From social media to social customer relationship management, at the crux of it all are the prospects, the leads, the customers and the champions; in other words, the lifeline of your business. And in order to succeed in our Customer Era, it is all about maintaining ongoing and meaningful engagement and conversations with our potential and existing customers.
What Is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management or CRM systems primarily function as automated Sales and Marketing systems that are used to dynamically manage, track and to connect with prospects and customers. You can think of it as your Rolodex on steroids.
A decade ago, it used to be the trump card of large companies because of its hefty prices. Thereafter, software developers have come up with a variety of scaled down versions well-suited to the needs and more importantly, the checkbooks of smaller businesses.
When you are dealing with contact lists that run into the hundreds or thousands, their accompanying data and other fragment of details gleaned from the interactions you have had with them. You will need some form of automated structure to instantly access, data mine and re-purpose that data in synch with your marketing initiatives.
What Is Social Media?
While face-to-face personal interactions are still important in building business relationships, social media gives greater dynamics as well as dimension to your interactions. As it is a public forum, when you have a conversation with one of your followers, you are simultaneously speaking to all of them. There is a greater level of transparency, convenience, spontaneity and fun, if done well.
They are good arenas to showcase the high quality of customer service you offer by how you handle complaint issues, comments and feedback that are often channeled via the various and many Social Media options. Nowadays, that has shifted a notch from social media to social customer relationship management
The Combo – From Social Media To Social CRM
In unison, from social media to social customer relationship management, you have a cocktail of tools that have the potential to multiply your revenue. That is, provided you learn how to selectively use them correctly and optimally.
Know how you get the fuzzies when unexpectedly, someone sends or calls you on your birthday with their birthday good wishes? It happens to all of us because someone took the trouble to remember and to follow it up with a personal touch.
In order to get “close and personal”, you have to keep track of your customers’ happenings as it relates to your car wash business. For instance, they have confided to you that they plan to trade in one of their vehicles for a newer model; they are planning their 10th wedding anniversary in the summer or they have their sights set on their daughter’s graduation that will happen soon. Unless you have the best ways to record, recall and apply these nuggets of significant information, you will be passing up your business opportunities to other outlets, which will have their eyes peeled on the “prize”.
The tools of yesteryear made it cumbersome to marry the tracking, the management and the application of customer data in a meaningful way. With technology, from social media to social customer relationship management, you are spoilt for choice as to which ones to go for that best fits your business model, practices and resources.
Implementing the tools of yesteryear
Whether you want an application that integrates with your other business apps; one whose data fields are customizable to how you prefer to store, slice and dice your customer information; one that automates the mailing of marketing materials based on predetermined schedules; or one that alerts you to when it is time to send out special occasion, anniversary or season’s greetings. They are all available to a greater or lesser degree and in various combinations.
Many apps from social media to social customer relationship management are designed with the non-IT small to medium business owner in mind. They are not complicated to set up and those that are web-based, need little or no set up at all. Their interfaces are user friendly and simple to follow and work with. In many cases, a degree of straightforward customizability is accommodated to meet needs such as, different marketing templates, and creating various customer segments.
The better you optimize and automate your backend Sales and Marketing CRM structure, the more resources you are left with to channel into your Social Media efforts. From social media to social customer relationship management, it is all about relationship building at the end of the day. While you can automate to record, track and manage your customer database, you need to be hands on with the social aspects.
Throughout the course of our company’s history, we have benefited from and shared with our franchisees – our business knowledge, experience and industry expertise on areas such as, social CRM. We hope your interest has been piqued into dropping in here and better still, should you consider becoming our franchisee.
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