Social CRM: The Next Wave in CRM

Social CRM is the next wave in CRM: a breakthrough that drives value through deeper customer relationships and better customer engagement. In my new book, The Definitive Guide to Social CRM (Pearson, 2015), I share with the reader how to systematically integrate Social Media into CRM, harvest intensely valuable ‘social insight’ coming from Social Media communities, and strengthen engagement with every customer and prospect.

I’ve been in the CRM industry for 30 years, and I can honestly say that Social CRM is a paradigm break-though. I actually delayed publishing the book by a few years since I wanted to successfully implement Social CRM with several of my global customers. Results from these customers’ Social CRM initiatives have far exceeded expectation, which is why I am not surprised to learn that analysts predict the ‘Social CRM’ marketplace will grow to more than a $9 billion global market by 2018.

Here’s the 4-step “Social CRM” framework that I share with readers in my new book:

Please click on the image for an enlarged view.

In a nutshell, Social CRM consists of harvesting ‘social insight’ information from public and private Social Media websites (Steps #1 & #2), integrating this ‘social insight’ into customer profiles that are housed within the organization’s CRM software application (Step #3), and then leveraging this ‘social insight’ to engage with customers and prospects via their preferred channels (Step #4). Social CRM allows organizations to go beyond the more traditional customer transactional and customer demographic information. It draws upon customer sentiment that comes from Social Media communities and then leverage this sentiment to open conversations that reflect each customer’s rational as well as emotional preferences. The result: Social CRM is propelling customer engagement to new heights. Organizations can now provide profitable yet personalized customer service, marketing messages and sales offers in a way that simply wasn’t possible in the past.

Social CRM is also enabling innovative organizations to engage customers far more effectively and to craft customer-centric strategies and offerings that deliver unprecedented value, whether the audience is B2B, B2C, or B2B2C. Perhaps this explains why more and more CRM vendors as well as Social Media platform vendors are now offering Social CRM tools.

As readers of my first two book know, my focus at all times is on delivering business value to the reader. This is why in the new book I provide several ‘live’ case studies of organizations that are benefiting from the use of Social CRM to better engage with their customers, discuss how Social CRM is challenging the critical people/process/technology mix, and look five years into the future to describe how emerging technologies will further propel Social CRM to new heights. These emerging technologies include mobility, gamification, big data analytics and insight, channel optimization tools, and the Internet of Things.

I hope you enjoy reading The Definitive Guide to Social CRM and that you will share your feedback with me! To order the book, please go to www.ismguide.com/book

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Barton Goldenberg, is the founder and president of ISM Inc., customer-centric strategists/implementers serving best-in-class organizations globally. As a CRM leader for 30 years, he was among the first three inductees in the CRM Hall of Fame. Recognized as a leading “customer-focused” author, his latest book, The Definitive Guide to Social CRM, is hailed as the roadmap for Social CRM success. Barton is a popular speaker on “maximizing customer relationships to gain market insights, customers and profits”. He is a long-term columnist for CRM Magazine and speaker for CRMevolution and frequently quoted in the media.