How To Plan, Justify and Execute Your Journey from CRM to Social CRM

The Fear of Social Media

Indeed, as social media shifts power from the company to the consumer, it is natural for companies to feel threatened by the lack of control over the business relationship. Social media can feel like a loose canon firing and backfiring without direction or restraint. However, along with the hazards come opportunities that can improve a company's ability to compete. In the two lists below you will see how some of the hazards can be turned into opportunities.

Social Media Hazards

• Exposes the company's reputation to risk.
• Escalates customer problems to the public domain for all to see.
• Weakens the company's control of the customer relationship.
• Limits the one-to-one relationship in terms of gaining a 360-degree view of the customer.
• Limits the ability of the company to lead and shape customer opinions about products.
• Reduces the ability of salespeople to control the sales process.
• Empowers customers to give product and service problems a life of their own on the Internet.
• Outdates CRM software toolsets that are solely based on automating business processes.
• Loss of control of brand and intellectual property.
• Requires companies to invest in and master social monitoring and engagement tools.

Social Media Opportunities

• Provides dynamic new sources for customer feedback.
• Enables customers to provide support to other customers.
• Delivers customer insight into product problems.
• Provides opportunities for viral marketing.
• Allows salespeople to locate and develop relationships with potential customers.
• Facilitates product design, development and improvement through conversations with customers.
• Provides new opportunities to engage directly with customers.
• Allows companies to partner with influential customers.
• Allows companies to develop a rich customer ecosystem that will lead it into the future.
• Provides insight into competitive intelligence through social networking conversations.

The initial fear of social media gives way to new business opportunities once this new communication revolution is understood. As companies learn to harness social media, the insight they will gain will allow them to turn business hazards into opportunities for the benefit of all partners and stakeholders. Since customers do so much of their information gathering online before making a buying decision, salespeople lose the opportunity to develop one-to-one relationships with their leads. But by taking part in the social networking that forms around their products, and getting to know the people who are active in the communities, they develop new relationships that can lead to sales.

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