Social CRM: our 6 tips for combining customer relations and social networks
What is social CRM?
There is no longer any doubt that social networks have revolutionised the way consumers interact with businesses. Feedback, questions to customer service, searches for information - more and more consumers are turning to these channels for the speed and availability of answers.
According to a report by NM Incite, 71% of consumers who had a good service experience on social networks were likely to recommend the brand in 2016.
Find out more about this key trend in customer relations today, as well as a few examples of CRM strategies and tools that make it easier to attract and retain customers!
What is social CRM? Definition
First and foremost, what does CRM mean? It stands for Customer Relationship Management, and refers both to the management of customer relationships and to the tools used to do so. It is sometimes referred to in French as GRC (gestion de la relation client).
Social CRM, or SCRM, combines two concepts:
- customer relationship management, through customer knowledge and the centralisation of interactions with the customer;
- social media management, i.e. the management of social media and the use of the data circulating on them to promote a company's marketing activities and sales development, among other things.
The recent trend in social CRM, or SCRM, is therefore the use of social networks as part of a marketing CRM strategy.
Often used in B2C, social CRM can also be used in B2B.
From CRM to social media CRM
Sales lead to customer service, which leads to a more targeted marketing strategy, which leads to more sales (virtuous circle).
Objectives of social CRM
To return to the diagram above, with social CRM we are talking about :
- social selling: gathering and analysing data to understand the online customer journey and encourage the act of buying;
- social support: developing customer support, particularly via conversational tools;
- social marketing: increasing visibility on the web and engaging communities.
More than ever, the customer is at the heart of everything we do.
But while the CRM objectives are the same as with a "classic" CRM, companies must now respond to the need for speed, through increasingly asynchronous multi-channel customer management (in deferred time, without spatial or temporal constraints).
The challenges of social CRM
The challenges of social CRM are the same as those of traditional customer relationship management, such as collecting and centralising information on prospects to be used for marketing segmentation and targeting, collaboration between sales, marketing and support teams, performance monitoring, etc., but the resources deployed are different.
With an increasingly customer-centric approach, customer relations and marketing managers have had to rethink their approach and integrate the social dimension into their customer relations management, as well as their tools.
Main differences between CRM and social CRM
As we have seen, the issues and objectives are the same, the only differences are the approach, the points of contact and the timeframe.
Social CRM works on the customer's terms.
Customers become players in the customer relationship, contacting the company via the channel of their choice and at the time of their choice.
The company, for its part, reaches a wider target, but qualifies it more easily by varying the digital media and favouring the interactive aspect.
Consumers openly give their opinion and the keys to sending them the right message.
Why use an S-CRM?
What is a social CRM used for and how does it work?
Online CRM (or e-CRM) publishers are now developing the tool by integrating a connection with social networks, in addition to traditional channels.
A social CRM platform provides companies with a solution tailored to social CRM and gives customers the opportunity to interact with them via their preferred channel. What are the benefits of social CRM for your customer relations?
- Centralisation of multi-channel customer data: social CRM has a unified timeline and a live feed for receiving all customer enquiries in a single space.
- Personalised exchanges: the user's profile appears in the CRM so that you know who you are responding to, and can even access advanced statistics such as the pages of your site that they have consulted. In this way, you can contextualise their request, personalise your response and your future marketing campaigns.
- More detailed customer knowledge: connecting your CRM to social media means you can use the data collected there to improve segmentation, particularly behavioural segmentation. An integrated targeting tool also allows you to add listening rules according to your objectives.
- Conversational interaction: you don't respond on the original social network, but in a dedicated conversational space that every member of the team can consult. Conversations on social networks not only generate data on the quality of the customer experience, but also improve it.
- ROI measurement and reporting: thanks to the tracking of links published on social networks, you know which channel has been used to reach the Internet user and determine which investments to prioritise next. Track performance indicators such as sales generated per social contact, ROI per channel, etc.
10 benefits of using social CRM for your customer relations
- Get a 360° view of the customer thanks to multi-channel management;
- To have a social presence and control your e-reputation;
- So that you don't miss out on opportunities to get to know your prospects better and interact with them;
- To detect and monitor market trends;
- To attract new customers;
- To retain existing customers;
- To defuse potential bad buzz;
- To identify influencers in the sector;
- To create a community of brand ambassadors and measure recommendation capacity;
- To convey a modern brand image.
Which social CRM software should you choose to meet your objectives? 6 software packages to compare
Leaddelta
Leaddelta is an excellent Social CRM if you're mainly exploiting an audience from Linkedin. In particular, the tool offers you a much more comprehensive inbox than the one natively integrated into the platform.
Another feature: connection management. Leaddelta lets you assign tags to your contacts, delete them in bulk, and so on. For Linkedin, it's the perfect tool. On the other hand, if you're looking for a multi-channel tool, opt for another CRM on our list.
Leaddelta is available from $24.99/month.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Linkedin Sales Navigator, as the name suggests, is another CRM tool for Linkedin. By exploiting the platform's immense B2B database, Sales Navigator connects you with thousands of contacts.
It offers a wide range of filters, enabling you to carry out targeted, relevant searches. With Linkedin Sales Navigator, you can also create contact lists. Very useful for segmenting campaigns.
The tool is available in a range of packages from $99 to $149/month.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
RingCentral Experience Client
RingCentral Customer Experience is revolutionising the way organisations communicate. This cloud-based tool centralises flows from all digital channels, social networks and online chat into a single interface.
The software also integrates all modes of communication (telephony, videoconferencing, messaging and contact centre, etc.), so all your teams have to do is choose. RingCentral Experience Client is intuitive, easy to use and powerful.
RingEX offers various packages starting at US$30 per user per month.
RingCentral
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is Salesforce's all-in-one marketing platform. It enables you to manage marketing campaigns across absolutely all social channels.
The Studio module includes a social listening function. This means that the tool can monitor in real time what people are saying about your brand on social networks. It's a great way of taking the temperature without spending time and money on surveys.
Social Studio also enables you to engage your community by publishing posts and analysing performance centrally.
Marketing Cloud
Sleekflow
SleekFlow is an omnichannel conversational AI platform. In practical terms, it centralises all conversations from different sources (WhatsApp, Instagram, live chat, etc.) to standardise the customer journey.
The beauty of SleekFlow is that it uses artificial intelligence to offer intelligent conversations with users. The tool is aimed at absolutely every sector of the business: marketing, sales and support teams.
It's a solution that allows you to support the development of your organisation without investing in additional human resources, and to automate a large number of repetitive tasks.
Taplio
Taplio is an all-in-one Social CRM tool for leveraging the Linkedin audience. It offers a range of tools for analysis (KPIs, post performance, etc.), post creation (AI assistant, viral content libraries) and lead generation (mass sending of personalised messages, traditional CRM integration, etc.).
Taplio is compatible with Sales Navigator to make the most of your database. A powerful lead magnet. Taplio costs $39/month.
6 tips for optimising your social CRM strategy
Tip 1: Choose the right channels and tools
The first step in a social CRM strategy is to analyse your target audience. The objective? Identify the social network on which they are most active. Thanks to this approach, you can focus your efforts on high-performance platforms.
B2B customers generally prefer Linkedin or Facebook. Consumers are more likely to use Instagram or TikTok.
But, of course, it's not an exact science. Once you've selected your social networks, invest in high-performance tools to retrieve, centralise and exploit your social data.
Tip 2: Organise your teams and processes around the connected customer
In a CRM strategy, the user is the actor in the customer relationship. It's their choice of channels and the questions they ask that will guide their customer journey. Define precise processes upstream for the members of your Social CRM team:
- Who should be the first to respond?
- When should a request be transferred to an expert?
- What tone should be used? And so on.
Thanks to this approach, all your staff (community manager, social customer service, data analyst) will know exactly what their role and responsibilities are.
As a result, you gain in productivity and communication.
Tip 3: Align marketing, customer service and sales around an omnichannel vision
The effectiveness of a social CRM strategy depends on coordination between the company's 3 main areas: marketing, sales and customer service. To encourage communication between these areas, create a culture of collaboration with shared objectives and KPIs, as well as setting up cross-functional meetings.
✅ Each department should contribute information that benefits the others.
Tip 4: Encourage customer feedback
Customer feedback offers two main benefits. On the one hand, they serve as a basis for improving processes, marketing campaigns and products. On the other, they are a valuable conversion lever.
In fact, according to a Hootsuite study dating back to 2022, over 70% of consumers will be more inclined to use a company if it answers their questions accurately. Your strategy should therefore involve 3 stages:
- Encourage opinions,
- respond to them
- and take them into account.
Tip 5: Implement a social CRM data strategy
Data collection is at the heart of Social CRM strategies. It must be based on relevant metrics (engagement and conversion rates, volume of interaction, ratio of positive/negative comments, etc.). Once collected, integrate this data into your traditional CRM to optimise the segmentation of your audience.
Tip 6: Measure the impact and adjust your social media and CRM strategy
The social network ecosystem is constantly evolving. To keep up, you need accurate insights. To do this, define relevant KPIs, analyse your performance regularly and adapt your strategies accordingly.
And don't forget to test new techniques (formats, channels, approaches) and analyse competing strategies.
People at the heart of CRM strategy
Social CRM is not about technology. It's about the people, processes and cultural changes needed to support and grow a business.
M. Lieberman, VP, SugarCRM sur emarketing.fr
SCRM enriches your relationship strategy and encourages greater commitment from your target audience.
Are you ready to take advantage of exchanges on social networks to feed your CRM?