I’ve been interested in helping to propel our marketing automation software to become more “social,” but have been stumped at deciding exactly which features are worth the effort to produce for our customers.  I’ll share my thoughts on what it takes for a CRM application to be “social” with their customers and invite you to share yours.

CRM Evolves With Customers

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the landscape of sales and marketing are evolving to become more interactive, authentic and passionate about customers. However, CRM software generally is very ugly, not user-friendly and flat out sucks.

Of course, there are many exceptions to this generalization, save the flames for later. Seriously though, CRM software was never meant to form relationships — it was meant to divide customers into different segments and send them marketing collateral via direct mail and telesales teams. It worked, hence the existence of it today. CRM is changing. No longer is CRM as cold, insincere or lame — it’s becoming the blood of sales and marketing teams universally in companies big and small.

So what will it take to take this beast of software (CRM) and make it truly connected to their customers socially (social media)? From where I stand, there are two objectives that need to be completed to reach social CRM bliss: culture/process and technology.

Internal focus on Social Media leads to outward results

Culturally, companies need to focus on customers, customer experience and customer service. This includes but isn’t limited to feedback forums, complaints, listening to real customers on the phone and paying close attention to what (and why) they’re saying what they say. Fundamentally, companies need to learn to form relationships with customers that are life-long and not just transactional for the short-term. This includes wowing customers and impressing them away from competitors.

To be successful at listening to customers, it helps to be great in social media. Not too long ago, I published my Four Step Social Media Action Plan, that you can use to familiarize yourself with a real strategy in social media for your organization. Social media is (and has always been) customer-centric. It’s important to realize that social media is not a threat to your business, but a valuable asset that can’t be taken for granted. For a company to become social, it has to be from the heart, at the inside’s of the business before it can grow on the outside. Companies need to be ready to listen, many are not and that is why they will fail miserably in social media. For some companies, it can be as simple as hiring a social media professional; for others it will involve growing a new arm to the marketing team of your company.

CRM: “We have the technology…”

Technologically, this requires the use of tools that are intelligent enough to filter the noise (aggregation) and can accurately relate content on the Web externally to an internal CRM application. That’s tough, but can be done with the use of open APIs now available from companies online, such as Twitter and Google.

Now, I go back to my question, “What does it take to make a CRM application to be ’social’?” I don’t really know the answer to that. Right now, all the ideas surrounding Social CRM or “SCRM” are all ‘nice to have’ versus ‘need to have’ features.

I have to play devil’s advocate and challenge the hype with reality. While it is really sweet to have a SaaS application pull in a customer’s Twitter feed, is it really useful? I think it’s very useful on a one-to-one basis, where a sales force could use this data to build rapport and connect with customers around whatever matters to them. Oh, and I know it’s really attractive to be able to pull this data, make fancy reports and automate actions like creating support cases, replying back to them via email and all that snazzy enterprise stuff.

I want to caution companies — specifically, small businesses — who want all that automated enterprise “stuff.” I hold much doubt claims that they make a difference in customers’ eyes. We need to acknowledge the fact that the people generally require more of a human connection, a unique touch to their customer experience. You can’t fake it like you could with yesterday’s CRM software. Really, you can make a big difference to customers, prospects and your bottom line without using CRM software, just a Flip Video camera and a wealth of passion.

Social CRM Is Valuable

I believe that the real value in making a CRM application ’social’ is the social intelligence gains and the ability to communicate with customers on their preferred social destinations. For instance, offering special offers to those who Tweet about the your niche the most might be a good way to test the effectiveness of your marketing prowess — which again goes back to the fundamentals of marketing, CRM and customer segmentation.

Social CRM and Infusionsoft … Soon.

Just so you know, I’m strongly advocating and pushing to get Infusionsoft to integrate some of the more popular social media features (such as intelligence and communication) into the application. Likewise, I’m open to discussing with what you want our software to do for social media. I have opened a suggestion on Infusionsoft Ideas, asking you what social media integration features you want to help you grow your business.

It’s an open mic, so please sound off on what would make Infusionsoft ’social’ to you. We have a talented team here that can pull off almost any innovation and we love hearing from creative minds like you.

You might also like these blog entries:

• Thoughts on Social CRM, Hype and Usefulness
• 19 Ways to Connect Social Media & Email Marketing Together
• 11 Unforgettable Marketing Moments from 2009