Common Social CRM Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) plays a critical role in boosting business growth and making mistakes in this regard can lead to losing valuable loyal customers. Therefore, it is essential to have a CRM system to boost business growth by making customers feel valued. 

Having a solid social CRM strategy can help you cement relationships the business has with customers. Although your intentions may be in the right place, you are prone to make mistakes because no one is perfect. Therefore, you need to aware of the most common social CRM mistakes, and here are the errors that a lot of businesses make.

Failing to meet the customers’ expectations

CRM is all about the customer and should be tailor-made to suit the need and preferences of clients instead of the business. If something tickles your fantasy as a business owner, it does not mean that it will interest potential customers. Therefore, in all the decisions you make, keep the interests of the customers close in mind.

Customers expect you to be available on platforms of their preference instead of them going through the trouble of opening an account at a social channel they don’t prefer. Thus, you should be available on their platforms of preference at any moment’s notice to resolve any issues they might have. 

You should stick your neck out for customers to ensure that they get the best experience possible when dealing with the business on social media.

Inconclusive research

A customer-centric social CRM strategy focuses on researching the habits and behaviors of customers to offer them the best experience possible. Once you start offering content, customers do not need on social media, that is the beginning of ruining the relationships built with them. 

Therefore, getting insights into what customers like will help you develop content that solves the clientele’s needs before they have to reach out to you with their problems.

Jim Broad, a CRM specialist, working with Assignment help, considered as the best essay writing service for students due to its customer service, says that using social listening as a research tool can help you figure out the problems customers are facing before they approach the business. That gives you enough to prepare for the questions once they start streaming in. You might want to create content or add the questions concerning them on the list of FAQs about the business.

Creating a negative perspective about social CRM

Businesses often create a negative perspective about social CRM amongst their employees by manifesting ennui about this strategy. To avoid these effects, show enthusiasm to your team by being proactive, alert, and energetic about social CRM. Do not treat it like any other business task but personally ensure that every direct message and social media comment is followed upon.

When customers reach out to you for any help or advice, respond to them swiftly and ask them about how it faired for them. 

Even when customers post a question on their timeline that gains your attention, offer them a solution, and then ask them again after a while if they were successful. That creates a strong relationship between the both of you, benefitting the business’ social CRM strategy.

Failing to create some accountability

Customers hate speaking or dealing with someone who did not even care to introduce himself. It makes them feel insignificant and does not create a level of accountability. This can repel them away from the business. The business needs to create some accountability by creating a protocol that compels customer service personnel to identify themselves even on social media.

For example, when your Facebook inbox is managed by multiple customer service personnel, ask them to say their first names whenever receiving a message. For example, you can start the conversation by “Hello, my name is Peter and I will be helping you regarding this matter.” 

The customer service manager at essay writing service Australia, a custom essay help that has students as its main audience, says that these little gestures go a long way in supporting social CRM and often go unnoticed by many businesses. That limits the strong relationships they can build with customers.

Living in a “three-foot world”

A successful social CRM strategy peers into the company’s future, and that is where most businesses get it wrong. They live in a “three-foot world” where they manage only what is in front of them instead of making decisions with the future of the business in mind. To avoid making this mistake, have a futuristic outlook on the business’ operations by considering the potential growth.

That will guide all your actions and help you choose tools and social CRM practices promoting scalability. Redeveloping a social CRM strategy once the business starts growing to support the growth is ineffective and can be costly. Therefore, it is essential to figure things out from the start to avoid messing up the team dynamics as the business grows.

Not using social media to its fullest potential

Businesses should strive hard to use social media as a platform to understand their customer’s needs and use that insight to meaningfully engage with them. 

Collecting data is not enough but you should brainstorm methods of how to effectively use that information to develop a successful CRM strategy. For example, think of better ways to personalize the customer journey to meet the expectations of customers. 

Doing so will invite a positive response and can ultimately lead to more referrals just because of the customer experience you offer. 

Businesses can also improve their bottom line from long-lasting relationships with customers created by effective social CRM. Thus, it is important to identify alternative ways of using social media for CRM purposes instead of merely perceiving these channels as content distribution platforms. 

Inability to outline KPIs

Gauging the performance of your social CRM strategy can give you a clinical view of its efficacy and its impact on the business. Therefore, you should have clear goals when implementing social CRM that will help determine the performance of this strategy. 

For example, some businesses may implement social CRM to reduce the churn rate or to limit the number of unresolved complaints.  

With these goals in mind, you can set KPIs that check how close the business is to reaching their objectives. You can use historical data and compare it with the results collected after the social CRM strategy has been implemented. 

Many businesses fail to outline KPIs from the very beginning, resulting in an aimless CRM strategy that can’t be tracked or monitored.

Having inadequate tools

If you have a CRM tool that comes short in terms of features and technical aspects, your relationships with customers will suffer. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to get highly capable tools that have robust features you need. 

One of the most important features to look out for is the versatility of the tool in regards to being easy to integrate with various tools. The set up should be easy too and the interface should be user-friendly so it will be simple enough to onboard new employees. 

You should also choose a tool that is mobile-friendly that can be used at any time, even when on the road or in transit.

Having set operating hours

A common CRM strategy has predetermined hours of operation and they are generally aligned with the time your business is open. With social CRM, you must accept that the business hours are irregular and the customer sets them. 

You are not bound by a 9 to 5 but instead, there should be all-around the clock support even in the dead of night. If you do not offer support when customers need it, they will bounce the business because of poor customer service. 

Thus, it is essential to work out a solution to limit the response time you need to answer customer queries. To avoid hiring additional staff, you can use technology solutions like chatbots that give customers instantaneous feedback regardless of the time of day. Integrating a high-quality chatbot with your social media accounts is very important to ace social CRM.

The bottom line

Social CRM is crucial in building long-lasting relationships with customers that add value to their lives and your business. You can simplify the process by getting effective tools to support the business even when it needs to expand. 

Ensure that you define the goals of initiating social CRM at the very beginning to set relevant KPIs to monitor the progress. You should also use social media to gain more insight into customers to optimize their user experience and overall customer journey.