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Marketing Information Systems and the Sales Order Process
whole. This attitude carries over into CRM work. With a CRM system in
place, management can think about different performance measures; for
example, should salespeople be rewarded for exceeding sales quotas, and
marketing people rewarded for finding new customers—or, should both
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receive rewards that are based on some measure of customer satisfaction?
The former approach, typical in days before CRM and ERP, can lead to
unintegrated functional thinking. The latter approach—now feasible with
CRM and ERP—can lead all personnel to think in terms of a company-wide
effort to satisfy customers.

ANOTHER LOOK

CRM and Social Media
Customer relationship management tools now also include social media channels that
consist of not only the more prominent ones—such as Facebook and Twitter—but also
blogs, wikis, YouTube, and other purpose-built Web sites. For example, Salesforce.com, a
company that provides CRM software via the Internet, has a product that searches for
specific products and brands being mentioned on social networks—important
information for companies either selling those brands or competing with those brands.
Companies interested in making the most of these new CRM tools need a dedicated
group of personnel to manage these new channels, which must be connected with other
CRM channels. Social media channels cannot stand alone, and they cannot replace the
other more traditional marketing channels.
The rise in popularity of social media means that companies must find ways to
address these new avenues of communication with their customers. A company needs to
make the most of any chance to connect with its customers, but these new opportunities
can be challenging. Any response to a Facebook post or a tweet must be immediate;
customers expect no less. Customer expectations have risen for response time; however,
investments in the social media CRM processes and procedures are lagging. In addition,
companies have yet to calculate the return on investment for investments in social
media CRM tools.
Gartner research has shown that 30 percent of major businesses will implement
some sort of social media with CRM over the next two years in order to improve
customer service. Both SAP and Salesforce.com have social media tools embedded in
their CRM software. Salesforce.com recently announced a new product called Data.com,
which populates CRM with social media contact information, in effect, making every
address for every contact up to date. They also have a new component of their CRM
called Chatter, which is a Twitter-type system for rapid internal company
communications.

Question:
1. Companies are losing their grip on maintaining their own public relations
because of social media and the Internet. What challenges face companies
with the advent of these new avenues of communication?

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