Social Customer Relationship Management | Social CRM
Because of the increasing popularity of social media technologies, Customer Relationship Management now gives way to a broader perspective that acknowledges the new capabilities that are a result of social and technological shifts caused by social media applications. CRM systems are now merging with social media to find new ways to build stronger relationship with customers. A new term has arisen as a result: Social CRM.
Social CRM can be defined as
the integration of customer relationship management activities with upcoming social media technologies with the aim of drawing customers into collective conversations and of improving the relationships with them.
Social CRM capabilities refers to
firms’ competency to create, integrate and react to information attained from customer interactions through social media applications.
Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp and Agnihotri (2014) describe
four ways in which companies can actually use social media applications and increase their social CRM capabilities:
1. Sharing: this refers to the technologies that support the ways in which customers can exchange and share digital information. Examples are video’s, images and “pins” on Pinterest.
2. Conversations: this refers to technologies that ease interactions between firms and customers and capture relevant information from those interactions. Examples are blogs, discussion forums, Facebook and Twitter.
3. Relationships: this represents technologies that facilitate the generation of networks of associations with other social media users and permits companies to use the information about these networks. Linkedin, Facebook and Yammer are examples.
4. Groups: this refers to the technologies that enable the creation of online communities concentrated on specific interests, brands or goods. Ideaforce and Igloo’s Customer Community are examples.
Source: Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J., Rapp, A. and R. Agnihotri (2014) “Social Media Technology Usage and Customer Relationship Performance: A Capabilities-based Examination of Social CRM” Journal of Business Research Vol. 67 Iss. 6 pp. 1201-1208