Social Media Integration For CRM Systems

The constant evolution of social media and its importance for businesses is not a hidden storyline in our culture. I am also well aware that the concept of a customer relationship management system (CRM) is nothing new either.

Now, CRM systems are going to the next level with social media integration – allowing you to manage your customer relations in one easy-to-use tool. But, why is this important? 

As you manage your customers in most CRM systems, you are truly missing out on a large part of your customer’s life – social media. When your CRM integrates social, you can form a full customer identity, allowing you to see what your consumers really think about you and manage your relationship digitally. Who knows, one of the most unlikely customers could be one of your biggest advocates and influencers on a social media channel – you want to know about those people.

While at face value it may seem intrusive, your customers want you to be intuitive. They want you to be able to meet their needs in the most effective way. This concept is often called “social listening,” the act of using social media to give your customer the best product or service possible.

In addition, when your social media accounts are integrated into your CRM, you can involve specific departments in your organizational social media goals and pursuits. While you want to keep a consistent voice by only having one or two people actually post content, having the input of those who are considered the “experts” in each department is beneficial.

Let me clarify further. The person in charge of your social media probably does not know as much about a specific product than the person who works with it every day. With social media integrated into your CRM, you can create a ticket or note based on a tweet or post to a specific person or department to ask for their input. This way, you can get back to the customer in a timely fashion with the most accurate information possible. If necessary, someone in the department can contact that person directly and take the situation offline.

Some CRM’s even allow you to set notifications if there are a multitude of tweets or posts surrounding one topic or issue. This is an extremely helpful feature to keep your organization abreast on customer chatter.  Imagine if multiple clients start talking about the same issue with one of your products, which sparks a social media firestorm. If you don’t have feelers out on social media for these issues, you may seem like you don’t care about customer service. Those types of situations can quickly escalate to unmanageable levels, creating potential damage for your brand.

How could social media integration into your CRM be beneficial?