Hmmm. In so many ways – the two are one, right?

This got me thinking. If we are trying to create great customer experiences while ALSO trying to make life easier for customers to drive loyalty – isn’t there a dangerous possibility that adding social media as a channel could do neither of these things?

What I mean is that unless carefully plotted out – adding social communication channels to your customer facing initiatives can only add complexity and confusion – for both the customer and your employees. Jumping in to a social engagement strategy without first creating rigid and clear escalation rules, as well as creating a succinct but encompassing messaging platform (or at least an easily accessed central knowledge base) can lead to support issues falling into black holes, and lower level employees communicating incomplete or worse incorrect messages to potential and existing customers.

Look, it is difficult to solve customer issues on twitter and through facebook in any mass produced manner. That is why contact centers are an expensive and sometimes cost-prohibitive aspect of many smaller and mid-sized businesses. And as I’ve noted in the past – social is not a band aid or a cheap/quick fix to an incomplete support and service initiative.

So, when you start to add social and create use cases around social media as it pertains to customer-facing scenarios, ask this question: “Will this make it easier for a customer to get what they need?”

If the answer is not a resounding “Yes!” in all cases, rethink that decision.

Mike asked: How do we prioritize our social media responses if we have no clue about the influence clout of the source? (paraphrased)

Great question – on so many levels. I mean, isn’t customer service supposed to be blind? Shouldn’t we be treating all of our customers the same? meaning – treating each one as if they were the most important?

But it sadly has shifted away from that notion of “the customer is always right” and into a more jaded “the customer who makes the most noise wins.” Through sites like Twitter – if you have a huge following and make a stink about a product or service – you will get a faster response and a little more love. But what about the loyal, high profit customer who does not play the social game? Does he or she simply lose out in the age of social?

So, does social CRM play to the hand of your worst customers? Or, at least the most whiny? (Thanks to Mitch Lieberman for putting me down this path…)

I think the answer is yes, and no. On the one hand, yes, squeaky wheels get the grease. But, squeaky wheels in the social media sense can also be early indicators – allowing you to avoid potentially huge problems before they become just that. Also, providing service through social channels is a new challenge and opportunity – while we may cater to the squeaky wheels, once that wheel is oiled they may go from whiner to evangelist – letting many more people know just how well they were treated.

In time, I think we will get to a sort of balancing point – where influence is better calculated and we are not operating in such a reactive mode via social media. Instead, we will be leveraging social channels to provide proactive service, or simply leveraging it as another channel in our support arsenal.

Again, the goal is not just to avoid potential PR nightmares – it is to provide great experiences for your customers.

So, when I read a great article by Paul over at Mycustomer.com around the new customer service model, I loved that no vendors were mentioned.

This is relevant to me because I do see the importance for companies to first understand the importance of moving to a customer engagement mentality prior to trying to attack these concepts with technology solutions.

Sure, technology is all around the social CRM concept – Twitter, online social networks, mobile phones and SMS, blogs, etc. But – the management of these customer engagements starts with a strong cultural shift and the definition of processes and policies – otherwise it’s chaos.

Just as your original CRM strategy was not born out of a technology decision, but rather a process map that technology was later wrapped around (at least I hope this was your process), your social CRM strategy needs to follow a similar path.

Your existing CRM deployment need not be immediately disrupted by social channels to engage with customers, in my opinion. First, define your policies and then start engaging with customers. (Social tools can be easily embedded in a CRM interface for ease of use, especially with web-based CRM tools, making it easier for support reps to view all of their different channels in a single view.)

Once you have started to master the interconnectedness of it all, optimization through measurement and other automations with a traditional CRM system can be performed.

Some of the other abilities include:

- Display incoming callers name, company and call direction in Sugar and         automatically open contact or lead form

- Send SMS via Skype with caller ID

- Track SMS automatically in history panel of contact or lead

- Start a Skype chat from within Sugar

- Archive Skype chat from within Sugar

- Display Skype user status in Sugar

- Support Skype and TAPI telephony systems in a unified interface

- Connect to SNOM phones and Asterisk

In the end, combining Skype and Sugar is about lowering the infrastructure costs normally associated with call centers with improved quality and features of traditional VoIP/CRM integrations.

Its small integrations such as these that are adding up in a big way. The development of SaaS and more open VoIP-tools are making the case for the growth of call centers running in virtual, “cloud-like” environments. With unified communications (UC) and Web 2.0 being folded into the mix, for the first time you’re seeing SMBs being given the ability to deploy enterprise-grade functionality.

I see open source, Web 2.0 and unified communications continuing to converge over the next decade, driving down costs and maintenance and allowing SMBs to operate IM, SMS, voice portals, Web chat functionality, etc., alongside Web 2.0 technologies and UC applications, all integrated with a CRM system being hosted in “the cloud.”

But looking over these again, an interesting question popped into my head. As Paul’s slides paint a picture around convergence of CRM, the call center (since CRM Evolution is put on in tandem with the SpeeckTek conference), and customer voice, I thought to myself: “What’s the difference?”

I mean, really – in a call center scenario, what are we doing besides having the kinds of “social” engagements that Paul and other next-generation CRM gurus talk about? What better place to have a social strategy than when you’re actually talking to your customers, right?

Well, yes and no. The “yes” is that, of course, call center interactions are a great opportunity to show that you are a customer-centric organization. And a great experience there can spawn advocacy and great viral activity in a positive light. It can, of course, go terribly wrong – as we’ve seen in the now infamous United Breaks Guitars fiasco (I’ll be the one blogger to not post the video link).

But social CRM and understanding the voice of the customer is much more than simply optimizing direct interactions. There are more amorphous concepts at play here. Marketing is perhaps the biggest driver and department to benefit from the non-call center type of social CRM. While social CRM can and does help sales – the impact is not really felt there. Sales is about closing, and as I’ve discussed before, social CRM is not a closing tool. Instead, the branding, awareness and ability to learn a lot from the multiple conversation points with customers helps marketing and those taxed with measuring and optimizing loyalty, satisfaction, etc.

So, ultimately, a call center can be a strong component of a social CRM strategy. But social CRM encompasses much more in terms of channels, messaging, opportunities, purpose etc.