Who currently leads the social CRM market?

Well, I guess somebody has to go first (smile). Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, is after a piece of this market. The existing CRM heavyweights are all rapidly integrating Social CRM attributes into their existing platforms. Start-ups are popping up left and right. There will be shakeout to be sure.

If you are looking for a simple yet elegant solution, keep an eye on Nimble. In full disclosure, I am a Solution Partner for this company, however, it is being developed by Jon Ferrara who founded the immensely popular Goldmine application and Nimble is being developed from the ground-up to tightly integrate all your social network activities into the CRM itself and has some fabulous tools for listening, engaging, and collaborating.

Right now it is available in a single user format only but they do plan to introduce multi-user, SFA, and full CRM suite platforms. With these will come the tools needed to fully address the customer service space (and others) so, they still have a ways to go. I think that they will get there (smile).

Thanks for letting me share!

Craig

silly question, i do of course...

I think there is still lot to be done in understanding the SCRM landscape before a clear leader can be emerged. I somehow found the first MQ by Gartner little bit distorted. since it was trying to judge different SCRM components in a whole context.

from vendors perspective, I think leaders will still emerge from existing CRM vendors like SFDC, Oracle, SAP in the long run. the acquisition of radian 6 by SFDC gives a clear hint to the SCRM market dynamics.

second MQ should look at Consultants/SIs in the same way how it is done for different CRM functions. this, MQ i believe should be out there very soon in the market.

Caty,

Gartner's definition of Social CRM is a bit confused and inconsistent. Do I consider the definition they provide in the magic quadrant report or the definition they provide in the report where they describe Social, Operational & Analytical CRM?

Even if I am to consider their latest (they certainly imply by their clauses that we should only consider their latest reports and nothing that is more than a year old, which unfortunately excludes us from referring to their not-quite-perfect-but-sufficiently-effective 8 steps to CRM from 2001 or so) their definition relies too much on the community aspect and again excludes the social media as channels and traditional CRM systems and other systems of records.

A mere traditional CRM system is not sufficient and a mere community platform is not efficient (might be effective after a fashion).

So if we are to take Gartner's definition, then their report on the Magic Quadrant for Social CRM (from 2010, since 2011 is yet to come out, if at all) should provide your answers.

If we were to consider Social CRM as a product vendor market, there is no one vendor who can provide a wide enough coverage to consider it by far a Social CRM system / solution / suite. No, there will never be a single vendor that will provide all the features required; even the traditional & mature CRM vendors cannot provide such a solution, yet. It has to be a mish-mash or mix-n-match of systems, tools & custom code. So one needs to keep an eye on a wide range of product vendors.

If we were to consider Social CRM as a analyst &/or consultant and systems integrators (C&SI) market, well, I am not touching that scenario but Mitch's answer does touch upon it. The fact that this market is pretty fragmented in terms of geographies, industries and business sizes does not make the it easier to answer your question again. I would definitely suggest someone with a good track record in implementing traditional CRM and a good understanding and decent presence in social media; a mix of both the worlds (with heavy emphasis on the traditional) is all we can hope for at this stage. So that puts almost all the traditional big wigs in the traditional CRM space again in the race, with just the social media presence and thought leadership turning out to be a key differentiator. With myself and my team well positioned. :)

That brings me to my obligatory disclosure statement that I belong to Cognizant where we have a huge experience in traditional CRM (and many other enterprise software) and also a pretty good uptake in the social media, web 2.0, communities stuff (not just me but the whole org) and provide C&SI services to the large enterprises (we tend to work with orgs with more than to billion US dollars annual revenues).

Hi Caty, I agree with both Mitch and Craig. I would say that the Social CRM is a buzzword to say "hey, what do we do with these customers getting into our business and wanting to be more then just a wallet!". I am also a consultant for Social CRM and have 2 solutions I like. The first is Nimble (I am the only consultant in France & Switzerland at the moment) as I think that it does what is necessary to have the job done, i.e. integrating contacts, monitoring there activity, engaging and merging all your social media channels in one spot! I come from sales and Nimble is fun for a salesperson and always delivering great data from your potential customers' profile. So if sales people use it : it'll work ;) The other one is a solution called Iko-System which is a competitor of Insideview, it is very simple and practical to use. Should watch after them.

But I agree with Mitch, customer comes first and creating a great tailor made experience for each customer is what should guide you in choosing your tools! I believe in Customer Centric approaches and think that channels are just ways to enhance relationship! so who do you want to serve and how? then a CRM software will respond to you needs and you customers. But never put software before knowing who are the users and what is the true job they're expecting to have done.

Whoa Cathy! I don't think there's a consensus on what social CRM is. How could there be a market leader in the space that isn't defined? On top of that, are we talking enterprise or small business?

For the enterprise, I really like Mitch Liberman's answer and follow-up analysis:

http://www.customerthink.com/blog/who_leads_the_social_crm_market_an_analysis

For the small business, here is my take:

http://blog.relenta.com/social-crm-in-practical-terms

Indeed everyone has their own view on what is really Social CRM..The objective is to analyse and engage with customers through Social Media in order to build trust and loyalty. A loyal customer is more likely to repurchase it and recommend to others (i.e. "Lire This" or "+1" buttons). By tracking social media information and adding it to CRM or support software, a company can have a more complete view of the reactions of its clients. By managing users who are recommending or are criticizing its products, a company can trigger responses to positive or negative feedback and quickly put in place actions to address customer problems. I don't think there are really a single leader in this field as many vendors originally from different horizons claim now to have a Social CRM. We put this comparison table between 3 active vendors in this space with slightly different solutions http://www.getapp.com/compare/social-CRM-software