Social Goes CRM

Social vendors are starting to incorporate CRM functionality within their social suites

In recent weeks, Eval-Source has reviewed several social media software vendors and one thing has become clear.  In one of our previous posts, CRM Goes Social, we observed how CRM vendors were adding social capabilities to add to the functionality of their CRM suites.  Now, it seems the pendulum has swung the other way.

Social vendors are starting to incorporate CRM functionality within their social suites. In the social media realm, collaboration plays a big part of the experience and adds to the social enterprise. Vendors are now incorporating relationship management into their software. Within social collaboration it is imperative to add the ability to acquire customer information from the many different social sites where profiles exist. Companies are now using social software as a form of gathering BI about customers, image management, what is being said about your company, and customer preferences and displeasures.

These solutions are rapidly evolving into powerful BI tools so that organizations can cater their messages specifically to each individual customer, thereby personalizing the customer experience. With more users every day, it is apparent that these tools have evolved rapidly to extending Social, BI, CRM, Collaboration, data aggregation and a new trend – content management from many sources. Further, the pricing is very competitive and is broken into two types of markets – enterprise and SMB.   These two markets have really defined the social space in that they handle features, functions and even pricing models differently. The approaches are quite different: SMBs require more tools to proliferate their profile throughout the social media ecosystems, whereas the enterprise companies mainly are using this for collaboration - the external social interactions are a nice bonus.

Our research in this space shows that organizations are very quick to switch social media platforms and solutions due to the SaaS and cloud options they provide. The easy implementation and less implementation time lower risk, save money and time, and ease administration headaches.  Social media software vendors need to take note here as organizations are quick to jump from one vendor to another, especially when using SaaS – there is no loyalty from organizations. Whatever your space enterprise or SMB, there are subtle marketing differences of which vendors should be aware.  Contact us for more research on this.

EvalSource is a consulting firm that provides enterprise software selection and strategic technology consulting services for organizations. Their consulting practices encompass cloud and on-premise software evaluation services, ERP, Supply Chain strategy, social media and technology consulting. EvalSource is an industry leader in the analysis of software technology and their thought leadership has placed them in the elite of consulting/analyst firms. Eval-Source can assist organizations in any phase of their selection process.

Learn more at www.eval-source.com, or on Twitter: @eval_source.

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