What prospects and customers look for:
- Information on potential suppliers and their products
- Relevant comments and reports from other users
- Supplier independent discussion platforms
What B2B prospects and customers do not want is a sales pitch, for that they can go to the suppliers web site. Many groups in XING have mutated to sales platforms, which is not what social networking is about.
What B2B suppliers want:
- Background information on persons involved with purchase decisions
- Visibility resulting from discussions and comments
- Market background information
- Real-life contacts resulting from social network activities
These requirements are not incompatible, but there is a numbers problem. While individuals looking for information can research on a specific topic when interested, suppliers need permanently to monitor these activities. Also the number of people gathering information will always be considerably higher than the number of employees available for monitoring social sites. The effort involved in monitoring is immense.
Evidently, there is a need for automating these processes, which is where CRM software comes in. As may be expected. Salesforce as a cloud oriented supplier has announced several functions, most of which are still in development. Other companies, Pivotal for example, have announced plans for integration with twitter, linkedIn and facebook. The solutions offered are oriented towards gathering information, which is fine but is only a time saving function for sales and marketing personnel who would otherwise research the information directly.
After saying that automation is required, there are some major challenges to master. Firstly, the amount of information available is considerable and only a small part of the information available will be relevant. Secondly the behavior of people active in the social web world is changing rapidly and there is no reason to suppose that this will change during the next years. Finally, marketing gurus will say that there must be a dialogue between suppliers and the outside world. All this makes automation more a dream than a realistic aim
Common to B2B and B2C is the aim of steering people to the company web site, assuming of course that the web site offers support, forums, customer information platforms and order processing. At this level, processes can and should be automated. The message I am getting to is this. CRM B2B applications may be loosely linked to social sites, the really import interaction is that between the CRM solution and a modern, functional internet presence.
Tags: B2B, Social CRM
This is a difficult topic. Both platforms, linkedIn and XING have recognized the need for B2B connections by introducing company profiles and enterprise groups. These facilities are used by many companies and provide a basis for the exchange or information between employees and other group members, mostly with very professional design and guidance. This is also the case for those companies offering products which are clearly not for consumers, for example Scania and IBM.
Company profiles do not offer more information than the company web sites, but groups do allow a new kind of interaction by making it easy for members of the community
- to exchange information amongst themselves,
- to learn from employees who may not be available through normal support channels
- and to involve other community members who have something to contribute but would not normally register on the web site of the company.
Many of the groups are technically oriented, providing interesting opportunities for open innovation.
Profiles and groups need to be permanently monitored and guided to be successful. This costs time and effort. It remains to be seen if returns offset the costs involved. Since returns are hardly quantifiable, the ROI cannot be measured. This is similar to value of presentations at exhibitions – the costs are known, but the effect in terms of sales remain questionable.
Tags: B2B, linkedin, Social CRM, xing
Although the term CRM has come to stay, in most CRM projects the term is effectively a misnomer. In a relationship, one would expect both parties to play an active role. In the large number of projects I have been involved in since 1994, companies have wanted to know about customer related activities of their employees, about opportunities and incidents and turnover, but have not been genuinely interested in a full scale relationship. The acronym CIS (Customer Information System) would describe most applications more accurately.
New technologies, Web 2.0 and Social Networks should cause changes, but this does not seem to be happening, companies using Twitter, XING, Facebook or LinkedIn are typically only broadcasting their sales pitches. An effective customer portal, integrated with social networking sites could be of considerable benefit – both B2B and B2C customers are surprisingly helpful when it comes to giving feedback, supplying references or suggesting product improvements – if they have open communication channels, bidirectional communication channels!
Tags: Social CRM, Web 2.0
Vielfalt ist wichtig! Interessante Beiträge zum Thema finden Sie auch bei The CRM Consultant und Social Marketing oder auch Hafner on CRM.
Nicht direkt mit dem Thema verbunden aber relevant sind die interessanten Ideen von Dr. Gerhard Wohland.
Die neue Dynamik globaler Märkte wird zur generellen Umgebung aller Wertschöpfung und zwingt zur Transformation von gewohntem Denken und Handeln.
Tags: Blogs, Marketing, Social CRM
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