The Great Social CRM Ponzi Scheme?

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Software Vendors taking something valuable and replacing it with "Features"

***tier3square.shtml***OK, I'm taking a little bit of liberty with regard to Social CRM, but history just keeps repeating itself. I'm not finding anything new about Customer Relationship Management just because an elite group has decided to add a prefix to an already hijacked term...CRM

Try to stick with me here, because I'm not a deep thinker and there's nothing deep to think about here.

Something I've come to realize over my years in the CRM software business is that there is very little value being added by the software. In fact, the software can simply make a bad process even worse. The process, in fact, is what CRM is really all about. That's kind of a main theme around here.

So what is Social CRM and how does it fit into the process?

If CRM is about adding value to your customers in a way that adds value to your business, how does the word social fit in? I'll be honest with you, I have no idea!

Let's see. When we are on the golf course entertaining a client is that business or social?

• Did you fill out an expense report?
• Did you talk about business?

It's business, no matter how you wrap it. You wouldn't be there if there wasn't some kind of business value. Having said that, this sort of thing is similar to what you might do with a friend in a social setting. Maybe that's where the confusion lies.

Or maybe, that's where the marketers want you to be confused.

CRM, in the proper context, is a plan to interface with your customer in ways that benefit the customer (and you) and also provide you with the feedback you need to ensure that you are continually providing to your customers the products and services they want and need. OK, that's a run-on sentence, but you get the point.

The mechanisms you use to do this are your customer facing staff and your automated functional support of your workflows and processes. These could include the ability for customers to interact with your website (like I do here). But do these things need a new name? Social CRM cannot possibly be talking about a change to the business strategy because proper CRM planning has always looked for ways to better interact with customers.

So the only thing I can think of is that the software vendors have decided to incorporate new tools many of us use to enhance our social interactions on the web (Facebook, Twitter, etc) into business tools created to support CRM business strategies.

Everyone is all a Twitter about Social CRM

I have a Facebook account and have re-connected with a ton of old friends and peers from years ago. I have to admit, my wife and I find it a very easy way to keep family and friends up to do with pictures of our young son. We also find the status messages a great way to share our thoughts. That's a very new thing, and it takes getting used to.

Along comes Twitter. A truly obnoxious tool in my opinion. Sure, there are people who are totally into it. I've played with it. I annoyed my family and friends by sending tweets every few minutes and it was integrated into Facebook so they would get bombarded.

Did they really want to read every thought that crossed my mind, or a mention of every place I was visiting? I doubt it.

Twitter is a very difficult thing to manage simply because it's pure anarchy. Anyone can twit anything. Of course, you have to follow someone, or monitor a search term, to be on the receiving end. But, having set up a tool to help me with this has not helped me understand one simple thing.....

How does an Internet based social interaction tool fit into a customer-centric business strategy? And more importantly, does a "one-size fits all" implementation of Twitter into a CRM software solution really give everyone who uses it a competitive advantage? Does it drive customer loyalty even if you have no CRM strategy?

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Once again, we are faced with a teeny weeny technology innovation that is bolted onto a software application. Both the innovation and the technology or touted by their creators as game changers! If you don't have Social CRM, you lose!

Have people and businesses changed that much in 10 years? Or, is it more likely that CRM software, as marketed, doesn't deliver the results companies expect? I think the latter is more likely, because customer relationship management, as a concept, has been around far longer than computers have.

CRM does deliver, but folks, it's going to take some work on your part. If you don't have the time to re-evaluate your business processes and develop a new strategy for doing business, CRM software isn't going to help you. Neither is piling on yet another piece of technology which is in desperate need of a plan.

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