CRM is about Customer Relationship Management. Its promise was that, by keeping a full record of interactions with a company and every one of its customers, companies could better serve them.
It got partially realized, indeed. You don’t have to repeat the whole story when calling in for the second time a call center about your phone issue. Sales people do a better job following up the ‘Call me in the 3 months’ prospects responses, etc…
Yet, the fundamental opportunity of actually understanding and engaging better with customers & prospects is still unrealized. It’s about better knowing your customer behaviors and its needs, anticipating cross-selling opportunities, delighting him/her even more by gently coming in at the right time (not just birthday reminders, thank you), discovering potential prospects through online conversations, etc…
And now comes social CRM – will it be the magic bullet to close that gap ? The idea is now, you have a bunch of social media-based interactions your customers are having: with you (e.g. Fan pages), without you (among friends), and ‘not with you but not far’ (e.g quoting your brand on Twitter). How do you take advantage of this data+ traditional CRM to realize the final CRM promise ? Well, that’s the challenge of social CRM.
To see how it could get realized, a couple of thoughts. One of the latest projects I worked with at McKinsey&Company (with great experts Michael Chui & Jacques Bughin) was doing some prospective work towards 2020. A key elements to drive industry implications and lay new foundations, was to build consumer stories. One of them, built from a real case, which I wrote and take inspiration from can definitely be a social CRM one (freely adapted here).
- Kate (teenage girl, 15) is enjoying herself in an online virtual world, visiting the best places from her favorite TV series. She visits as well a virtual shop from a teen retailer, and decides to buy a piece of virtual clothing from her favorite brand. Upon her purchase, she receives an e-coupon for a real piece of clothing (Real case: Taattu world, and Pimkie retail store)
- So she decides to go to the real shop but as she sees the clothes she takes a picture and ask her friends first through her social network
- Yet, as she ‘checked-in’ (via eg Foursquare) the shop recognized that she was the visitor of the online world, and other records.
- In the meantime, friends are coming back with mixed views.
What should the retailer do ?
Possible answers:
- The retailer knows she is a fan (segmentation) as she bought virtual goods online. She is there in the shop. Recognize her status by having someone going to her and checking for help
- The retailer could also send extra discount if she buys NOW (?)
Here a few requirements for social CRM:
- Using full social customer data to segment your customer base: a very active fan on Facebook is worth more than a regular customer, etc…
- Being real-time enabled to maximize the opportunity when it happens
- Covering all ‘modes’ of consumption for your best consumers and serving them that too: virtual goods are one examples, but there are others
What do you think & what is your sCRM consumer story ?
Alexandre
alexvdm
