Discuss Customer Relationship Management and Search Engine Optimization

Widespread social media usage means that customer relationship management (CRM) has to be conducted in this forum in order to deliver an encompassing experience for the customer. Not only should social media be integrated into any existing CRM strategy and looked at from a touchpoint and channel perspective, but social media can also be used to drive CRM.

CRM should embrace the social customer—a stance effectively summed up by social CRM expert Paul Greenberg as follows: "Social customers are not the customers of yore. They trust their peers, are connected via the web and mobile devices to those peers as much of a day as they would like. They expect information to be available to them on demand….They require transparency and authenticity from their peers and the companies they choose to deal with" (Greenberg, 2010).

Social media platforms allow customers to easily share their brand experiences (good or bad) with their online social connections, who in turn can share this experience. This means a potential word-of-mouth audience of millions could witness a single user's brand experience and weigh in on the situation. Social customers place a great deal of value on the opinions of their peers, and are more likely to look favorably on a brand, product, or service if a peer has recommended or praised it. In fact, the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual trust and credibility survey, saw trust in social media increase by 75 percent, noting that respondents are placing increasingly more importance on information gathered from this space (Edelman, 2012).

Brands have realized that they need to leverage this in their CRM strategies and now understand that communication is not one way (from brand to consumer), or even two way (between consumer and brand), but multidirectional (brand to consumer, consumer to brand, and consumer to consumer).

The convergence of social media with CRM has been termed social CRM or CRM 2.0, and has developed into a field on its own.

Social CRM and Support 

Social customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for support. With the immediate accessibility offered through mobile devices, they see this as a convenient channel to communicate with brands. This means that brands need to respond quickly and transparently to consumers' questions, gripes, and even compliments. A support query going unanswered on Twitter, for instance, is likely to cause frustration for the consumer, and prompt them to take a situation that is already visible to other consumers even further, potentially causing a brand crisis. Brands should carefully consider whether all social media channels are appropriate for them, and be prepared for any eventuality. Brands that are well liked will generally have positive responses on social media, those that receive a mediocre response from consumers will have a bit of a mixed bag, but those that have a lot of support issues are likely to experience very large numbers of complaints that need to be addressed.

Social support staff should have access to all the historical data relating to customer issues—such as all the data collected about previous complaints and reference numbers. In this way, they can respond directly to the consumer in the social channel that they've selected and escalate the problem appropriately.

Social CRM and Online Monitoring 

Social CRM can also make use of online reputation management and monitoring tools. Online monitoring, or reputation management, entails knowing what is being said about your organization and ensuring that you are leading the conversation.

By using these tools, brands can rate and sort these mentions based on their sentiment. This allows them to effectively test the temperature of the online community's feeling towards the brand, which can then guide any future action.

Customer-centric vs. Customer-Driven Organizations 

Effective CRM places the customer's needs first in all dealings with the brand. However, there is a vast difference between a customer-centric organization and a customer-driven one.

Placing the customer at the center of an organization's business planning and execution is different from having customers drive the direction of a business. Many new, web-based businesses rely on the latter, and actively encourage customers to take the lead and add value to the business.

Services such as Flickr (www.flickr.com) and Twitter (www.twitter.com) are user-driven rather than user-centric. They provide tools that enable users to make the service their own, often by allowing outside developers to create supplementary services. Flickr users can export their images and use them to make custom business cards on Moo (www.moo.com). There are many auxiliary services based on Twitter, such as analysis services (www.klout.com) and access services (www.twhirl.org). Savvy organizations can also provide tools to customers to drive their business, passing on tasks to customers that might ordinarily have been performed by the organization.

Customer-centric strategy, on the other hand, uses data to present the best possible experience to the customer. Amazon's collaborative filtering is an example of a customer-centric approach. Using customer data, Amazon will share products that you are more likely to prefer.

Uses of Customer Data

Amazon provides recommendations based on what customers with similar profiles are looking at.

Customer-centric experiences are about personalization: using data to create a tailored experience for the customer. Customer-driven experiences are about customization: providing the tools that let a customer tailor their own experience.

References 

Edelman. (2012). Edelman Trust Barometer 2012. StrategyOne. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/79026497/2012-Edelman-Trust-Barometer-Executive-Summary

Greenberg, P. (2010). The impact of CRM 2.0 on customer insight. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 25(6), 410–419.

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