December 14th, 2009 by dnomura
“That sounds great. Where do I start?” This is a common theme we hear. Let’s say your company makes the business decision to take advantage of social media. But now what? Just figuring out where to begin can be a challenge.
The focus of this post is to talk a bit more about using Buzzient as a social media integration platform with CRM. There’s benefit to be had from using automation to integrate the social media channnel and content with your CRM system(s) for lead generation and customer service. For many companies this is a tangible and valuable place to start.
Leveraging social media in these cases doesn’t require you to jump into social media as the initiators of conversations (you’re respondents). Participating in social media as initiators is a different aspect you’ll need to think about and assess whether it’s consistent with your business goals. But taking advantage of social media to find more leads to help drive revenue and commiting to proactive customer support to drive enhanced satisfaction can’t help but be consistent with most company’s business goals. Can’t it?
Buzzient provides the technology that enables you to extend your CRM system to the social realm to help you address this new channel in your sales and service processes. The channel and the methods you use to interact might be new, but your lead qualification and customer service workflows are still the foundations.
You probably have workflows in place to address lead suspects/prospects and customer support issues in your CRM system. Perfect. Leverage the time, effort and expertise you have in your CRM investment.
Buzzient as a social media integration platform integrates with CRM systems so you can use the technology “behind-the-scenes” to find, store and analyze lead- or issue-oriented social media posts. The platform integrates this content within the CRM system so users don’t have to utilize a separate application.
Of course there is also great value in social media analytics. Integrating social media with CRM to derive lead generation and customer service value is just one place to get started. Depending on your business goals, you might benefit by starting with analytics. But we’ll cover that in a subsequent post.
Lead Generation
You might have suspects/prospects coming in from email campaigns, direct mail, good old return cards, website activity, trade shows, etc. But are you taking advantage of social media as a lead generation channel?
People are making posts via Twitter or forums or other social media channels about a desire to buy your products, those of your competition and/or products in your industry area. It’s easy to assume authors are primarily talking about consumer goods, but they’re talking enterprise purchases too. Asking the world, “I’m looking for a new xyz, what does everyone think?” isn’t uncommon anymore.
Getting these social media suspects/prospects into the CRM lead qualfication workflow just like your other channels can boost your lead generation results. It’s important to note that these suspects/prospects aren’t replacing the leads you’re getting from current efforts, they’re adding to them. Your reps can initiate and track conversations with these suspects/prospects using the authors’ social media vehicle (Twitter, blog, etc.) without having to leave the CRM system.
Customer Service
Your customer service organization might be addressing support through an online ticketing system, call center, email, etc. But are you taking the next step to proactively support customers who are talking about their problems via social media? Are you leveraging community-answered issues by getting them into your knowledgebase?
Something like “Having such-and-such problems with xyz again, can someone help?” is seen more and more. Perhaps along with a response such as, “Same problem I had. I was able to fix it by doing a, b, and c.”
Proactively getting social media customer issues into the CRM support workflow just like your other channels can enhance customer service levels. Does this increase your queues in the short term? Probably. But is it valuable to you to establish yourself as a company that makes the effort to reach out and support customers? Will solving an issue early (as it’s broadcasted on social media) and getting the solution into your knowledgebase save dealing with many tickets for the same problem later? As with the lead/sales reps, your customer support agents can initiate research with the customer using the authors’ social media vehicle (Twitter, blog, etc.) without having to leave the CRM system.
Of course these examples might require you to adjust your business processes somewhat to embrace social media as a new channel for lead generation and support. But the benefits from increased leads and elevated customer service levels can be worth it.
Buzzient integration includes the ability to communicate with the author of the post via their social media channel, from within the CRM system. This is an important point. The lead/issue came from a social media post, there isn’t a phone number or email address. Only their username. So if they tweeted, talk to them via Twitter. If they posted on a forum, talk to them there. Without leaving the CRM system.
You can see an example of Buzzient’s deep integration into CRM (Oracle CRM On Demand is used for the example) via the demos page, under the Social Media Integration section.
Of course Buzzient Enterprise also provides deep social media analytics. But for companies who are focused on leveraging what’s being said on social media to maximize lead qualification and enhance customer service, using Buzzient as a social media integration platform to CRM is the way to link the social channel with your CRM.
December 7th, 2009 by tbj
I still remember the moment in “Soylent Green” where Charlton Heston realizes that his daily meal was, well, organically-grown. Behind all the mystery and the technological miracles, there was the sudden realization that things are sometimes simpler than they seem up front.
Even with the inexorable merging of CRM and social media analytics, I often get the question: “Why should we tie our CRM system to a social media analytics platform like Buzzient?”. This is a valid question; CRM rollouts have too often turned into multi-year affairs, with extensive customization and end user costs.
My response is pretty simple: regardless of all the hoopla and whiz-bang gadgetry that some are using to describe social media, it really comes down to the simple fact that social media is “made of people”. It’s not just about the content types, the ability to monitor MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It’s more important to acknowledge that behind every user handle there is a real person; a potential consumer, a purchase influencer, or maybe an existing customer. Listening and responding to these people isn’t a matter of being “cool”, it’s essential to the mission of CRM.
Therefore we at Buzzient will continue to drive innovation in how social media connects to CRM. We won’t stop until you pull the software from our cold, dead hands…(’props to Charlton Heston, RIP).
October 16th, 2009 by dnomura
Back from a great OpenWorld experience. It’s amazing how Oracle has gotten the logistics for this event down to a science. Even Tuesday’s downpour didn’t seem to have much effect, other than the venues scrambling for more rugs to keep people from slipping on slick tiles.
Many have already posted about OpenWorld and the progress in Oracle Social CRM. The tools that help drive more sales through sales user collaboration look great.
Having been in the CRM space during the early days, I remember customers’ sales management expecting promising results from the reporting and accountability CRM systems provided. But I also remember the grumblings from sales reps themselves who preferred to continue using Act! or Outlook. Oracle’s Social CRM tools give reps a benefit to using the CRM system.
As an Oracle Partner, we’re excited to be able to provide a platform that enables an external aspect of social CRM integration for Oracle CRM On Demand and other Oracle and non-Oracle applications. Customers are able to leverage unstructured social media content by integrating it into their CRM workflows. Benefits such as expanded lead gathering, enhanced customer satisfaction, quicker investor relations action and more are achievable.
This isn’t just for getting social media posts expressing a level of buying interest into the lead qualifications workflow, but also those talking about problems or issues into the customer support workflow. We’ve also seen more and more examples of HR organizations finding social media content from current or prospective employees that need to be addressed, in other words they need to get those into a workflow too.
Many departments in an enterprise can benefit from learning and leveraging what’s being said about a company when the author isn’t talking to you, or under any type of survey bias. An important consideration is getting these posts that need action into the appropriate workflow so you can document and take action.
September 14th, 2009 by tbj
Ok, forgive me, but I did catch at least a bit of “Lord of the Rings” this weekend, purely by accident. Inherent to the plot of the trilogy is that one master Ring united all of the individual Rings of Power. Each individual Ring packed a wallop, but you really needed to pull them all together to make them coherent. In an obvious stretch of the analogy, what we’ve done at Buzzient is build that One Ring, to pull together all the myriad Rings into coherence(…I know, I’m bending things a bit, but stay with me here…;o)).
In the world of social media, we’re now seeing individual application companies build their own social media integration and analytics solutions. Companies such as Salesforce.com and RightNow have recently announced cloud-monitoring capabilities, designed to draw social media data into their applications. These solutions are fine for the one-app shop, but in reality complex enterprises have one of everything. So, you need One Ring..er…Application to unite them all. That’s what Buzzient Enterprise is all about. With one application, we can integrate social media data with Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, and now….(drum-roll…) Oracle CRM OnDemand !!!!
We’re already getting lots of interest, and we look forward to opening a sales office in the Shire very soon…;o)
September 9th, 2009 by tbj
We’ve been predicting for quite a while now that mainstream business applications would eventually recognize the impact of social media. With the rate of user growth in social media exceeding that of any other aspect of the internet, any B2B(or B2B2C) applications vendor needs to have a strategy to reach out to users congregating in social media. Whether for customer support, lead generation, or product development, social media data MUST be incorporated in the workflow of business applications.
Today, with the release by Salesforce.com of their ServiceCloud V2, we’ve seen a formal embrace of integrating Twitter with Salesforce.com CRM.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-salesforces-service-cloud-2/
Nevermind the fact that we’ve been quietly doing this for months at Buzzient (;o)); this announcement should serve as as wakeup call to other vendors for the need to have a social media integration strategy.
What Salesforce (and RightNow for that matter) and other CRM companies building internal social media extensions don’t address however is the inherent heterogeneity of complex enterprises. Everywhere there’s Salesforce.com installed in a complex enterprise, I’m willing to bet one will also find evidence of Netsuite, Oracle(Siebel, Peoplesoft, Hyperion), SAP, and other applications. Any social media strategy should also include a way to provide access to that data for on-premise applications as well as products from multiple suppliers. In this fashion, a customer would be enabled to follow a social media post across not just CRM, but also ERP, BI and other business functions. We at Buzzient are committed to making THAT social media marriage come to pass!!!
August 4th, 2009 by dnomura
There’s quite a bit of talk going on about the whether the cloud deployment model is the way to go for enterprises. (For our purposes, let’s say “cloud” refers to hosted or SaaS deployment.) I fall into the camp that says, “it depends.”
According to Gartner:
“Organizations potentially can gain a competitive or cost advantage through selective adoption of cloud computing, but not without first taking a comprehensive look at the associated risks, ensuring that they are consistent with business goals, along with the expectations of regulators, auditors, shareholders and partners.“
– Gartner, Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing Jay Heiser, Mark Nicolett, 3 June 2008.
I think that makes a lot of sense. Deployment models should align with your business goals.
But when it comes to social media isn’t it true that publicly-available content is, well, public? Can’t public posts be seen and read by anyone? So why any concerns at all about risks when using the cloud for social media analytics?
For many companies there probably aren’t any. However for certain enterprises when it comes to harvesting and analyzing persistently-stored posts, there could be very good reasons to maintain control and storage inside your firewall.
Perhaps you’re in an industry such as pharmaceuticals, financial services or others, where storing historical social web content in-house might be important for regulatory, audit or other reasons. Or maybe your IT team requires all systems be deployed in a behind-the-firewall deployment, including social media analytics.
It’s best to have choice so you can make sure your social media analytics deployment supports your business goals. Maybe you start with one deployment model and migrate to another. For example you might want to start with SaaS, then bring the system in-house. After all you can’t always anticipate how regulatory, compliance, etc. requirements will change tomorrow, next month or next year. Not to mention how your own business needs will change over time.
July 10th, 2009 by tbj
We’ve been chuckling the last few days here at Buzzient about the “United Breaks Guitars” social media scandal. For those of you not aware, Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell released a video on YouTube skewering United Airlines for not only breaking his guitar as he watched from his seat, but also for United’s customer service (non)response. The video is slick, funny, and gets your toes tappin’ pretty quickly. At the same time, it’s a stroke of genius in how social media can be used to (belatedly) educate a company about the importance of customer service.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
After a generation or so of reduced customer service and amnesia re: the mantra “the customer is always right”, the customers are now biting back. When last I checked, the video had about 1.5M views in about 4 days. In an era where leisure and business travelers are scrutinizing every travel dime, and with new entrants such as Virgin America coming into the market, United Airlines can ill afford the bad publicity this is already causing.
Purely by chance, a Buzzient stakeholder asked us to start analyzing the electronics and musical instrument manufacturer category last year. As a result, we have a pretty significant database of social media postings and comments about various manufacturers, including Gibson and Taylor(the brand of the unfortunate “sacrificial guitar” in the song). In particular, Buzzient Enterprise keeps track of the key websites where enthusiasts are posting. These social media sites and niche forums are precisely the places United should look to advertise to repair their reputation.
Oh, and for my next fishing trip, I’m bringing my fly rods as carry on luggage!
July 9th, 2009 by dnomura
Years ago Walter Wriston, former Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, made a great observation:
“Information about money has become almost as important as money itself.”
Instead of money, the same could be said of social web content today. With a little adjustment to Mr. Wriston’s quotation:
“Information about social web conversations has become almost as important as the conversation itself.”
Information about where people are talking, who’s talking, how influential are they, what they’re talking about, how much they’re talking, their attitudes and opinions, etc. are all important data points. Also important is this information as it compares to the past. Are people changing where they’re talking, have their opinions changed, how much have they changed, why did they change, etc.
Unlike information about money, which isn’t necessarily available to you and me (other than our own dollars and cents to a certain level), information about the public social web is abundant. Monitoring can be a first step to see what people are saying, but deeper analysis is needed to really leverage this ocean of valuable information for business objectives.
Buzzient is dedicated to automated social media data harvesting and analytics. We provide enterprises with social media measurements that contribute to business strategy and tactics. We also recognize we don’t know your business like you do, and absolutely welcome working with customers to learn what additional metrics are important to you.
July 8th, 2009 by tbj
With the recent backtracking by Google on discontinuing the free version of Google Apps for Enterprise, we’ve had a collective reminder of how valuable our data in the cloud can be. I heard through the grapevine of a number of folks beginning to look at alternatives to Google Apps. What should also not be lost in all this is the importance of the DATA in the cloud and not just the Apps. Whether the data is comprised of documents, spreadsheets or social media conversations, it’s extremely valuable. It needs to be protected and maintained for end users. It’s also a valuable source of analytics for companies that are trying to build stronger customer relationships.
The emotional reactions to Google’s scare on Apps reminds me of why we started Buzzient in the first place: we realized that applications might be the first thing people think about when they hear of the cloud, but the real gems are in the data. Making the data useful for business applications and business users is what we’re all about, and can provide a valuable resource for both companies and the customers they serve.
Our original research on Google Apps, including our pricing recommendations which Google adopted can be found here:
15 567_Google Enterprise Installed Solution_GoeldiJonesLo
July 2nd, 2009 by dnomura
Analysis of social web content is more than just monitoring and counting. Some enterprises might feel that they’re not ready for social media analytics, or that it’s foreign territory.
A better way to look at it is to consider social media a new, important and growing dataset. Regardless of what you as an enterprise do in terms of participating in social media, this data represents incredible value. Now.
Socia media data is valuable to the entire enterprise, not just PR, marketing or product development. Groups such as risk management, HR, investor relations, customer support, sales, finance, manufacturing, operations and more can all benefit from deep social media analytics.
Social media analytics about your brands/products/company/industry augments what you’re already doing. It doesn’t replace anything. It adds to your traditional market research, customer satisfaction survey results and focus group findings.
The difference is that this is content where people are talking about you, but not directly to you. They aren’t answering a specific set of questions or checking boxes. They aren’t under any survey bias or group pressure.
The unstructured nature and potentially huge volume of social web content might make some enterprises reluctant to embrace its analysis. But there’re valuable insights in this roiling sea of data and you need to take advantage. And true, posts are from online users and not a random cross-section or “people on the street.” However their growing ranks and influence cannot be denied.
Analysis of this enterprise-applicable data provides you with an additional set of measurements that can contribute to your business strategies and tactics. Integrate it with your financial analysis, manufacturing analysis, customer support metrics, etc. to make more informed business decisions.
