• This is Social Media Marketing

    Targeted Campaigning for all industries,in all markets and at all age groups and target markets.

  • Social Media Management

    Manangement of all socia media platforms from dashboard, including CRM and campaign management

  • YouTube marketing

    YouTube the second largest search engine, only after Google, A great untapped market

Saturday 3 November 2012

Why using Social Media for CRM is a priceless tool


I must start by emphasising that social media is by no means the only CRM (customer relationship management) tool a company should use and certainly in certain circumstances there are are other CRM tools that are more effective.

It has however become clearly obvious that with the implementation of social media as a grass roots CRM instrument by medium and large enterprises, the cost effectiveness of these tools and overall resulting customer experience of the engagement, interaction and when necessary also the intervention often provides an almost immediate ROI.

A number of examples immediately come to mind. The most recent was only yesterday when we were attending a conference at a venue that is part of one of the largest global hotel and hospitality chains. My other half was rather displeased with the service and sent a single tweet and hash tagged it.

The response was almost immediate and came from pretty high up. This company got it right in both of the most important ways this should be approached. Implementation of their actual CRM strategy using social media and their culture regarding how to approach the problem using the relevant instrument - in this case Twitter.

It is very clear that not only do they have an engaging monitoring policy, but they also go out of their way to ensure that when tweets are not directed at them personally they can pick up hash tagged and unhashtagged conversations, enabling quick intervention when required.

Brand and reputation development and protection should come hand in hand with any online engagement strategy and policy for any business regardless of its size. We all knows that rumours (even when untrue) can cause stocks to crash and can ruin a healthy corporate virtually overnight.

A company strengthens its armour when it's digital presence policies encompass brand protection and it has the strategy to be able to turn negative customer experience around so that the outside world watching this unfold, (and trust me it's a very big glass house out there) can witness a positive outcome - every time.

The online world leaves digital footprints that remain for years and even decades. If there has been a bad customer experience linking it to a positive outcome this, has enormous long term value. Consumer forums often discuss customer experience and the footprint they leave is enormous and lasting. When the forums actually show a positive outcome it can have a domino effect.

Customers will discover how others have reached satisfactory resolution, enhancing brand image and also driving new customers not only to the company's web presence be it interactive social media, e-commerce or the company website, but also their b&m (bricks and mortar) premises.

Happy and satisfied customers breed an air of confidence about certain brands which has the effect that the brand becomes the prevalent choice.

I remain astonished at how many large corporate enterprises still use social media for promotion only and do not have it integrated into customer service, logistics, sales and sales support, in fact any department that engages with customers at all. Those that use it for monitoring remain even fewer and yet the obvious advantage that offers over the competition isn't rocket science.

This is where analysis of ROI becomes tricky. If analysis is only going to include the financial return particularly when looking at CPA, a true picture can never be determined. True social media effectiveness is not only visible by growth in online sales, but also by the willingness of the customer to return to the B&M (bricks and mortar) presence on the street as a result of the social media strategy that enhances their spending experience.

In closing, I would recommend that any company recruiting or contracting a social media Strategist look beyond their technical knowledge of markup languages and GAIQ, but also investigate the candidates ability and outlook at directing and if necessary redirecting their digital strategy to the ever changing needs and demands of the customer. After all the needs of the client/company are irrevocably entwined with the needs of their customer base, and it would be a huge mistake not to recognise that as the customer base grows, so will the need to diversify the social media strategy.