Social media monitoring is no doubt a powerful element for CRM software, helping capture leads and sales in new and effective ways. In fact, social media is a way to extend and maximize the power of your CRM investment, so make sure your CRM software review makes social media management a high priority.
Follow Their Lead
A few CRM software vendors have really focused on social media as a CRM force, including ISM. Founded in 1985, ISM, Inc., is recognized as an advisor to organizations who are developing CRM strategies based on social media, and you could be among those organizations who are seeing genuine returns from their CRM initiatives in the social media realm.
Convert a Connection Into A Community
What you’re after in your CRM software review is the ability to move from connections to community, and to do this within the CRM processes you already have in place – without forgoing customer security while you make those customer interactions and conversations go further. If you consider the conversations customers have on social media sites as an end-point in themselves … reconsider. Social media sites are the door, leading customers straight to your products and services on your web site. Let social media be your terms of engagement.
CRM Software Review Should Lead You to a Plan
No integration of CRM strategies is successful without a plan, and that may be one reasons vendors like ISM have been so successful. The process starts with a briefing with your leadership team on ways to use social CRM, and once everyone is on board, a strategy and plan can be put into place. The efforts you put into social CRM become a smooth outcropping of your current marketing and customer outreach efforts. As you work through your own CRM software review, check to be sure the vendors you’re considering have a methodology that includes establishing a strategic plan built on leadership buy-in.
Best Practices Can Guide You
Maximizing your investment into social CRM also depends on emerging best practices. ISM has been on the forefront of capturing these best practices, and you can use them to help guide you in your CRM software review. Rules that work in traditional CRM still apply – ISM suggests you aim for half of your CRM strategy to be people, one-third to be about the process and around 20 percent dependent on your technology.
Integration Makes It Happen
If you’re a B2B organization, ISM suggests that you realize social CRM is just as valuable to you as other businesses, even though many social CRM apps seem bent toward B2C organizations. The same processes can still rev up your ROI and turn customer conversations into sales. Look for social CRM tools in your CRM software review that capture the data and information from social media customer feedback and feed those into your customer’s profiles that are set up in your CRM software. Integration, more than ever, is key.
It’s Your Online Neighborhood
Once you’ve managed these integrations, be in charge of the way people interact with your social media tools. Make their interactions part of your own business community so that the data is also yours, rather than letting social media forums be the drivers of your customer connections.
CRM Software Review Should Land on ROI, Also
Every contact you have with a customer or client with social media platforms is a potential avenue for profit, so make sure your CRM software review doesn’t glide over ways you can achieve your best ROI. Like other business strategies, using social media in your CRM strategy should still be about focusing on loyalty and trust toward your brand – with the added elements of community, accessibility and scalability.