What is Social CRM?
Figuring out which social media platform is going to be the most beneficial for your business can be a bit like going out on a blind date—most of the time it’s awkward at first, but with each subsequent date you become closer and gain a better understanding of one another. Or maybe you feel differently about Social Media, perhaps like you don’t know what you’re doing? Maybe you think social media is more like the date where at the end of the night you thought it went amazing because your date was deeply gazing into your eyes for the entire meal, only you discover later, in the mirror, that they likely couldn’t stop staring at you because you had a massive piece of spinach stuck on your front tooth.
Like it or not, social engagement with your customers is not an option any more, it’s a requirement. Be it awkward, embarrassing or amazing, I’d urge you to keep at your Social Media strategy. Keep refining it and keep an eye on your competitors, you can gain great value by doing some simple sleuthing.
A few weeks ago Twitter shares plummeted when they reported that their new user growth was declining. It is shocking to think that there are still businesses out there that are not using this free medium to engage with their clients and grow their network. However, it could also be that more and more businesses are finding that Social Media just isn’t a viable source of revenue for them, or it is too difficult to report ROI, which is a whole other conversation.
A long long time ago (2009), CRM guru Paul Greenberg defined Social CRM as a “philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” What an amazing concept the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.
You may not know it, but Sugar CRM actually comes “right of the box” with Social CRM capabilities. You can integrate social media on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with your email marketing for online collaboration, document sharing and sales intelligence with Sugar.
The following Social CRM capabilities and integrations are available for all subscriptions out of the box:
Social Media
• LinkedIn: See who you know or who can provide you with an introduction at a company
• Twitter: read tweets of all the people you follow in the Activity Streams dashlet and add the Twitter name to a contact or lead and read their tweets directly in the contact or lead record
Email Integration
• Sugar Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook: archive emails to Sugar and sync calendar, contacts and tasks
• Sugar Plug-in for IBM Lotus Notes: archive emails to Sugar and sync calendar, contacts and tasks
• Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and IMAP mail: use the Sugar email client to archive emails to Sugar
• Send email using your mail account credentials directly from Sugar
Online Collaboration
•Schedule, start or join LotusLive, Cisco WebEx or Citrix GoToMeeting online meetings directly from Sugar
Document Sharing
•Relate documents to any record in Sugar and store them in the cloud using LotusLive or Google Docs
Sales Intelligence
• Dun & Bradstreet, Hoovers, InsideView, Jigsaw, and Zoominfo: Get account and contact data using the Sugar Cloud Connectors
SugarExchange Extensions
• Box.com: Relate documents to any record in Sugar and store them in the cloud using Box.com
• Qontext: secure, cloud-based, social collaboration between co-workers, customers, prospects and partners.
Additional Social CRM integrations can easily be built using Sugar Studio, Sugar Cloud Connectors and Module Builder.
Positive Impacts
• Access different Social CRM solutions directly from Sugar
• Keep sales people inside their CRM applications
• Use Sugar Studio, Cloud Connectors and Module Builder to easily add additional Social CRM capabilities.
• Empower your employees with the latest social media capabilities
If you’d like more information about how to supercharge your Social CRM efforts with Sugar CRM, contact us today!