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.