An interesting development is the way social (in other words, anything ‘2.0’) technology is influencing traditional corporate IT. Despite not having an IT background myself, I find this stuff fascinating.
CRM (Customer relationship management) systems are no different, and an awful lot of talking, writing and developing is going on around the idea of ‘social CRM’.
The Altimeter Group have published a report including several case studies about social CRM, which is rather a good, thought-provoking read. Jeremiah Owyang, in his blog post announcing the report, says:
We know that customers are using these social technologies to share their voices, and companies are having a very difficult time to keep up.
I think the same could probably be said of citizens and governments.
From the report’s exeutive summary:
Social CRM does not replace existing CRM efforts – instead it adds more value. In fact, Social CRM augments social networking to serve as a new channel within existing end-to-end CRM processes and investments. Social CRM enhances the relationship aspect of CRM and builds on improving the relationships with more meaningful interactions. As the ‘Godfather of CRM’, Paul Greenberg notes, “We’ve moved from the transaction to the interaction with customers, though we haven’t eliminated the transaction – or the data associated with it… Social CRM focuses on engaging the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s (i.e. Social CRM is) the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”
The report is embedded below. If you can’t see it for whatever reason, you can download it here: Social CRM report from Altimeter.
SocialCRM is definitely gaining ground. Intelestream just published a whitepaper that deals with Social CRM in the context of small businesses. It can be found at http://www.intelestream.net/whitepapers.
Best!