What is Social CRM? Applications to Business Engagement

A CRM (customer relationship management) system is a technology tool designed to manage business relationships with customers, colleagues and suppliers. In the private sector, this translates to increased profits by selling more products; in the public sector this means building trust, connections and partnerships that can advance the organization's mission and increase awareness and reach.

CRM systems allow workforce, education and economic development organizations to collaborate more effectively, especially in engaging business and industry as a partner with sector strategies and work-based learning and as a customer with all types of business services offered across various organizations.

If designed properly, the CRM becomes the "organizational glue" that fosters collaboration and collective impact. But using a CRM tool alone is a limited strategy in building the necessary long-term transformational relationships with business and industry. Why? Because workforce, education and economic development organizations have to proactively maintain a pulse on the market as well as customer insights. This requires an additional element – social media channels – that are fully integrated into a CRM process.

A powerful example of Social CRM in business engagement is following a business customer's Twitter feed within the contact record and monitoring the posts and comments. What follows are immediate actions that can be implemented to deepen relationships with your business customers.

Customer Tweet Content	Business Engagement Action
The R&D department announces a new product line in the company.	Provides a reason to communicate with the customer: Does the company have its staff fully trained to deploy the new line? Retweeting the post to provide additional promotion. Direct messaging the customer through Twitter to schedule a consult to see if/how its business model has changed. Will the company be moving into expansion mode and need more staff?
Company received an award.	Highlight the customer in an organizational newsletter. Email to congratulate the business on its new product.
Company posts an interesting new study about the lack of a qualified workforce in its industry.	Do you have high growth sector initiatives that would engage the customer in your workforce pipeline work?

These are the types of strategies Business U facilitates during our B2B Engage Learning Lab™, a 1½ day learning event. Click here for more information, or contact info@business-u.net

Don't have a CRM tool? Request our guide on how to select a vertical-specific CRM.

Comments

[Denny]

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