Prelude to How Customers View SocialCRM Initiatives

SAP CRM Insider 2011

It is my privilege this week to be moderating a panel discussion at SAP CRM Insider 2011 on “How Customers View SocialCRM Initiatives” at the annual event held here in Orlando.

I’ll look forward to a lively discussion around this hot topic – of what has been described at a recent SocialCRM Summit in Madrid, Spain, as – “…not an extension of CRM, but a new kind of CRM based on engagement.” 

We’ll hear from Kiran Koons, SAP CRM Manager for Strategy and Architecture, Bentley Systems, and learn more about how her company, a software developer, is considering using SocialCRM.

Greg Langston, VP Sales for The Harris Products Group of Lincoln Electric, a company which makes welding products, will share some of his thoughts about SocialCRM, including how a number of customers are now evaluating his company on how well they are engaging in these channels.

Last but certainly not least, Brent Leary, SocialCRM advisor, consultant for CRM Essentials, will share his views on SocialCRM and how SME companies are finding new avenues, channels, and communities to engage within. 

I expect that my panelists and I, and the audience will have a little fun with this topic – for example, I found out, using social media, that one of my panelists was the former quarterback of the Purdue University football team, and that one of my panelists is a Friday night DJ and former trumpet player.

Perhaps if they dug into my own social media footprint, they’d discover that I’m a classical music 2.0 buff and that I love Japanese food. 

In the end, I trust the session will be a bit provacative as I will start off with the premise that “Senior Management doesn’t get Social Media” and expect to hear a wide range of examples of why or why not that is the case.

This is a fascinating topic, one which covers a lot of territory, begs more questions than answers, and of which we are still in the infancy stages. 

So with that as your “teaser”, see you Tuesday, March 22 at 230pm ET during #sapcrm2011 and we’ll share some of the outcomes in a follow up post!

giffgaff – The UK Telco Gets SocialCRM Better than Most: Globetrotting SocialCRM

Globetrotting to Europe, now, where mobile phones became prolific far before they made it to the US – let’s look to the UK, the birthplace of SMS / texting!  With that level of innovation, it shouldn’t be such a surprise, then, that innovation drives the UK company: giffgaff.

giffgaff

“The quintessential SocialCRM story and poster child in Europe is giffgaff.com, a UK mobile service provider that keeps prices low by supplying only a SIM chip to its customers, and then crowdsourcing the support,” according to Mark Tamis, a SocialCRM guru based in Paris.

Giffgaff is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) operating across the O2 network. What that means, essentially, is that the operation of the mobile network is not a differentiator for the company, so they look to the customer experience playing a larger role in what makes their service and the brand: giffgaff and the tagline “The mobile network run by You.”

Further to Mark’s comments, he shared that giffgaff has won a 2010 B2C International Groundswell Award (awards in honor of Josh Bernoff and Charlene LI’s book on social growth “Groundswell”) for embracing the customer.

According to giffgaff founder Vincent Boon: “what really sets giffgaff apart is the fact that it really has no call center and all customer service (except for billing queries) is done by the online community. Active community members get rewarded for running parts of the business including answering questions in the community (majority within 5 minutes), attracting new members or helping to promote the company.”

Mr. Tamis also shared further innovative marketing by giffgaff: “They have social commerce by allowing customers to accumulate phone minutes and “goodies” when they onboard others from their social network.”  A novel concept, indeed! This proves that an innovation in SocialCRM may lie not only in the service one provides, but also in the way the community is rewarded for its participation.

Vincent Boon built an online forum to find out what people really wanted before he started giffgaff.  That input led directly to the creation of giffgaff, its community-led innovation, packages, offerings, pricing and more. It doesn’t get much more customer centric than that!

Land of the Tiger: Bharti Airtel’s Show of SCRM Prowess – Globetrotting SocialCRM

flickr: by claude renault

I had a delightful opportunity to attend World Brand Congress ’10 in Mumbai last month which opened my eyes to some huge talent in India in branding, marketing, social media and broadcast mediums. Many of India’s biggest brands were present at the conference: Bharti Airtel, ICICI, Dainik Bhaskar, Mahindra, and many more, and various  case stories of best practices were shared. More on that in a soon – to – be released blog on TheSocialCustomer.com!

This piece of the Globetrotting SocialCRM series comes from India’s answer to a SCRM guru: Prem Kumar – one of the most prolific contributors to the SCRM community worldwide. Prem brought a story to my attention and I found it fascinating to learn more about how a company is evolving in the SCRM sense.   The company is none other than Bharti Airtel.

On the About page of Bharti Airtel you’ll find the company mission and I believe it is prescient: “By 2015, airtel will be the most loved brand enriching the lives of millions.” Now, that’s not a short order!

When it comes to SocialCRM, according to Prem Kumar, “Airtel has employees responsible for manning the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn channels addressing queries from customers and prospects alike.”

Kumar continues “They use social network analysis (SNA) to determine which customer is more likely to churn as well as take others along with them – and thus those “influentials” receive preferential treatment!” Traditionally this determination was based solely on Lifetime Customer Value (LTV) – or how much business a customer has done with the company.

Also – according to Kumar – Bharti Airtel outsourced their infrastructure management – which is to some mobile operators their biggest asset – so that they could focus on customer relationships. This means that IT and mobile network equipment and management is handled by IBM and Nokia Siemens respectively.

The company has had an internal Lotus Connections-based social site for employees. Although not directly tied to SocialCRM, this practice affects the culture of the company and is notable – it certainly puts social tools in the hands of its employees.

One of the big emphases of the SAP Influencer Summit  this week has been social media coverage and yesterday’s CRM track shared valuable insights on social network analysis tools such as our own twitter services for marketing campaigns. Follow more of your favorite influencers tweeting about it today on the twitter hashtag: #sapsummit, plus please stay tuned for the replay coming soon.

Procter and Gamble Leaders in SocialCRM – Globetrotting Series

In an earlier post I posed ten questions which indicate vision and direction in moving forward with a SocialCRM strategy or initiative. As promised, I’m leading off the series of SocialCRM “globetrotting” with an example of how Procter & Gamble – a global company with its headquarters in the USA – has led the charge in SocialCRM and I’d like to demonstrate this with a great example told by one of the leading individuals in the SocialCRM sphere; Paul Greenberg, ZDnet blogger and thought leader extraordinaire. Paul shared with me the way in which P&G leads – and lays bare some of the Best in Class for SocialCRM – examples where Procter & Gamble has shown true initiative and innovation in the market.

P&G is a company with over 300 brands and over 2 billion consumers in over 160 countries. The company views its interactions with customers as “customer experiences”. As you can well imagine, P&G certainly has numerous initiatives which could be characterized as SocialCRM, and these examples focus on brand engagement / sales and marketing- lead social initiatives at P&G. Let’s start with one of P&G’s primary target audience, women of the household and have a look at the online Community for Women.

Vocal Point – is a Procter & Gamble community which has been created around a conversation – or a set of conversations. Based on research P&G has conducted, the focus is conversations that women are having which pertain to lifestyles that P&G has deemed critical to success. The community is designed for women to share opinions, recommendations, coupons, reviews, etc. about products that they use and love. There are categories of discussions to join, such as Health and Beauty, Food & Recipes, Around the House, and more. A member can gain status within the community by sharing information with friends and receptivity to others’ recommendations. One item which I noticed that gave me pause was that some of the posts do not have author’s names, or even online community names, so the information to me looks a little too corporate. However, the information isn’t self-promoting; but rather it is offering sound advice with titles such as “Is Your Home Ready for Winter?” and “3 Steps to a Family Game Night”, and so forth.

Another example of how P&G has engaged a community around its brand is the community around the Secret brand of products for teens. When P&G launched their site ”Rose’s Room”, centered around conversations that were of interest to girls the measures were as follows:
• 12,000 visitors per week – 25 minutes per visitor per visit
• Four teenage authors under identities of Vanilla, Tropical, Peach, Rose (4 product names)
• Discussions on Music, fashion, sports, dating, parties
• Interactive activities e.g. building dream date (choice of males) that you can send to a friend

Putting those measures to results: P&G gained market share and revenue to the tune of 0.8% of the $10.4 billion antiperspirant/deodorant market and $83 million in five months!

Very wisely indeed, P&G’s socialCRM team did not rest on its laurels, but were aware of the fact that these teens would be growing older and would outgrow that site, so they kept the site geared toward 12&13 yr olds, but also launched new communities for those same engaged youngsters as they reached a new age segment. So it’s nearly a cradle – onward scenario to capture and engage their followers to be by a consumer’s side through life’s phases!

BeingGirl is P&G’s answer to a new, very social and interactive site by and for tween girls to complement P&G’s other sites for brand engagement and interaction. The topics covered are relevant and prescient, cool and fun, and girls around the world can engage with their favorite brands in their native language and share with friends on Facebook, etc.

Brand engagement / customer experience will always be one of P&G’s strong suits. SocialCRM gives them powerful techniques to harness, measure, and catapult engagement to new heights.