Social CRM = Business Transformation

Hot off the presses! Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group just released their newest report: Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management. The opening tenor of the report adeptly characterizes the shift in control from brands to consumers and the frenetic scramble to understand this new paradigm. Yet, the experts at the Altimeter Group see a new shade of CRM technologies aiding in the quest to maintain customer relationships. They write in the report that Social CRM is not a displacement of traditional CRM solutions, but rather a value add function to deepen customer relationships through interaction.

As always the Altimeter Group takes a pragmatic approach by encouraging organizations to start slowly and choose Social CRM entry points based on business value. They list seven categories that tie to real business use cases such as: Social Customer Insights, Social Sales, Social Innovation and Customer Experience to illustrate their points. Yet the real meat of this report exists in the 18 case studies that exemplify tested use cases for Social CRM.

Each use case includes two key measures that enable readers to determine the importance of the activity to their business and the feasibility of putting the use case into action. The first measure is the Market Demand Index, which provides context for the urgency associated with each activity. High Market Demand means that adoption is likely within a short (i.e., 6 month) timeframe. The second measure is Tech Maturity Index that signifies either currently available technologies that are widely used or conceptual products that are still evolving.

This report is chock full of information that you can use to begin understanding your customers and their use of social media in an entirely new way. As one of the influencers listed on this report, I can attest to the fact that it is recommended reading for anyone who’s working in social media today.

Finally, this isn’t the last word on Social CRM. The Altimeter Group encourages readers to add to the conversation and engage in the dialog. To take part: Join your peers in the Google Group for Social CRM Pioneers at:
http://groups.google.com/group/social-crm-pioneers – or – Add the hashtag #scrmusecase to your tweets to join the conversation on Twitter.

About John Lovett

John Lovett is a Senior Partner at Web Analytics Demystified, Inc. and the author of Social Media Metrics Secrets (Wiley, 2011). A former Forrester Research Analyst and current Vice President of the Web Analytics Association, John blogs about web analytics industry trends, strategy, business culture, and social analytics. Want to speak with John? Contact Web Analytics Demystified

Posted Friday, March 5th, 2010 | 6 responses | Share, Save or Email