THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF SOCIAL CRM
THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF SOCIAL CRM
I was reading a blog post the other day by Radian6’s Lauren Vargas (Director of Community) that gave a few solid best practices, and I realized that no one had yet written the 10 commandments of Social CRM. So, I’d like to run through them so you get a better idea of Social CRM best practices.
1. Executive-level shared vision of what defines “customer relationships” shall be more than “understood” universally through your organization. You should be able to ask any employee what a customer relationship is, and what it means, and they should be able to give you a straight answer.
2. From your company’s perspective, a relationship with your customers is not what you need most. You must understand the job your customers are trying to get done and help them make that happen.
3. You shall not address the social customer in a nontransparent manner, because if you are dishonest with them, they will figure it out and it will come back to haunt you.
4. Remember to define clear, measurable business objectives and base all social customer strategy on achieving those objectives.
5. Honor your customers and your community by asking them what they expect from you, and delivering it.
6. You shall not think that software or technology, by itself, is a solution strategy. Educate your work force by building their abilities and skills, and only deploy software once you have the culture and cross-functional buy-in to support it.
7. You shall not necessarily keep existing business processes if they don’t fit with the new vision.
8. You shall not be foolish enough to not have a change management strategy.
9. You shall not expect your employees or customers to converse with one another unless clear expectations have been set with both parties by your company’s management.
10. You shall not covet your competition’s social customer strategy or think that what they’re doing is right; they may have just confused strategy with planning.
If you can get your company to stick to these 10 guiding principles around the social customer, you’ll be in pretty good shape. But doing that is going to take senior executive–level buy-in. If you want departmental- level ownership of the social customer, keep reading (and following the pointers), but don’t expect to get anything besides the organic model of social customer engagement (or past Scenario Two), if you’re not going for top-level buy-in.
Some readers may say, “Hey, I think that’s the best I’m ever going to get on this project,” and pursue a fair-to-middling objective. This is where I invoke the aphorisms of superintense GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons (sort of the Mr. Clean of the technology world). On his list of “16 Rules for Success in Business and Life in General” number three is: “When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.” Don’t let a fear of rejection quash your dream to pursue the rewarding relationship that your company, and your customers, desperately need.
Ed. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here.
This installment continues Chapter 3: Social Customer Relationship Management. Adam moves from defining social CRM to laying down some of its laws.
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