Wednesday, August 03, 2011

The 'Value Trinity' of Social Customer Relationship Management


There has been a lot of buzz around social customer relationship management (sCRM) lately. Social media platforms and technologies are transforming how companies engage audiences and market products. Likewise, companies delivering CRM tool suites to their clients can gain value by riding the wave of evolution from traditional CRM to sCRM.

Customer data can reveal different value traits that help to assess each individual, akin to the different types of social data collected on social networks. The web and these social media platforms have introduced new ‘relationship’ and ‘influence’ measures that can act as complements to traditional CRM transactional, relationship and influence indicators.

By gaining access to social graph data on existing social networks (e.g. via the employment of the Facebook Social Graph API) and by deliberately connecting existing clients to these social networks, CRM companies can seamlessly integrate the “Value TRInity” — transaction, relationship and influence — with their existing offering, enabling them to gain deeper insights into customers within these spheres. An example is American Airline’s use of an ‘AA Mystery Miles’ Facebook page to secure customers on the social network and to track their AAAdvantage memberships.

As a mashable article describes: “As the practice of CRM evolves alongside the social web, it’s critical that we not only think in terms of measurable data, but also about the integration of social behavior to provide a true and accurate reflection of valuable customers. Success will be defined not by chasing influencers, high-volume buyers or friends-of-friends, but by leveraging the Value TRInity to forge enduring, mutually beneficial relationships with your brand’s true friends.”

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