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09.11.09
Customers Will Reshape Social CRM
 By Jim Berkowitz
Here is an excellent post by Bob Warfield that really helps to put the emergence of Social CRM into perspective, The Customer, as Social CRM, is the Fourth Pillar of CRM:
A collection of excellent blog posts from the Social CRM community are converging on what I think is the real secret of what Social CRM is all about.
There has been much talk about the "Pillars of CRM". Traditionally we have Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service as the three pillars of CRM. Clearly the world has changed. I talk at some length about how in the first of a series of blog posts we've taken to calling Helpstream's "Social CRM Manifesto." Give that article a read for a good introduction to how the Customer has come to be in Control, a development which impacts every aspect of how companies deal with Customer Relationship Management. We'll be publishing the Manifesto as a series that all hangs together and tells the story of Social CRM, at least the way we see it at Helpstream.
Getting back to the excellent series of posts, the first one I read was by Esteban Kolsky and has the wonderful Hawking-esque title, "A Brief History of CRM." He's pushing the idea that Feedback is the Fourth Pillar. For me, making Feedback that Fourth Pillar is close, but no cigar.
CRM as its practices today is at heart a command and control system, and Feedback as a role for the customer fits into that World View perfectly (it should, Esteban knows one heck of a lot about CRM!). My problem is that it is way too passive a description of the role the Customer will play in our brave new world, and some of the comments on the post are also uncomfortable for that reason. We will no doubt define Feedback in a way that seems more active, but it just doesn't do it for me. Make no mistake about it, the Customer is in Control. Ignore at your own peril. This is why I am so fond of using Paul Greenberg's short definition of Social CRM which is that it is what companies do when the customer is in control of the conversation. That's why I say the Customer themselves are that Fourth Pillar. They now have a seat at your table, more on that in a moment.
Esteban and I have been trading Tweets on whether Social CRM is really a new paradigm that changes everything, or whether it is more like a new channel or refinement to CRM. This of course is an argument that erupts at the beginning of every paradigm shift. It is uncomfortable when things don't fit the old model and the established priesthood wants to make things fit. Ultimately, this is semantics. When the Social CRM revolution is over, it will be part of CRM. We don't need to rebuild the whole wheel. But for the time being, it is productive to consider the two separately. Make no mistake: Social CRM is not about replacing CRM at all. It is productive to insist that Social CRM be integrated with CRM, but not to view it as a subset or adjunct fifth wheel to CRM. The reason is that any subset or adjunct might be viewed as optional. It might be viewed that CRM will inform the adjunct what to do and how to operate, not vice versa. Neither one is true, and the fundamental changes the web has wrought in the power of the customer make that clear. That's why I keep harping on it as paradigm shift. Social CRM will change CRM much more than CRM will shape Social CRM. When that change is complete, that will be the time to put away the banners and place Social CRM strictly under the CRM banner. Until then, we have a lot of work to do to get organizations to understand the transformative power that Social CRM makes available.
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Jim Berkowitz is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of professional services and project management experience related to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Financial Management (Accounting & ERP) software solutions for small, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies. As a Sales Force Automation and CRM Consultant, Jim has assisted more then 100 companies with the design and implementation of custom CRM solutions.
Mr. Berkowitz is the founder and President of CRM Mastery, Inc.; a company dedicated to serving small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) by offering affordable tools and guidance to help them plan for and succeed with their CRM initiatives.
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