers, and yours, lives. Therefore if you aren't utilizing social media you are truly not interacting with MOST of your customers, it really is that elementary.
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