Leveraging the social media channel + CRM for lead generation and customer service
“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.