Social CRM: when customer relations and social networks go hand in hand
What is social CRM?
There is no longer any doubt that social networks have revolutionised the way consumers interact with businesses. Feedback, questions to customer service, searches for information - more and more consumers are turning to these channels for the speed and availability of answers.
According to a report by NM Incite, 71% of consumers who had a good service experience on social networks were likely to recommend the brand in 2016.
Find out more about this key trend in customer relations today, as well as a few examples of CRM strategies and tools that make it easier to attract and retain customers!
What is social CRM? Definition
First and foremost, what does CRM mean? It stands for Customer Relationship Management, and refers both to the management of customer relationships and to the tools used to do so. It is sometimes referred to in French as GRC (gestion de la relation client).
Social CRM, or SCRM, combines two concepts:
- customer relationship management, through customer knowledge and the centralisation of interactions with the customer;
- social media management, i.e. the management of social media and the use of the data circulating on them to promote a company's marketing activities and sales development, among other things.
The recent trend in social CRM, or SCRM, is therefore the use of social networks as part of a marketing CRM strategy.
Often used in B2C, social CRM can also be used in B2B.
From CRM to social media CRM
Sales lead to customer service, which leads to a more targeted marketing strategy, which leads to more sales (virtuous circle).
Objectives of social CRM
To return to the diagram above, with social CRM we are talking about :
- social selling: gathering and analysing data to understand the online customer journey, and encouraging the act of buying;
- social support: developing customer support, in particular via conversational tools;
- social marketing: increasing visibility on the web and engaging communities.
More than ever, the customer is at the heart of everything we do.
But while the CRM objectives are the same as with a "classic" CRM, companies must now respond to the need for speed, through increasingly asynchronous multi-channel customer management (in deferred time, without spatial or temporal constraints).
The challenges of social CRM
The challenges of social CRM are the same as those of traditional customer relationship management, such as collecting and centralising information on prospects to be used for marketing segmentation and targeting, collaboration between sales, marketing and support teams, performance monitoring, etc., but the resources deployed are different.
With an increasingly customer-centric approach, customer relations and marketing managers have had to rethink their approach and integrate the social dimension into their customer relations management, as well as their tools.
Main differences between CRM and social CRM
As we have seen, the issues and objectives are the same, the only differences are the approach, the points of contact and the timeframe.
Social CRM works on the customer's terms.
Customers become players in the customer relationship, contacting the company via the channel of their choice and at the time of their choice.
The company, for its part, reaches a wider target, but qualifies it more easily by varying the digital media and favouring the interactive aspect.
Consumers openly give their opinion and the keys to sending them the right message.
Why use S-CRM?
- To have a 360° view of the customer thanks to multi-channel management;
- To have a social presence and control your e-reputation;
- So that you don't miss out on opportunities to get to know your prospects better and interact with them;
- To detect and monitor market trends;
- To attract new customers;
- To retain existing customers;
- To defuse potential bad buzz;
- To identify influencers in the sector;
- To create a community of brand ambassadors and measure recommendation capacity;
- To convey a modern brand image.
Using social CRM: examples of tools and advice
What is a social CRM tool?
Online CRM (or e-CRM) publishers are now developing the tool by integrating a connection with social networks, in addition to traditional channels.
A social CRM platform provides companies with a solution tailored to social CRM and gives customers the opportunity to interact with them via their preferred channel. What are the benefits of social CRM for your customer relations?
- Centralisation of multi-channel customer data: social CRM has a unified timeline and a live feed to receive all customer enquiries in a single space.
- Personalised exchanges: the user's profile appears in the CRM so that you know who you are responding to, and can even access advanced statistics such as the pages of your site that they have consulted. In this way, you can contextualise their request, personalise your response and your future marketing campaigns.
- More detailed customer knowledge: connecting your CRM to social media means you can use the data collected there to improve segmentation, particularly behavioural segmentation. An integrated targeting tool also allows you to add listening rules according to your objectives.
- Conversational interaction: you don't respond on the original social network, but in a dedicated conversational space that every member of the team can consult. Conversations on social networks not only generate data on the quality of the customer experience, but also improve it.
- ROI measurement and reporting: thanks to the tracking of links published on social networks, you know which channel has been used to reach the Internet user and determine which investments to prioritise next. Track performance indicators such as sales generated per social contact, ROI per channel, etc.
Social CRM: examples of tools
While it's important to look after your social networking strategy, it's equally important to integrate it with a CRM tool to exploit its full potential. Here is a selection of software to help you do just that:
- Ring Central Experience Client, for managing flows from all digital channels, including social networks and online chat, centralised in a single tool.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and its Social Studio module, for 'listening' to conversations on social networks, while engaging your community and tracking your multi-channel exchanges from a single interface.
- SuiteCRM is an open-source CRM that can be fully customised to your needs, and offers a number of add-ons for centralising customer monitoring on social networks (Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).
Tips for optimising your social CRM strategy
- To enhance CRM, a company can encourage :
- customers to leave a review on their Facebook page,
- or its prospective customers to take part in a game with a prize draw, in return for answering a few questions about their needs or consumer habits, in order to get to know them better.
- To manage customer relations, a chatbot can be developed to answer simple questions, or schedule a phone call for more complex questions if necessary.
- Implement a social CRM datastrategy , based on collecting data via social networks (in compliance with the RGPD). Knowing your prospects and customers well means you can offer them the products or services they need and communicate with them in the right way.
People at the heart of CRM strategy
Social CRM is not about technology. It's about the people, processes and cultural changes needed to support and grow a business.
M. Lieberman, VP, SugarCRM sur emarketing.fr
SCRM enriches your relationship strategy and encourages greater commitment from your target audience.
Are you ready to take advantage of exchanges on social networks to feed your CRM?
Updated article, originally published in July 2020.
Article translated from French