Social CRM (customer relationship management) is a phrase used to describe the addition of a social element in traditional CRM processes. Social CRM builds upon CRM by leveraging a social element that enables a business to connect customer conversations and relationships from social networking sites in to the CRM process. Social CRM may also be called CRM 2.0 or abbreviated as SCRM (social customer relationship management).
See customer relationship management (CRM).
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CRM is the abbreviation for customer relationship management.
Customer relationship management (CRM) entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customers, whether it is sales or service-related. While the phrase customer relationship management is most commonly used to describe a business-customer relationship (B2C), CRM systems are also used to manage business to business to business (B2B) relationships. Information tracked in a CRM system includes contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads and more.
CRM solutions provides the business data to help you provide services or products that your customers want, provide better customer service, cross-sell and up-sell more effectively, close deals, retain current customers and to better understand who your customers are. Organizations frequently look for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help-desk software, email organizers and different types of enterprise applications.
CRM software has typically been considered difficult to use. As an enterprise application, stability, scalability and security has been the primary focal points of CRM solutions. Usability, according to this Enterprise Apps Today article, was not a key part of CRM which often resulted in failed software projects, largely attributed to undue complexity. With increased adoption of CRM applications, however, today’s CRM software vendors make usability a central part of their products. To improve usability many vendors today focus on usability issues to make CRM workflow as simple and intuitive as possible, to offer navigation that can be performed in three clicks or less and to ensure CRM software is designed to suit the needs of sales teams.
Customer relationship management is often thought of as a business strategy that enables businesses to improve in a number of areas. The CRM strategy allows you to to following:
Technology and the Internet have changed the way companies approach customer relationship strategies. Advances in technology have changed consumer buying behavior, and today there are many ways for companies to communicate with customers and to collect data about them. With each new advance in technology — especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web and smartphones — customer relationships are being managed electronically.
Many aspects of customer relationship management rely heavily on technology; however, the strategies and processes of a good CRM system will collect, manage and link information about the customer with the goal of letting you market and sell services effectively.
The biggest benefit most businesses realize when moving to a CRM system comes directly from having all your business data stored and accessed from a single location. Before CRM systems, customer data was spread out over office productivity suite documents, email systems, mobile phone data and even paper note cards and Rolodex entries. Storing all the data from all departments (e.g., sales, marketing, customer service and HR) in a central location gives management and employees immediate access to the most recent data when they need it. Departments can collaborate with ease, and CRM systems help organization to develop efficient automated processes to improve business processes.
Other benefits include a 360-degree view of all customer information, knowledge of what customers and the general market want, and integration with your existing applications to consolidate all business information.
Social CRM (customer relationship management) is a phrase used to describe the addition of a social element in traditional CRM processes. Social CRM builds upon CRM by leveraging a social element that enables a business to connect customer conversations and relationships from social networking sites in to the CRM process. Social CRM may also be called CRM 2.0 or abbreviated as SCRM (social customer relationship management).
Inbound CRM (customer relationship management) is the term used to describe customer experience when the customer initiates the contact with the business. The contact can be initiated through any means of communication, including an inbound call center or via the business’ online website. Often, inbound CRM is a part of the sales or customer support relationship.
In CRM (customer relationship management) terminology, the phrase small business CRM is used to describe a lightweight CRM application that is designed to meet the needs of a small business.
Customer relationship management solutions provide you with the customer business data to help you provide services or products that your customers want, provide better customer service, cross-sell and up sell more effectively, close deals, retain current customers and understand who the customer is.
While the phrase customer relationship management is most commonly used to describe a business-customer relationship, CRM systems are used in the same way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads.
Typically, CRM applications and software are considered enterprise applications — that is an application designed for larger enterprises that would require a dedicated team to develop custom CRM modules, another team to analyze the resulting data and reports, plus an IT staff to handle costly upgrades and deployment.
Small business CRM applications differ from enterprise CRM in a number of ways including the amount of data handled by the system, IT requirements, pricing, and the tools and features of the CRM application itself.
Dashboard is a term that is widely used to describe an application interface that provides users with quick access to information or common tasks. In CRM (customer relationship management) the dashboard is used to monitor business performance and CRM data and reports are often shown in the dashboard to provide a quick and easy overview of current business performance using charts, graphs, and maps.
A CRM dashboard is designed to let users perform some specific actions and tasks with a single mouse-click from this interface. For example, a click from the CRM dashboard could provide you with a detailed report on any lead follow-ups that are scheduled for today.
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CRM – Customer Relationship Management
Cloud, integration and analytics are still among the top CRM trends in 2015, experts say.
When we surveyed experts about CRM trends, cloud, integration with analytics and speed of deployment are among the biggest trends we heard about for 2015. This indicates a solidification of ongoing trends rather than a year dominated by new fads or hype cycles.
“The cloud remains top of mind,” said Mike Ehrenberg, Microsoft Technical Fellow and chief technology officer, Microsoft Business Solutions.
For Microsoft, that’s good news as it expands its Azure cloud platform with greater CRM capabilities. According to Ehrenberg, that means progressing beyond the model of a single public cloud for everyone. For example, the company has come out with Microsoft Cloud for Government.
“Looking forward, the cloud conversation will increasingly mature to incorporate customers with complex requirements for isolation, data sovereignty and global deployment,” he said.
Eric Berridge, CEO of Bluewolf, concurs.
“The need for CRM verticalization and going deeper with those verticals will increase,” he said. “CRM solutions aren’t a one-stop-shop to solve every industry’s challenges, and industry expertise is no longer just a go-to-market differentiator; it’s becoming the standard to satisfying enterprise-wide deployments across key sectors.”
Regardless of whether a company deploys an industry vertical package or a more general off-the-shelf CRM product, Greg Arnette, CTO and founder of Sonian, predicted that the cloud will continue to grow as the default platform to launch any new project, whether a hot new social iPhone app or rebuilding a legacy enterprise internal system. While in-house CRM won’t disappear, it certainly looks like its star is fading.
Once upon a time, electronic locking systems were a differentiating feature in automobiles. Now, they are rarely mentioned, as just about every car comes with them. Perhaps by next year, all CRM apps will include sophisticated analytics as a standard feature. But for now, vendors and analysts continue to talk about the addition of analytics into more and more CRM applications.
“Predictive applications that harness ambient data together with data in the business application, identifying insights which make individual users more productive and enhance the execution of critical business processes will drive the next wave of business application innovation,” said Microsoft’s Ehrenberg.
Andy Byrne, CEO and founder, Clari, declared that sales productivity tools will die unless they become easier to use.
“Sales mobile productivity tools will have to offer more analytics, and analytics tools will have to include features to make them more usable,” said Byrne. “Those that don’t offer both won’t make it to 2016.
Big Data has been something of a generality over the last few years. While there ha been lots of hype about the joys of Big Data, it’s been a trend that lacked focus. That changes this year, said Gartner analyst Alexander Linden, who believes the biggest driver for implementing Big Data is to enhance the customer experience. Organizations need to direct their Big Data resources to discover opportunities for enhanced business performance and customer-focused competitive advantage, he said.
Adam Seligman, vice president of Developer Relations at Salesforce, highlighted technologies such as Web components, Docker and microservices that make it easier and faster to build CRM applications.
“The new normal for business is small agile teams building the thing they need fast, not waiting for IT, not waiting for big transactional systems to catch up or commercial software vendors,” Seligman said. “CIOs need to move from 10-year cycles of old transactional systems to the 10-day cycles mobile app users expect.”
Arnette of Sonian predicted the appearance of internal app stores that offer employees self-service access to a wide array of IT services, including CRM applications.
Cell phone providers talk a lot about churn – the rate at which users switch from one cell phone vendor to another. Berridge of Bluewolf believes that reality is coming to the world of CRM.
“You will win or lose customers based on their digital experience,” he said. “Innovation is empowering customers with more choices, information and expectations for high quality experiences that are relevant, personal, and frictionless.”
That is forcing businesses to pay more attention to every channel in which customers interact with the brand. His advice is to go undercover and pinpoint areas where customer engagement can be enhanced.
All roads used to lead to Rome – during the height of the Roman Empire, during the days of Mussolini’s reign in Italy in the first half of the 20th century and within many bastions of corporate America. That has to change due to the speed that is available today in terms of application development and rollout.
“If companies are going to react quickly to changes in the marketplace, they have to put more and more accountability, authority and information into the hands of the people who are closest to the products and the customers,” Berridge said.
Despite media hype to the contrary, it’s probably a little too early to call 2015 the Year of the Internet of Things (IoT). It will likely take another year or two before IoT really bites. But that doesn’t mean enterprises should ignore it.
James Allworth, director of Strategy at Medallia, said that IoT means businesses have to get ready to receive feedback from more new channels such as wearables and smart TVs. The ways in which they utilize this data could begin to impact how customer experiences are designed and customized, he added.
While examples of wrong context on Google Now and Siri can be hilarious (my wife asked Siri to call me and was directed to the nearest dog kennel), these systems get it right much of the time. Result: Users want CRM systems that understand context rather than static software that simply presents data.
“Understanding the life of a sales rep versus a sales manager is critical to providing the right information each needs to do their jobs,” said Kurt Leafstrand, vice President of Products at Clari. “In 2015 we will use context far more to give them what they need.”
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