Social CRM
Social CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) refers to the use of social networks such as Facebook , Twitter or XING in order to be able to better interpret the corporate strategy of customer relationship management with regard to the users of these networks. This strategy is of course also linked to the classic points of customer relationship management. Paul Greenberg sums up the task of social CRM as follows:
“Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment . It's the company's response to the customer's ownership of the conversation. "
“Social CRM is a philosophy and a corporate strategy that is supported by technical platforms, business rules, workflows, processes and social characteristics in order to enable a collaborative dialogue with the customer and to offer additional benefits in a familiar and transparent environment. It is the company's response to this dialogue being 'owned' by the customer. "
Social CRM for customer loyalty
Social CRM aims to enter into a dialogue with customers and to offer added value. The first step is to find the networks that customers are active on. Then it is important to build a relationship with the customer. This can be done in a help forum, for example. If the customer is helped quickly, trust in the company grows. If the customer can submit his suggestions for new products - for example new flavors for soft drinks - on product development platforms, he will deal particularly intensively with the product. Competitions for shopping vouchers or the like are also popular. Social CRM costs a lot of time and therefore it is important to consider how useful the use of social CRM is for the respective industry. There are many opportunities for companies in the B2C sector, for companies that are active in the B2B sector, it can be difficult to market their products or services on social networks (e.g. office supplies or server hardware). Whether the respective target group is represented in social networks often depends on the age of the target group.
Web monitoring
A term that is often used in connection with social CRM is web monitoring - also known as social listening. This means the systematic search on the Internet for company, brand, opinion, competitor and person names with subsequent categorization and electronic archiving of the data found. Above all, only the relevant data that a specific product such as B. concern comments about a type of wine in an internet magazine. However, the social CRM not only wants to receive the data such as web monitoring, but also wants to create customer loyalty, for example by actively winning over customers via product design platforms or support forums.
Software solutions for social CRM
On the one hand, software solutions for social CRM provide the possibility of evaluating customer discussions in social networks. Findings from this are, for example: How often and what is discussed about the company on social media? What is positive and what is negative? This gives companies the opportunity to determine what customers think of the products and services - and, if necessary, to take part in the discussions. Some social CRM solutions also offer forums, blogs, news portals and chats through which companies can control their own social media activities. The social CRM solution brings the various information together and prepares the results with appropriate reports and graphics.
Benefits of social CRM
- Allows you to react quickly to short-term mood swings in order to strengthen or maintain customer loyalty.
- Enables quick reactions to new customer needs.
- Allows you to observe competitors.
- Allows you to react to extreme market developments.
Disadvantages of social CRM
- large expenditure of time / requires enormous capacities in the company
- Dealing with social media requires a high degree of flexibility in the company
- great affinity for social media necessary
- high data protection requirements for company integration (data storage and use)
literature
- Andreas Schmidt, Julius Hoyer: Social CRM. How small and medium-sized companies position themselves in their customers' social networks. In: ERP Management, 2/2012, p. 32f
- Sanjay Sauldie: Die iExperten 2010, S. 60ff