Social Media And CRM - Or Is It the Other Way Around?

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Twittering "Social Experts", the typical shrill, vocal minority

I like new ideas, and the marriage between Social Media and CRM makes a lot of sense. And there are a lot of Social Media experts on Twitter (social media) implying that CRM is dead and that "Social Media" is the new foundation of all customer relationships.

These are the same folks who refer to CRM as "software". I guess they haven't read any books like CRM at the Speed of Light where it's been pretty plainly written for some time now that CRM is a strategy, it's process oriented and it involves incorporating the customer to create increased loyalty, profitability and overall value (etc. etc). So where do these folks get these ideas and do they really believe them?

Customer relationships are nothing new. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in one form or another, they have been around through many cycles of global warming and global cooling. CRM is not software! It's always been about relationships and the process of developing and managing them; whether there was software involved or not.

Plugging CRM into the Social Network

....whatever that means. There is a belief floating around the Twitter world that you can change customer relationships in a 140 characters or less...totally unstructured. This belief relies on an assumption that this sort of communication constitutes the most basic and important relationship you can have with a customer...sound bite based and nearly anonymous. And let's not forget that this data has nearly no structure to it.

I cnt wait 2 C how well 2day's teenagers communicate in the corporate environment. Will they rise 2 the top communicating in acronyms & shortened URLs? Or will they B in cubicles monitoring the new "CRM" cloud.

~I tried to shorten this Tweet sidebar but it's still more than 140 characters

No structure? How can you manage that? Sure, there are tools being developed to make it a bit easier. But the fact that nothing truly workable has come out demonstrates the challenge. So, how can you "bolt on" a CRM application to this and expect it to add value to a cloud of vapor?

There are those out there that believe "Social" is the relationship and the relationship is the foundation. Yea, technically. But we're talking about management here, not touchy feely. You can't measure touchy feely very well and successful businesses cannot be fueled by anarchy and chaos.

Plugging Social Networks into CRM

If you believe that the term "CRM" has already been defined, then trying to yank something away that we've been working with, for years, and re-defining for your own purpose is simply ignorant of the history of the CRM debate. Why are we debating over the SFA fiasco here? CRM is not SFA but some folks see it as the same software with a different name. More thoughtful folks understand that CRM came about as a way to break free of the SFA software failures. It was never really about the software.

I would argue that you can plug a social network (channel) into a customer-centric (CRM) business strategy (and also the software). I would also argue that you can't build a complete relationship around a channel (Social media). And I would finish by saying that if CRM is a strategy, that you can't plug a strategy into a channel that you believe is a strategy. That would be two strategies (not really, but just to humor everyone).

The bottom line is that "Social Media" is what will get plugged into CRM strategies (and I support that) and not the other way around. Oh, I know there are folks who are going to try to sell the other way around. I see it every day on Twitter. After all, everyone wants to be part of something new and important. The problem is that we move forward, brick by brick, and there are already a lot of bricks laid...

...and that includes the foundation -- which is not social media.

BTW, this is not a well thought out article on social media and CRM, just a knee-jerk reaction to a bunch of tweets floating around about the new best way to build relationships in the Universe...Twitter. I'm sure no one was suggesting that Twitter is the social media that's being referred to. It must be some other social media and CRM innovation I haven't heard of yet.

@EffectiveCRM

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