The Social Customer: How Brands Can Use Social CRM to Acquire,

A great book on social media, CRM and marketing, August 30, 2011

By 

Mark P. McDonald (Chicago, IL United States) –

  

  

  

The Social Customer is the best book I have read about executing social media in marketing. That is a strong statement, but after reading more than a dozen books on the subject, from what exists right now I would recommend you read this book. Read it for ideas and new ways of thinking about social media as it applies to marketing and customer engagement – Social CRM. Here is why.

Adam Metz provides a comprehensive, well through out, and well-presented view of as much of the totality of social media, CRM and marketing as anyone.

Metz provides a simple and descriptive way to think about social CRM. Companies need to recognize that the customer is no longer just a customer but a `social customer’ with different needs, ideas and wants. Your brand, product, or service is no longer just that – rather you want it to become a social object. A social object is something that people look at, discuss, and pass from person to person, put their stamp on. These simple ideas are powerful in changing the way you think about social media, branding, marketing building and CRM.

This book is more like a downloaded website on Social Customers and Social CRM than it is a book. It has a heavy focus on implementation decisions and realities rather than trying to make an executive argument about Social CRM. This is a treatment we desperately need to create value from Social CRM.

The table of contents provides the best illustration of the coverage of this book. I found these chapters break into three distinct sections which I have described below:

These first four chapters constitute the firs part of the book that lays out the concepts and argument for Social CRM.

Chapter 1: The Brand as Social Object and the Business for Social CRM
Chapter 2: The “How” and “Where” of Engagement and the Four Social Customer Scenarios.
Chapter 3: Social Customer Relationship Management
Chapter 4: Social Customer Insights and an Introduction to the 23 Use Cases of Social CRM.

The next six chapters detail the 23 Use Cases for Social CRM follow the first part.

Chapter 5: Social Marketing
Chapter 6: Social Sales
Chapter 7: Social Support
Chapter 8: Social Innovation and Product Development
Chapter 9: Collaboration
Chapter 10: Seamless Customer Experience

The third section starts at chapter 11 and focuses on the implementation and operational aspects of Social CRM. Organizational, metrics and operational issues are the focus of these remaining chapters.

Chapter 11: Metrics and Rationale
Chapter 12: The Methodology
Chapter 13: Social CRM Strategy
Chapter 14: Misunderstandings and Failures in Social CRM
Chapter 15: The 98 Percent Customer Management Model
Chapter 16: Social Customer Analytics: How to Tell if Your Team’s Doing it Right
Chapter 17: Work Flows and Escalation Paths
Chapter 18: Social Advertising, The Social/Mobile Platform, and Integration with Retail
Chapter 19: The Social Customer and the Law
Chapter 20: Consumer Trust and Ethics
Chapter 21: International Feel

Now 21 chapters in less than 260 pages means that the book is not equally deep in all areas, but each chapter provides a context and links to materials you will need to consider. This book is not a series of blog posts loosely stitched together. The chapters are small, ranging form 6 – 12 pages that provide a connected view of the issue.

Strengths

The book treats the topic of social CRM comprehensively considering it from all angles and aspects. I found the pieces on Social Customer and the Law and the 23 use cases particularly helpful.

Open, in the truest sense of open source and open innovation. Metz liberally borrows and builds on the solid word put forth by others from Greenberg’s CRM at the Speed of Light, to Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy. Metz does not claim to know everything and he builds onto these and other ideas and frameworks. This is in the true sense of open source as these additions advance everyone’s thinking.

Flexible as Metz often raises issues through asking you consider various questions, conditions or situations rather than assuming that your company is the same as the others or that all situations require the same solution. This is critical to creating an implementable set of advice.

Challenges

The book is a little vendor centric, particularly at the beginning where it seems that the advice, ideas and recommendations are attributed to people from Social CRM technology companies. This balances itself out as the book progresses.

The book gets a bit ponderous in the middle as you go through the 23 use cases. The march through 21 chapters make some of the middle chapters blend together…

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