Five years ago, my friend Michael Thomas and I started a company that included the acronym “CRM” in its
name. Thinking back on it now, I don’t know what we were thinking. Most small business folks back then didn’t
even know the meaning of CRM. The ones who did, well, let’s just say they didn’t have a positive word to say about
it.
But now, in 2008, I’m not afraid to say my company name out loud. In fact, I can say it and
know that a growing number of my small business peers understand its importance to the growth of their own companies. 2008
is shaping up to be the year small businesses begin fully embracing customer relationship management as a business strategy.
Traditionally, CRM is usually broken into three main components: marketing automation, sales automation and customer
service. But a great deal of the focus has been on things like contact management, opportunity management and activity management.
Many of the CRM applications concentrated on meeting the challenges that were inherent within these areas.
As small business professionals, we understand
the operational productivity gains that come out of having a centralized database for tracking activities, opportunities and
customer information. This also can help us be more responsive to customer inquiries, close more deals with more efficiency,
and more accurately predict when opportunities turn into cash. This can truly make our lives easier.
Yet, what we understand more than anything is a need to leverage the Web to find more leads, and to
let the Web help us quickly differentiate good leads from dead ends. More importantly, we need to create a Web presence that
makes it as easy as possible for those who could use our services to find us.
This means
creating a customer profile that helps us identify key pieces of information, and the difference between good customers and
bad ones. Then, it’s important to reach out to those customers to find out what’s on their minds, what social
networks — if any — they frequent, what topics are important to them, and how they like getting information.
Chances are, if a good number of customers
spend a decent amount of time on Facebook, we can increase our opportunities to engage others like them by building a Facebook
presence. Or if we find many of our customers are on Twitter, it might help us increase opportunities to touch base with them
by following their “tweets.” Maybe just knowing their favorite blogs or podcasts will give us insight that could
lead to more opportunities to reach more like them.
Social CRM
adds a whole new dimension to the traditional view of customer relationship management. The focus is undoubtedly on people
and not technology. It’s about joining the ongoing conversations our customers and prospects are already engaged in
— not trying to control them. It’s about using any tool available that will allow us to meaningfully engage with
more people like them. It is realizing people like doing business with people they like — and understanding we love
doing business with people we trust.
My small business brethren know this better
than anyone and have literally put the “social” into CRM. This is why I’m not ashamed to say my company
name anymore. AT
