By Chris Lee

Industry analyst group Gartner recently published its first ever “Magic Quadrant” for social CRM (customer relationship management). As part of its report, Gartner looked at more than 240 social use cases and found that 80 per cent were related to improving customer relations through social CRM.

Social CRM should be perfectly synced with the sales process, according to Andrew Yates of sales specialists Artesian. Yates argues that in order to derive true business value from social CRM, applications will need to be integrated into other core business processes and, more importantly, linked to the sales function.

NMK caught up with Yates to learn more.

Accelerating sales

For most companies, the process of gathering social CRM information and transforming it into actionable sales intelligence has typically required them to follow a slow, manual process before they could create any real “triggers” for the sales team, according to Yates.

“Clearly, there has to be a better way to use the power of technology to address this issue, to leverage the power of social media more effectively, and to integrate these processes into the company’s wider CRM and sales activities,” he told NMK. “Instead of just compiling information, social CRM should inspire action. For example, businesses should have the ability to ‘clip’ an article that might be of interest to a customer or prospect. Or to tweet it. Or to email it. The value to be gained from social CRM may start with listening and then collating valuable data, but any solutions in this area should ultimately encourage specific actions that will actively generate leads.”

For example, Yates explained, a pharmaceutical company could use social CRM for its brand marketing by finding out what its customers think about its products, its brand image, its service and more and then apply these findings to its next campaign. Yates argued that opportunities are often missed through a lack of visibility of key customer developments – such as new sites, mergers or acquisitions – that could trigger important sales opportunities.

Time to reflect

In addition to knowing what people are saying about your prospects, clients and competitors, social CRM can also help brands to understand what people are saying about them own company, so that they can react accordingly.

“By tapping into social CRM at this level, today’s businesses can quickly gain a competitive edge by turning this information into action,” said Yates. “Enlightened companies have realised that it’s not enough merely to keep tabs on (or try to control) what is being said on blogs and social networking sites; instead, these organisations are realising the value of gathering this information and then transforming it into usable, actionable business intelligence that will help them to sell much more effectively and also drive real improvements within their organisation.”

Converting listening into sales

Yates believes it’s no longer enough to simply monitor social media websites; in 2011, companies need the ability to drive their sales teams towards potential business opportunities by giving them a specific reason to contact the prospect, to offer details of the company’s services, and to explain how they could help.

“By tightly linking this relevant, real time information with their core business processes, companies can monitor their prospective and existing clients much more effectively, and can also keep an eye on their competitors and their own social media profile at the same time,” Yates concluded. “However, monitoring is still just the beginning: companies should now be using social CRM to act on these new business opportunities much more quickly, as this will give them an enormous advantage in today’s highly competitive market.”