What Lies at the Intersection of CRM and Social Media: Larry Ritter Explains
15-Mar-2010
"CRM is always about managing information and with social media, information can actually find you. So it actually becomes a really interesting opportunity to have a much richer dialogue with your customers and prospects." - Larry Ritter, Sage
What follows is Jessica Ann Mola's interview with Larry Ritter, Senior Vice President of Sage, a company that focuses on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for small to mid-size customers around the globe.
Ritter leads project strategy planning and management, and in our interview we discussed social CRM and social media. Read Ritter's response to the following topics:
* How "social CRM" is positioned within social media
* The benefits businesses can expect from leveraging social media within CRM
* How his company is using social media and networking to connect with and assist its customers
Can you just give me a brief background of Sage and your role as Senior Vice President?
Sure. My job is around the global product management for all the Sage CRM solutions and that's within the Sage family. Sage is about a two and half billion-dollar company that focuses on small to mid-sized customers. We've got about six million of those customers around the globe. My particular role is I lead the product strategy planning and management for all of those CRM solutions.
Now, we're going to talk about Social CRM today and social media. So the first question is how is Social CRM positioned within the social media landscape?
Great question. Actually, we have the social media phenomenon going on in the Facebooks, the Twitters, etc. And what that really brings to us is a rich set of up-to-date contextual information about people, and topics, and interests that I have. And CRM of course, is always about managing what I know about my customers and my contacts that I can really deliver some excellent service to them.
And so Social CRM is really positioned the kind of intersection of these two categories. And so what I find particularly exciting about it is that you can take what you know about your existing customers or customers that you want to know and be able to leverage the social media space to get more information about them. And what makes that really exciting is that CRM is always about managing information. And with social media, information can actually find you so it actually becomes a really interesting opportunity to have a much richer dialogue with your customers and prospects.
I know you're personally focused on integrating social media and CRM. How would you advise businesses to approach this, and what benefits can they expect from it?
Another great question. Well, I think they should really look at this in terms of what are they trying to automate. There's clearly an opportunity to gain a lot of contextual information about people that you already know and people that you're trying to find. So you really want to try to establish some patterns of what type of information you're trying to get. It might be new contacts, it might be more information about existing contacts but you can definitely get that from social media.
Another thing, you might be interested in is more about what is the temperature that the social community space is talking about my product or company so that if there's some good things being said I know those, or if there's some not so good things I also know those.
What are some differences in how a small to mid-size organization might implement Social CRM compared with like a large enterprise?
Well, that would probably relate back a little to what I said in the last question. I think companies of all sizes can definitely leverage social media to find up-to-date contextually relevant information about people and the customers or prospects that they want to do business with. So I think companies of all sizes will do that. I think there will be probably some varying levels of concern as to whether or not people are using kind of public facing social media sites that varies depending on the size of the company.
But frankly, I think that's kind of like in the days of like ten years ago when people would say, well, I don't want to issue browsers to any of my employees because I'm sure they're going to spend a whole day goofing around on the Internet. These days none of us would do our job without. So I think that's going to kind of right itself.
Another thing is that I think it's probably more relevant to big companies and I actually mentioned that earlier, is actually looking into the communities and finding out what people are saying about you or your products. We've all seen various examples of the great YouTube videos or whatever of various things going on. And obviously, if you're a larger company and there's some pretty dreadful thing being said or video about your company, you're going to want know that and be able to respond to that. So I think the enterprises will probably be more looking at the temperature of their products and their company because their risks are so high and companies of all sizes will be looking at how do they enrich the contact information through social media.
Sure, that makes sense. Now, obviously, companies today are taking a huge interest in social media so there's a natural expectation to practice what you preach. So can you tell me how Sage is using social media and networking to connect with and assist its customers?
Oh, sure. Yeah, we actually social media in a number of ways. First, obviously, within our CRM products as I was mentioning some of those capabilities, we have those (indiscernible) into our app and Sage SalesLogix products already so we obviously leverage them within our products. But you're right, using social media as a vehicle to advance yourself in the market is something we really do and we do that in a couple of ways.
We have some very active online communities and so we have online communities for both ACT! And SalesLogix. Those are independent communities you might guess. And that's where customers and business partners come together and, of course, in various forums and things like that, where they'll learn from each other, they'll ask questions, they'll propose new feature ideas. Members of my team will moderate those forums. I have a blog where I write about topics so hopefully you all come and read that from time-to-time. But it's a great way to push information out to a lot of people and have dialogue with people on topics of common interests. So that's kind of one way that we use social media space.
The other is kind of a community within a community, if you will, and that's where we have a variety of fan books that we use. So we actually create like fan book clubs on Facebook, on Twitter, on Plaxo. We use YouTube for videos and things like that. And so, it's another way for people to join these groups. And when someone posts to a particular group, you can actually specify to get an e-mail if someone has posted because it's a topic that you've opted in of interest and then you can choose to further join that conversation. So we actually use those social media spaces very extensively in both of our CRM products. And the metrics have really been fabulous for us in terms of the growth and activity on those channels.
From Business IT Blog by Jessica Ann Mola (http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/guest_session/2010/02/what-lies-at-the-intersection-of-crm-and-social-media-larry-ritter-explains.php)
What follows is Jessica Ann Mola's interview with Larry Ritter, Senior Vice President of Sage, a company that focuses on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for small to mid-size customers around the globe.
Ritter leads project strategy planning and management, and in our interview we discussed social CRM and social media. Read Ritter's response to the following topics:
* How "social CRM" is positioned within social media
* The benefits businesses can expect from leveraging social media within CRM
* How his company is using social media and networking to connect with and assist its customers
Can you just give me a brief background of Sage and your role as Senior Vice President?
Sure. My job is around the global product management for all the Sage CRM solutions and that's within the Sage family. Sage is about a two and half billion-dollar company that focuses on small to mid-sized customers. We've got about six million of those customers around the globe. My particular role is I lead the product strategy planning and management for all of those CRM solutions.
Now, we're going to talk about Social CRM today and social media. So the first question is how is Social CRM positioned within the social media landscape?
Great question. Actually, we have the social media phenomenon going on in the Facebooks, the Twitters, etc. And what that really brings to us is a rich set of up-to-date contextual information about people, and topics, and interests that I have. And CRM of course, is always about managing what I know about my customers and my contacts that I can really deliver some excellent service to them.
And so Social CRM is really positioned the kind of intersection of these two categories. And so what I find particularly exciting about it is that you can take what you know about your existing customers or customers that you want to know and be able to leverage the social media space to get more information about them. And what makes that really exciting is that CRM is always about managing information. And with social media, information can actually find you so it actually becomes a really interesting opportunity to have a much richer dialogue with your customers and prospects.
I know you're personally focused on integrating social media and CRM. How would you advise businesses to approach this, and what benefits can they expect from it?
Another great question. Well, I think they should really look at this in terms of what are they trying to automate. There's clearly an opportunity to gain a lot of contextual information about people that you already know and people that you're trying to find. So you really want to try to establish some patterns of what type of information you're trying to get. It might be new contacts, it might be more information about existing contacts but you can definitely get that from social media.
Another thing, you might be interested in is more about what is the temperature that the social community space is talking about my product or company so that if there's some good things being said I know those, or if there's some not so good things I also know those.
What are some differences in how a small to mid-size organization might implement Social CRM compared with like a large enterprise?
Well, that would probably relate back a little to what I said in the last question. I think companies of all sizes can definitely leverage social media to find up-to-date contextually relevant information about people and the customers or prospects that they want to do business with. So I think companies of all sizes will do that. I think there will be probably some varying levels of concern as to whether or not people are using kind of public facing social media sites that varies depending on the size of the company.
But frankly, I think that's kind of like in the days of like ten years ago when people would say, well, I don't want to issue browsers to any of my employees because I'm sure they're going to spend a whole day goofing around on the Internet. These days none of us would do our job without. So I think that's going to kind of right itself.
Another thing is that I think it's probably more relevant to big companies and I actually mentioned that earlier, is actually looking into the communities and finding out what people are saying about you or your products. We've all seen various examples of the great YouTube videos or whatever of various things going on. And obviously, if you're a larger company and there's some pretty dreadful thing being said or video about your company, you're going to want know that and be able to respond to that. So I think the enterprises will probably be more looking at the temperature of their products and their company because their risks are so high and companies of all sizes will be looking at how do they enrich the contact information through social media.
Sure, that makes sense. Now, obviously, companies today are taking a huge interest in social media so there's a natural expectation to practice what you preach. So can you tell me how Sage is using social media and networking to connect with and assist its customers?
Oh, sure. Yeah, we actually social media in a number of ways. First, obviously, within our CRM products as I was mentioning some of those capabilities, we have those (indiscernible) into our app and Sage SalesLogix products already so we obviously leverage them within our products. But you're right, using social media as a vehicle to advance yourself in the market is something we really do and we do that in a couple of ways.
We have some very active online communities and so we have online communities for both ACT! And SalesLogix. Those are independent communities you might guess. And that's where customers and business partners come together and, of course, in various forums and things like that, where they'll learn from each other, they'll ask questions, they'll propose new feature ideas. Members of my team will moderate those forums. I have a blog where I write about topics so hopefully you all come and read that from time-to-time. But it's a great way to push information out to a lot of people and have dialogue with people on topics of common interests. So that's kind of one way that we use social media space.
The other is kind of a community within a community, if you will, and that's where we have a variety of fan books that we use. So we actually create like fan book clubs on Facebook, on Twitter, on Plaxo. We use YouTube for videos and things like that. And so, it's another way for people to join these groups. And when someone posts to a particular group, you can actually specify to get an e-mail if someone has posted because it's a topic that you've opted in of interest and then you can choose to further join that conversation. So we actually use those social media spaces very extensively in both of our CRM products. And the metrics have really been fabulous for us in terms of the growth and activity on those channels.
From Business IT Blog by Jessica Ann Mola (http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/guest_session/2010/02/what-lies-at-the-intersection-of-crm-and-social-media-larry-ritter-explains.php)
Comment