Will Social CRM Systems Let You Be More Than Facebook Friends With Your Customers?

Executives at Oracle recently made waves by unveiling a roadmap for that company's CRM software which focused heavily on social networking. While some companies are trying to find ways to let their CRM applications connect directly to Facebook and Twitter, others simply want their CRM systems mimic the look and feel of social networks to make work more engaging for customer service representatives.

Customer Experience

Already, banks and merchandisers have discovered the value of being accessible in the places where customers want to be. The same process that companies use to scout new brick-and-mortar locations is playing out again online. This time, companies leverage CRM applications to make presence on social sites like MySpace and Facebook meaningful, instead of leaving behind just another branding campaign.

Brand Control

Brand managers, marketing managers, and customer service managers have found themselves in conflict over companies' social CRM strategies. Brand managers have especially voiced concerns about the demands that social networking websites place on customer service personnel. Instead of having a single, consistent message, companies that adopt social CRM applications create individual experiences that flow from a common vision or credo. That may require taking a different approach to customer service elements like communication templates or e-mail policies.

User Adoption

Social CRM applications offer another major incentive to companies. Employees who use sophisticated websites like Flickr and Facebook often become frustrated when dealing with aging, text-based CRM systems at the office. By integrating some of the best practices of popular online applications, sponsors of CRM systems hope that they can speed up training and increase adoption across the enterprise. Even if CRM applications don't directly connect users to customers on Facebook, a growing hope is that a generation of socially-networked web surfers will be more likely to embrace highly attractive, functional, fun CRM applications.