Cardinal Social CRM sins that brands continue to commit

To say Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a must can be called extremely 2012. Social media is now a Blitzkrieg all kinds of catalyst changes expected in the world. The social verse has an opinion and argument for everything said and done by the brand.

Like they say, anything communicated by you can and will be used against you.

The infamous Maggi ban is a classic case in Social CRM 101. While the brand managed to reply in an almost timely fashion, their tone and language didn’t seem to go down well with hardcore loyalists who expected the brand to say something more reassuring than – our product does not contain lead.

Maggi was a one off battle; telecom players such as Vodafone and Airtel fight a daily CRM battle with vexed consumers raining woes every second.

To take brand communication to a Martian level, brands need to rework every axiom they have learnt or implemented about Social CRM. To begin this un-conditioning process take the first step by ignoring the cardinal Social CRM sins that even the biggest of brands succumb to.

Template based responses

How many of you seriously revert to texts that begin with – Dear Customer? It is the era of data, we know a lot more than then their name, yet brands go by template responses that appear extremely impersonal.

At a recent conference an industry person called this era of ‘Tinderisation’ of brands; consumers will swipe left if they don’t find loyalty. Template responses hold the validity of a WhatsApp broadcast; you wouldn’t really respond to it.

Gigantic disconnect

This sin isn’t particularly restricted to Social CRM. How often do you call a brand’s helpline to get a certain problem sorted? A lot of times it boils down to nothing compelling you to take up to social media and once you post or tweet your case starts from scratch again. There is absolutely no inter-platform integration or communication.

Here, in fact, lies the opportunity for brands to be pre-active. Anticipate the potential petitioner and provide them social media assistance beforehand or at least be prepared for it.

No lead generation

The idea that social CRM is mere means to customer-brand connect is not only sin but also a myth. Social media can give you as precise information as who read the blog shared by you, where do they stay, and what is their profession? It is practically a lead generation gold mine if you know how to cater to their needs with your products and services.

No PR-CRM synergy

A social media crisis leaves no party untouched; right from the CEO to the employees all are impacted. Taking in account the virality factor, within 30 minutes of the crisis the top management of the firm has been questioned on social media, and they more or less have no clue of what to revert with.

The PR team then starts functioning and after tons of approvals comes the quotes from officials but by then the situation has escalated immensely.

A PR-Social CRM synergy can avoid a lot of crisis and create an efficient goodwill for the brand and the management.

No learning from previous mistakes

Most brands have been in the Social CRM backlash boat at least once, still, a lot of them fail to learn from the mistakes. Brands are seen getting into spats, deleting comments, and practicing other such deeds landing into trouble over and over.

Social CRM is a rooted concept now; to sin in it can and will lead to fatal consequences. Create a dedicated Social CRM team; if you already have one get them to use tools.

This article is brought to you by Konnect Insights. Take a look at the above video and gain in-depth insights on how Social CRM works through this tool.