Social Media: The New Front End of CRM System

Posted by Harish Kotadia, Ph.D. on June 15, 2010

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have undergone a fascinating technological transformation over the last decade, starting as client-server apps, followed by web-enabled CRM apps (where users can access CRM application over internet using their web browsers).

But in spite of this technological transformation and progress in system architecture, all CRM systems essentially record transactional information using pre-determined fields on the screen (front-end) to capture information in the database, and company is in total control of conversation (should I say interrogation) with customer at every stage.

Thanks to rapid expansion of reach and effectiveness of Social Media channels, this is about to change. Social Media has empowered customers like never before as they can discuss about brands/products on Social Media channels and companies have no control over what customers are saying about their brands/products. This discussion is visible to all including other customers, potential customers and competitors.

The best any marketer can do is to Listen and Learn from what customers are saying and Engage them in meaningful conversations. In other words, treat Social Media channels as the front-end of CRM system, capture all relevant information from Social Media channels in the database and use Predictive Analytics and Knowledge Management tools to derive insights and help in decision making.

What is important to note here is that “Social” is not a middle-ware or another layer in the architecture of CRM systems, but is the front-end of CRM system, where customers decide the format and content of information.

It is responsibility of the company to record and store all relevant information from Social Media channels and derive value from it by using Predictive Analytics and Knowledge Management tools for effectively engaging customers.

What do you think? Do you agree that Social Media is the new front-end of the CRM system? Or is it middle-ware? Please do share your thoughts:

Republished with author's permission from original post by Harish Kotadia, Ph.D..

Harish Kotadia, Ph.D.

Dr. Harish Kotadia has a Ph.D. in Marketing Management. Subject of his doctoral thesis was Customer Satisfaction and it involved building a statistical model to predict satisfaction of clients with services of their ad agency. Dr. Harish has about ten years’ work experience as a hands-on CRM Program and Project Manager implementing CRM solutions for Fortune 500 clients in the US. Dr. Harish currently lives in Dallas, Texas, USA and works as Social CRM, CRM Consulting Lead for Infosys Technologies. Views and opinion expressed in this blog are his own.

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