Comments on: Remember, Social CRM is About Employees, Too! http://www.crmoutsiders.com/2010/02/05/remember-social-crm-is-about-employees-too/ Former analyst and journalist discuss CRM from the vendor-side Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:14:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: David Beard http://www.crmoutsiders.com/2010/02/05/remember-social-crm-is-about-employees-too/comment-page-1/#comment-2662 David Beard Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:05:00 +0000 http://www.crmoutsiders.com/?p=1147#comment-2662 Great piece, Martin - Collaboration takes flexibility, inside & outside an organisation. As most business processes typically cross more than one department, enabling "good" CRM and/or social tools in just ONE department, scuppers any discretionary effort by one team. -= David Great piece, Martin –
Collaboration takes flexibility, inside & outside an organisation. As most business processes typically cross more than one department, enabling “good” CRM and/or social tools in just ONE department, scuppers any discretionary effort by one team.

-= David

]]> By: Joe Cardillo http://www.crmoutsiders.com/2010/02/05/remember-social-crm-is-about-employees-too/comment-page-1/#comment-2660 Joe Cardillo Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:11:17 +0000 http://www.crmoutsiders.com/?p=1147#comment-2660 Martin, thanks for post, it's a good read---I work in a call center as a Customer Advocate--your point about social CRM lessons applying to non-customer facing departments is a good one. Part of the struggle for traditional CRM/traditional internal ops is that it is a very ingrained perception of the customer/company interaction as a very defined and narrow avenue. Social CRM demands true accountability, and that is going to feed into a sort of internal social CRM which means shifting values and business practices. For example the common practice in large companies of creating layers of bureaucracy which are designed to prevent anyone from getting through often extends to customer facing employees (i.e. if a company mistakenly charges a client for a product or service that they shouldn't have), and prevents them from doing the right thing for a customer. Corporations mix this type of attitude into their business practices or finance policies, and for a pretty long time you could get away with this. But as Social CRM demands accountability from front line employees, I think we'll see a shift internally as well. And with good reason. The other thing that comes to mind is the visibility internally that such a shift will bring. It stands to reason that if companies can't afford to ever ignore a customer they'll have to learn to apply the same reason to employees as well. Sort of similar to how Brian Solis talks about putting the "public" back in public relations. Martin, thanks for post, it’s a good read—I work in a call center as a Customer Advocate–your point about social CRM lessons applying to non-customer facing departments is a good one. Part of the struggle for traditional CRM/traditional internal ops is that it is a very ingrained perception of the customer/company interaction as a very defined and narrow avenue. Social CRM demands true accountability, and that is going to feed into a sort of internal social CRM which means shifting values and business practices.

For example the common practice in large companies of creating layers of bureaucracy which are designed to prevent anyone from getting through often extends to customer facing employees (i.e. if a company mistakenly charges a client for a product or service that they shouldn’t have), and prevents them from doing the right thing for a customer. Corporations mix this type of attitude into their business practices or finance policies, and for a pretty long time you could get away with this. But as Social CRM demands accountability from front line employees, I think we’ll see a shift internally as well. And with good reason.

The other thing that comes to mind is the visibility internally that such a shift will bring. It stands to reason that if companies can’t afford to ever ignore a customer they’ll have to learn to apply the same reason to employees as well. Sort of similar to how Brian Solis talks about putting the “public” back in public relations.

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