How to Integrate Social Media into CRM for Better Customer Relation.

“To start integrating social media into existing CRM, we are seeing that initially:You have to understand your customers’ conversation pattern. Do research to find out if they’re using social media and which social media.
Define your goals and objectives based on your needs and requirements – Based on the research, and in line with customer strategy, choose which social media channels are going to be implemented and have significant impact. Do you need to be on Facebook? Or is Twitter sufficient?
Does this require integration with an existing contact center?
Finally, you have to establish a project team who will be responsible for thorough implementation of this initiative.
Create a pilot case for the social media integration, define the new business process, assign the PICs of each task and have the existing CRM system ready for social media integration.”
-- Aina Neva Fiati, Founder of www.ThinkAboutCRM.com

“There are a lot of recommendations and advice available to those seeking to leverage social media as part of a CRM strategy. I tend to look that these questions very pragmatically. We are past the point of talking conceptually. I think folks are looking for practical applications that can be implemented and that will deliver measurable value.
Here are three thoughts that hopefully achieve that end. In the simplest terms,
Agree on what social media is. Practically, social media is a communication channel. Use it as such.
Modify your CRM business processes to incorporate customers’ social activity and identities into your customer master. Its flying blind to be tweeting with @The Dude, not knowing if he’s one of your most valuable customers or not.
Collect and analyze only that social data that demonstrates how to improve your customer experience design. If it doesn’t do that, if it doesn’t move the needle on your customer experience metrics, don’t waste your time.
Now, that is certainly not an exhaustive list of things to think about with respect to social CRM.
But, a laundry list of a thousand items starts with number one.”
-- Barry Dalton