Social Networking for Sales Social networking also promises significant benefits for sales organizations by providing them with new ways to find, connect with, and understand their customers. Despite the opportunities, some uncertainty remains towards social networking in many sales organizations. Cautious or more established salespeople may view social networking as an unproven channel that takes them away from “core sales activities.” But for every hesitant salesperson there is a hungry and resourceful one that is looking for the next competitive advantage. Increasingly, sales organizations are realizing the benefits of incorporating social networking into their traditional sales processes.
Find and connect with new prospects In sales the hunt is always on for the next deal, and social networks provide a rich prospecting resource. Unlike traditional channels, social networks provide the added benefit of allowing a salesperson to gauge a prospect’s interest through their online profile before communication is initiated. For example, if done respectfully and in accordance with the terms of service for each social networking site used, prospects will often be more receptive when approached informally or through a common contact on a relevant subject than they would to a cold call. The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides key capabilities to help sales organizations gauge interest and find prospects by:
- Tapping into social networking contacts to jumpstart “warm” lead generation efforts.
- Identifying prospects by focusing on conversations and topics relevant to the product or service.
- Better measuring the online influence of each contact based on follower counts and postings.
- Leveraging online career information to better understand the contact or decision maker.
Engage in more meaningful conversations While they will not replace traditional relationship-building activities, social networks do provide sales organizations with a new tool to build and enhance relationships with prospects or customers. With the ability to quickly identify and integrate key online data points with the main customer data repository, salespeople can engage prospects and customers with all the relevant information at their fingertips. The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help sales organizations engage in more relevant conversations by:
- Engaging in online discussions with prospects and customers right within the core sales force automation solution.
- Viewing social networking conversation history within the customer system of record.
- Instantly seeing a social networking profile for each contact for a more holistic customer view.
- Effortlessly creating new contacts in Microsoft Dynamics CRM from social networking contacts.
- Easily creating an opportunity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM directly from social networking sites.
Better understand your customers Social networking sites can also provide a wealth of information about customers and their interests, lifestyles, and attitudes–data that might otherwise be difficult or impossible to acquire. Paired with the right analysis capabilities, publicly available customer data from social networking sites can provide an additional layer of insight into customer preferences, behaviors, and sentiment, which can lead to more successful sales interactions.
The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help sales organizations better understand customer attitudes and interests by:
- Leveraging interests and discussion threads for more relevant conversations.
- Sorting incoming messages by account, status, and other criteria for greater relevancy.
- Analyzing interests and discussion threads to hone in on key trends.
- Better tracking relevant professional events such as job changes and promotions.
- Leveraging out-of-box reports to identify chief online champions and influencers.
Social Networking for Customer Service Increasingly, customers are using social networks as an important channel to find, receive, and communicate information about the products and services they use. This change in customer behavior creates both opportunities and challenges for customer service organizations. Social customers expect service delivered through their channel of choice, often with a personal touch. And they are certainly not afraid to express their views or displeasure. Social networks provide a rich source of unfiltered feedback and a dialogue that can be invaluable in identifying service issues and spotting opportunities for product improvement. Thus, used correctly, social networking channels can help customer service organizations be more effective and create value for the business. In addition, social networks provide an interaction channel that not only helps remove perceived barriers between customers and companies, but may also reduce the cost of service. However, when all is said and done, social networking is another communication channel and something that should not be done in a vacuum. It needs to be embedded in the everyday processes of customer service organizations and delivered in a consistent manner for the true benefits to be realized.
Create an early warning system for product issues
- Proactively monitoring social networks for key words, complaints, and issues relating to a brand.
- Monitoring chronic complainers to identify top potential service issues.
- Seeing social networking conversation history right within the customer system of record.
- Tracking the number of influencers and followers of a given topic or issue.
Provide efficient multi-channel service By the very nature of its opt-in and shared interest structure, social networking can help customer service organizations address customer issues in a highly efficient manner. As these customers turn to social networking sites for help, organizations have the opportunity to help them en masse, for example, by posting information in relevant communities or providing self-help capabilities through the Web. This in turn can reduce call volumes and has the additional benefit of increasing satisfaction among the growing mass of customers who expect this kind of service. A report by DMG Consulting, a leading call center consultancy, shows new and emerging channels can help service organizations increase service coverage and reduce call volumes at a relatively moderate cost (Fluss, 2009).
Provide efficient multi-channel service By the very nature of its opt-in and shared interest structure, social networking can help customer service organizations address customer issues in a highly efficient manner. As these customers turn to social networking sites for help, organizations have the opportunity to help them en masse, for example, by posting information in relevant communities or providing self-help capabilities through the Web. This in turn can reduce call volumes and has the additional benefit of increasing satisfaction among the growing mass of customers who expect this kind of service. A report by DMG Consulting, a leading call center consultancy, shows new and emerging channels can help service organizations increase service coverage and reduce call volumes at a relatively moderate cost (Fluss, 2009). The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help service organizations better address customer needs by:
- Making knowledge base articles publicly searchable so savvy customers can find information themselves without burdening the contact center.
- Addressing new issues by posting a response online quickly and automatically tracking responses.
- Leveraging the power of community-driven support as an additional channel.
- Instantly creating a case in Microsoft Dynamics CRM from online conversations and addressing the case through an established problem resolution process.
Tap into new feedback channels Social networking sites enable organizations to track service issues in more places, thereby gathering more intelligence on their products and on customer experiences with them. With social networking, customer service organizations have an opportunity to leverage unfiltered feedback to drive business improvement. For example, user communities may provide the first public feedback on a new product release, or usability hiccups may appear as an increase in user questions posted online. This kind of information can help customer service organizations create a valuable feedback loop, helping them improve the business while at the same time improving customer satisfaction. The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help service organization analyze and better leverage customer feedback right within Microsoft Dynamics CRM by:
- Tracking feedback by monitoring and participating in customer communities.
- Identifying the most talked-about issues and using them for improvement in products and services.
- Creating a mechanism to elicit feedback from customers and creating an idea repository.
- Conducting aggregate analysis and identifying key customer service trends and patterns.
Technology Requirements Social networking, in combination with customer relationship management, can enhance an organization’s marketing, sales, and service efforts. But to take advantage of social networks in a way that is consistent, sustainable, and open to analysis, organizations need customer management solutions that provide the right capabilities. By investing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, companies receive:
- A holistic CRM suite with robust marketing, sales, and customer service capabilities for easy sharing of information and a 360-degree customer view.
- A familiar and easy-to-use interface through the native Microsoft Office Outlook® client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
- Seamless integration to key social networking sites, allowing Microsoft Dynamics CRM users to directly track and leverage data and relationships from them.
- Insightful analysis capabilities that enable organizations to capture and make sense of customer data.
- Robust workflow capabilities that can be used to capture and automate business processes.
- A CRM application built on a flexible service-oriented-architecture (SOA), providing a scalable and highly flexible infrastructure for innovation.
- An extensible data model that supports traditional CRM, but also provides the flexibility to address changing customer paradigms and new business models.
- Ease of customization that enables organizations to tailor the solution to their unique business needs.
Conclusion The surging popularity of social networking sites is indisputable. Yet many organizations still struggle to translate it into real business benefits. By acquiring tools that let them manage their social networking initiatives alongside traditional marketing, sales, and service activities, organizations can take advantage of social networking without losing focus on their core business. Ultimately, success will lie with those businesses that can integrate social networking’s wealth of customer data, unfiltered feedback, and informal conversations into existing customer management initiatives and processes. Microsoft helps our customers achieve this goal through the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This solution equips organizations with the capabilities to better listen, respond, and analyze social network activities. By applying that insight, Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows organizations to better integrate this emerging channel into existing business processes for a more holistic and effective customer management approach—something that will continue to be paramount for success.
Conclusion The surging popularity of social networking sites is indisputable. Yet many organizations still struggle to translate it into real business benefits. By acquiring tools that let them manage their social networking initiatives alongside traditional marketing, sales, and service activities, organizations can take advantage of social networking without losing focus on their core business. Ultimately, success will lie with those businesses that can integrate social networking’s wealth of customer data, unfiltered feedback, and informal conversations into existing customer management initiatives and processes. Microsoft helps our customers achieve this goal through the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This solution equips organizations with the capabilities to better listen, respond, and analyze social network activities. By applying that insight, Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows organizations to better integrate this emerging channel into existing business processes for a more holistic and effective customer management approach—something that will continue to be paramount for success.
For More Information For more information about the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, see http://crm.dynamics.com/
http://www.pargesoft.com/ Microsoft Dynamics AX CRM NAV Global Partner
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