Report offers insights into the state of customer relationships
Customer relationship management, or CRM, has become a misused term of art by those who focus too much on software tools and lose sight of the internal business processes where customers are lost or gained.
A new 24-page ebook, New Trends in CRM, has just been released by The Customer Collective — a community of sales and marketing professionals — as a free download.
I contributed one chapter, “Four Experts on How to Turn Social Media into Sales,” with insights from Becky Brown, Director of Social Media Strategy, Intel; Rob Fuggetta, CEO, Zuberance; Michael Brito, Vice President of Social Media, Edelman Digital and Tony Lee, Vice President of Marketing, TiVo. I quoted Becky Brown in the report:
“Be resourced,” Becky said. “Use employees and advocates and agencies.” She said it was important to use listening tools “to find people who are not your brand advocates, who are negative advocates.” And take it on yourself. You cannot ask an agency to read all your posts for you. You cannot get college grads to handle your Twitter account. These are real customers talking about your brand, so engage with them directly.
From the report’s preface:
CRM software (and its trendy offspring, social CRM) can’t substitute for clear, effective strategic thinking. Before they can leverage the power of CRM, in other words, businesses must first identify business priorities, define departmental roles, drive performance and create value for customers.
To clarify these issues and help you map out a strategy that works for your business, we gathered perspectives from smart folks in the sales, marketing and CRM industries. We hope this e-book will help you make informed choices on selecting and leveraging a CRM solution that boosts your company’s bottom line.
Other contributors include David Brock, Charles H. Green, Cheryl Hanna, Esteban Kolsky, Ben Bradley and David Tyner. Download “New Trends in CRM” after filling out a 15-second registration form.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
This is a great resource, and free, that is wonderful. This is why I always come visit socialmedia.biz… there is always something useful shared. Thanks JD!