For even skilled and innovative companies who are at the forefront of embracing social, there are some aspects of the social CRM process that continue to be difficult to integrate across the organization.  And mainly because social remains siloed into a very segmented area of customer service.

The basic premise of social CRM according to Paul Greenberg is that it is “a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”

But how does this work for a real business?

After recently purchasing a Dell desktop, I ran into a seemingly simple problem trying to exchange the unopened box and computer in order to purchase a more expensive laptop.  As a loyal Dell customer, it seemed like an obvious fix.  But I got trapped in an endless loop of being shifted back and forth between call centers in India (customer service) and El Salvador (returns) with little progress being made.  Knowing that the Dell Social Media Command Center is one of the best among organizations, I tweeted a note to @DellCares about my problem.  The team responded quickly, and they have been extremely helpful and vigilant ensuring that everything goes as planned.

It’s a great example of how social media can help to make the customer experience better, but it makes me wonder about the scalability of this level of service.  Right now, it may be (relatively) easy for the six individuals who are monitoring the Dell Twitter account to triage the problems or requests that come through social channels.  But what happens as volume increases, and complaints become more frivolous?

As we look forward, organizations will need to address to major organizational issues around their approach to customer service: full social CRM integration and call center empowerment.

Full Social CRM Integration – Anyone who touches the customer should have the ability to see his or her social profile as well as any complaints.  The reason that Dell has no customer service phone line in the US is because it is cheaper to do it in India.  If that’s the case, then why are those call centers not monitoring and responding to customer service requests?  That too would be cheaper and more cost effective.  Organizations need to begin outsourcing social media tickets to handle requests and respond more timely as volume increases.  It’s a step that should be well tested prior to becoming a necessity.

Call Center Empowerment – The reason that this is not possible today is that individuals working in outsourced call centers typically are not given the ability to make simple decisions that could benefit the organization.  Most call centers today are equipped only to answer questions in a structured manner, but as the business-customer relationship becomes more balanced and transparent, these call centers will need to adapt.  Why should someone in the Social Media Command Center have a greater ability to help me than the manager in El Salvador simply because I tweeted out a message?

These are hard problems to address simply because they require major strategic and organizational change within the enterprise.  It is no longer about just monitoring or responding timely to conversations on social media.  But it needs to be done, and these things can only move quickly when they come from the top of the org chart.

If you have thoughts or examples on how this is being implemented (or not) within your organization, I would love to hear about them.

A recent article in the Economist about how companies should fight rumors may turn out to be pretty pertinent to our clients as they begin to engage… and fear the consequences of social media. We have heard many ways to attack social media rumors, and this study may throw things for a bit of a loop. The article cites the studies of three business school psychologists: Derek Rucker and David Dubois, of the Kellogg School of Management, and Zakary Tormala, of Stanford Business School who argue that companies who directly address a rumor may actually be doing themselves harm.

“Instead of denying false rumours, a company should put out a stream of positive messages about itself,” state the authors of the study. It sounds a lot like broadcasting doesn’t it?

While we do not necessarily think the psychologists mean to completely ignore rumors, there are parts of this advice that would serve a company well in social media engagement. Rather than perpetuating a rumor by restating it, we recommend creating content and messaging that counters the rumor without explicitly mentioning it. The more a rumor is repeated either in its defense or to propagate it, the more likely the rumor will stick.

Passivity is not an option, and neither is denial. A strong positive stream of content can go a long way.

With the recent social media uprising against Nestle and it use of palm oil from questionable sources, there has been another call to action for corporations to actively manage their social media presence.  There is obviously a lot of truth to what is being said by the activists, but there is also a good deal of hype involved.  A lot of the clients that I talk to are asking about the real value/threat that a few people twittering or blogging about their brand can bring, and the Wall Street Journal raises a similar question in the article cited above.  Will this outrage against palm oil practices materially affect the sales of Kit Kat bars?  Was the Domino’s pizza incident really that detrimental to the future sales and reputation of the company?  And what can you do as an organization to combat and avoid these incidents?

This week there was an article in the New York Times about how a portion of  the Republican backlash to the Obama administration’s policies, specifically around health reform, is driven sometimes more on faith than knowledge of the facts.  This is faith in what pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are saying rather than the actual merits of the health care bill.  A recent Pew Research Center poll found that while many people are strongly opposed to the new health care bill and the adminsitration’s policies, a good majority really did not know how the bill would affect their individual families.

To me, this points to a increased acceptance by the general population to trust sources for their ideas and beliefs without necessarily having the facts to back it up.  As we move further away from trusted reporters to a large multitude of content creators, people are making snap judgments and holding companies like Nestle to the fire, based on sources they consider trustworthy.  In this case, there is a significant level of truth to the claims of the activists, but my point is that companies need to start paying attention to what is being said about them… whether it is a columnist at the New York Times or a blogger in Indonesia.  We’re at a point where any idea can go viral given the right push.

So to my question about whether ideas and beliefs trump facts, I would say that companies and organizations need to be transparent and engage with clear facts that demonstrate their openness to the dialogue.  As a Nestle spokesperson remarked, this is not a time to get into an online shouting match.  It is the time to set the record straight by making sure that those creating hype are drowned out by truth rather than a one-sided approach.  By putting the straight facts out in as many channels as possible, a company can show that they understand the issues at hand and that they are working to resolve them.

It’s a new way to approach dialogue, and oftentimes a scary one.  But it’s the way forward for everyone who manages reputation in the social media landscape, whether it is a multinational company like Nestle or the current US administration.

Who do you ask before you decide on a doctor or a specialist?  Typically, it’s a friend or a friend of a friend.  As we become more mobile in where we live, it is becoming increasingly important to have a way of picking a doctor or a hospital wherever you may be.

On some level, most people and even most healthcare professionals understand it.  But healthcare is still lagging in its ability to stay on top of what people are saying about their care and their institution across the web.  When I typically approach a healthcare institution about listening to the conversations out there, the normal response is, “Well, we’re not engaged in Social Media right now.  Maybe when we have a bit more traction on our Facebook page, you can come back and check in with us.”  What is crazy about this is that people are already talking about healthcare in a very real way across the web.  Whether or not the hospital or medical practioner is involved there is a presence.  And, I think that most healthcare professionals recognize.

But there’s a disconnect.  Why?  I think it’s because medical professionals in general hate being a part of marketing.  They do their job, and they do it well.  If someone likes the job they did and wants to blog, tweet or post it on the Internet, then great.  Unfortunately, this is not how things work in the real world.  In the same way that consumer companies need to manage their social media reputation, I believe that hospitals and medical practioners need to follow suit.

Mentions in healthcare are more important than reviews in just about any other industry.  If I see two bad reviews on Yelp!, I will still end up going (and probably will love the food).  If I see even one well written bad review about a hospital or doctor, you can be sure I will look somewhere else.  Reputation is everything in healthcare, and it’s important to be engaged, active and with your ear to the ground.