R "Ray" Wang
R "Ray" WangTuesday's Tip: Three Quick Steps To Capture Social Customer Data
Organizations Must Overcome Four Fears To Master Social Customer Data
Over the past few weeks, I've been criss-crossing the country on a multi-city speaking tour talking about the strategic value of customer data. (In full discloure, the tour is sponsored by Informatica). As we talk about the implications of social media and customer data, inevitably the audience raises four main concerns:
- Existing models outdated, but must be adjusted. How business is conducted does not reflect the shift to a social construct. Existing systems rewarded management and control not engagement and influence. Organizations and business processes must support engagement and relationship applications.
- Organizations are no longer in control, and must build or reestablish relationships. Social opens up a can of worms. Organizations who believe they are in control will quickly find out how little control they have. Organizations must foster communities so that relationships can be nurtured.
- Volume of requests keep increasing, thus automation is the key to sanity. Those who experiment in social media often find out quickly they can not scale in a 1-to-1 fashion. The empowerment of the individual means an increase in expectations in response and quality of service. Automation tools must be put in place to manage, triage, and predict requests.
- Data deluge will kill the business, yet the data is the strategic asset. Huge amounts of information from unstructured sources such as comments, blogs, tweets, and video inundate existing systems. Signal to noise ratios decrease with all the noise. However, the relationships to the customer in orders, comments, products, services, interaction histories, and sentiment is more valuable than any other asset in the company.
The Bottom Line: Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.)
At this point in the discussion, the audience inevitably asks the same set of questions, "How do I start? Where do I begin?". The strategy for success - start with three simple tactics.
- Prepare for social data. In all your customer facing systems, leave a column to capture social data. Even before an investment is made, organizations must ready themselves for new sources and data types.
- Capture social media in customer facing processes. Start by asking for twitter handles and facebook id's at every customer facing interaction. Online transactions should have popups, contact center agents should ask upon interaction, and store managers should ask at point of sale.
- Listen before you act. Armed with social data correlated with existing customer information, organizations embark on listening programs. Track trends by socialgraphic whether it touches on a region, product, interest group, or social economic class. More importantly, track competitors and compare with existing customers.
With these three steps, organizations will have put in place the fundamentals to begin any social business program. More importantly, these tactics provide the foundation for success without making costly investments.
Resources
To find out more, join me at the Informatica Customer Data Forum over the next 2 weeks.
Register here
| May 10 – Toronto, ON Canada Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel |
May 11 – Dallas, TX Crowne Plaza Hotel |
May 12 – Rosemont, IL Hilton Rosemont - Chicago O'Hare |
| May 17 – Edina, MN The Westin Edina Galleria |
May 18 – San Francisco, CA W San Francisco |
May 19 – Carlsbad, CA Sheraton Carlsbad Resort & Spa |
Your POV.
Trying to fix your CRM program? Have a lessons learned from your Social CRM initiative. Got a question? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.
Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:
- Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
- Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
- Vendor selection
- Implementation partner selection
- Connecting with other pioneers
- Sharing best practices
- Designing a next gen apps strategy
- Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
- Demystifying software licensing
Related Research:
- Monday's Musings: Using MDM To Build A Complete Customer View In A Social Era
- Monday’s Musings: Mastering When and How High End Brands Should Use Daily Deal Sites Such As Groupon
- News Analysis: Salesforce.com Acquires Radian6 For $316M
- Monday’s Musings: Q1 2011 State of Social CRM and CRM From An EMEA Point Of View
- Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
- Research Summary: Software Insider’s Top 25 Posts For 2010
- Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
- Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011
- Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
- Research Report: Next Gen B2B and B2C E-Commerce Priorities Reflect Macro Level Trends
- News Analysis: Jive Fills Warchest, Ready to Battle Enterprise Software Giants And IPO?
- Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
- News Analysis: Lithium’s Acquisition of Scout Labs Ups The Ante in Social CRM
- News Analysis: Biz360 Acquisition Signals Attensity Group’s Move Into Social CRM
- Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
- Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
- News Analysis: Siperian Acquisition Vaults Informatica Into An MDM Leadership Position
- News Analysis: Jive and Radian6 Partner – Great For Business, But Could Fragment IT Systems
- Event Report: Salesforce.com Pushes Social CRM Technology — But Don’t Expect Companies To Be Successful With Tools Alone
- Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
- Personal Log: Altimeter Group – Helping Organizations Bridge The Technology Obsolescence Gap
- Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps
Reprints
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Disclosure
Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.
Copyright © 2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.