Top 5 Tips for Successful Social CRM

Customer relationships management software is meant to improve how businesses can communicate with their customers. With the rising popularity of social media, it has created a new extension of interactions with customers and businesses are looking to implement these social CRMchanges to their customer approach strategy.  

A Social CRM strategy is simply adding social elements to your CRM system. This can ensure a higher quality of interactions along with increased brand awareness and reach. 

A collaborative effort between the marketing department, customer service department, and sales departments create a successful social CRM. 

Social CRM strategy is dependent on social listening and social publishing. Using these elements, your business can strengthen its marketing and customer service aspects of business, and this will eventually lead to better sales with your social CRM. 

Let’s explore the 5 essential things to keep in mind with your company’s social CRM strategy

1. Don't assume that you must follow the guidelines.

   
   Social CRM is new and it is evolving. There is no 'proper' way, no set of rules, and no proven 'method' for getting it right. What we do know (and so do you) is that people are out there on the web talking about what you do, what your competitors do, asking for stuff you produce and so on...and they are doing it now. 
   
   Experiment with social CRM to find out what works and what may not work. Play around with different CRM strategies and tech solutions to enhance your business via social CRM versus sacrificing your brand image and reputation by chasing social media followers. You may also employ the services of data analysts to map the inflow of data from your CRM into specific customer records. This data can be used for market segmentation purposes. Data analysts can undertake database management, modeling, data mining, and data analysis to help your company effectively transform your social media data into marketing data for your social CRM. 
   
   

2. Be quick to respond.

   Customers expect quick responses to their queries when contacted via social media channels. By monitoring your company’s social media channels with social CRM, you would be able to get an overview of what questions customers frequently ask and need to be answered. You can enable a frequently asked questions section with social CRM to give customers quick responses to simple queries. 
   You can also be ahead of problems and understand what frustrates your customers before it erupts into a bigger issue. If the volume of complaints about a specific feature of a product increases, gauge this to mean that there might be a bigger underlying issue and take steps to address it with social CRM. Your loyal customers will appreciate having their concerns addressed promptly and effectively. 
   
   

3. Make the right choices.

   As with every other new approach or technology or acronym, there will be a million vendors and consultants offering to tell you the right way to do it and sell you the tools. Pick the right ones for your social CRM strategy carefully. 
   
   Investing in the right social CRM tool as well as the right social media management tool is crucial to understanding your company’s social media strategy. Social media analytics via social media management tools is a great tool to streamline your customer service approach and understand what works and doesn’t. likewise, having the right social CRM tool is also important to managing your customer base. CRM software with the correct social media integration is what you should be on the lookout for. There are many social CRM vendors that now cater especially to small businesses with customer-centric social media tools directly integrated into the CRM. 
   
   

4. Unify all communications channels.

   Your business’s customer service approach may include call support, email support, social media, and any other mode you have chosen to reach customers. Having all of these services consolidated with social CRM would be helpful to understand the customer’s journey to resolution. Your customer may have initially reached out via Twitter to have a question answered but then had to call your call center for the same service-related issue. Having a record of all those interactions with social CRM would be helpful to service your customer better and avoid further frustrations. Social CRM would also show your customers that you have gone the extra mile to understand their worries and provide a better service. 
   
   You can learn more about Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and understand why your company might want to have a more unified communications approach when it comes to customer service. 
   
   

5. Build the Corporate ethos.

   All of us who have worked in large corporates at one point or another know that NOTHING gets said in public without it going through a dozen people up a vertical (if you are lucky) command chain to ensure that the corporation's line is being towed. The bigger the business, the worse it gets. The real world will no longer stand for it. Empowerment is vital and speed is imperative. 
   
   Trust your people, and make sure your policies and standard responses are not patronizing or delaying. That being said, it would be advisable to respect everyone in the social space and not post anything that might seem offensive to any demographic; the last thing you need is your social CRM social media strategy backfiring and causing more harm than good. Make sure your social media channels reflect your overall brand strategy. You want them talking about you for all the good reasons, not bad. 
   
   There are many well-documented instances of cases hitting Twitter, for example, and causing damage to businesses when a quick, helpful message and a rapid fix would have prevented the issue. Toyota presents a great example of Twitter use as a 'turn-round' strategy.

If you believe social CRM is the next step in your business’s path to growth, you can learn more about social CRM software solutions and also the right tools for social media management by reading our carefully considered social CRM buyer’s guide. You can also compare social CRM vendors to see if the CRM solutions that already come equipped with social CRM may be the right fit for your company.