For technology companies, adopting social CRM is critical for better understanding consumer preferences and responding with offers and services that meet their needs.

1. • Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Geeky Introverts No More:
How Tech Companies Can Engage
with Customers Using Social CRM
Executive Summary by employees to make a buying decision. Instead,
now they trust the advice of friends, colleagues,
While change and adaptability to change are
relatives and unknown fellow customers more
business constants , one thing that hasn’t changed
than that of the organization and its employees.
is that “The customer is always right.”
Thus, technology companies need to realize and
Both established and start-up technology com- account for the fact that buying intent, or brand
panies are dabbling in social network technology. positioning, takes place much earlier than ever
However, they have yet to make the leap in terms before.
of leveraging social media to enable marketing,
Technology companies have only recently real-
sales, product management and customer service
ized that traditional ways of reaching out to the
functions to deliver better business results.
customer are changing fast, and that social media
Across the online, software and high-tech space, is a critical channel for connecting with the largest
most companies have built a social identity that segment of their customers. This has given rise
combines a Facebook presence with Twitter,
LinkedIn and other tools. Only a few have taken
the next step to integrate social tools for listening, Social Media’s Ascendance
conversing and reaching out to customers.
81% of respondents said they’d received advice
The explosion in social networking has moved
from friends and followers relating to a product
the practice of sharing information to a more
purchase through a social site.
meaningful plane, one in which businesses can
harness consumer preferences and insights to 90% of consumers online trust recommenda-
gain a competitive advantage. The sharing of infor- tions from people they know.
mation on social forums regarding opinions and
experiences across various products and services 83% of online shoppers are interested in
is now a key influencer in the decision-making sharing information of their purchases to
process (see Figure 1). This is in striking contrast people they know.
with the traditional consumer experience, where
customers visit stores and request information Source: Nielsen
for a product and rely on the information provided Figure 1
cognizant 20-20 insights | october 2011

2. Evolution of Social CRM
Social CRM
Monitoring/
Interconnecting Layer
Traditional CRM Conversation/
Customer Collaboration layer
Owned Data
Data Process Mining
Process RSS Forums
Support Layer Support Layer
Account Management Blogs Account Management
Contact Management Contact Management Widgets
Activity Management APIs Tags Activity Management
Lead Management Lead Management
Campaign Management Campaign Management Ranking
Service Management Wikis Service Management Open Id
Sales Management Sales Management
Social Microblogs
SaaS Networks Podcast /
Video sharing Cloud
Automate and Support Internal Computing
Business Processes
Brand Monitoring
Services
Community Creation Internally & Externally
Figure 2
to a new discipline of CRM called social CRM SCRM Challenges for Technology
(SCRM) (see Figure 2). SCRM pundit Paul Green- Companies
berg says, “Social CRM is engaging in a collabora-
While the aforementioned companies have
tive conversation with the customer in order to
tapped social media as a customer communica-
provide a mutually beneficial value in a trusted
tions channel, the overwhelming majority have
and transparent business environment.”1
been slow to leverage social networking as an
While many technology companies now under- integrated and potent sales and marketing tool
stand the business importance of SCRM, few have because of the complexities of integrating social
made it an integral part of their larger market- media into established operations. The first set
ing and process improvement efforts. This white of challenges for technology companies with
paper discusses how technology companies can most social media initiatives is the lack of longer-
leverage SCRM to better understand consumer term support by senior management, failure to
preferences and respond with offers and services properly develop a cohesive SCRM strategy and
that more appropriately serve their needs. a lack of metrics to measure success. Moreover,
these campaigns often lack the back-end support
Social Media Emerges in the needed to convert opportunities into profits. As
Technology Space a result, many initiatives do not return desired
results, or lack marketing punch, giving senior
Some technology companies have taken steps
management additional reason to remain non-
to reach out to customers through social media
committal. The second set of challenges these
campaigns via sponsored Tweets, featured
organizations face is how to effectively engage
YouTube channels, LinkedIn spots, Facebook
their channel partners, enterprise customers,
posts, etc. and are tracking social sites (like
consumers and associates in real time.
Twitter and Foursquare) to monitor and assess
feedback and requirements even before inquiries To successfully leverage social media and gener-
reach the customer service desk. Some examples ate business benefits, a comprehensive strategy
of corporate use of social media are shown in covering front-end, back-office and metrics to
Figure 3. measure results is a must. The initiative should
span all aspects of social networking, includ-
cognizant 20-20 insights 2

3. SCRM’s Functional Fit
Social CRM
Online Software High-Tech
Examples
Vendors use social media to gather Software c vendors use social Vendors promote their new products
responses, blogs new features and media to generate product launch and/or new features via social
collect feedbacks on the Internet to buzz, Adobe, for example, used media channels. Cisco, for example,
Marketing promote their brand names. social media as a part of experi- sponsored Twitter keywords to
mental tactics for launching new generate buzz and excitement around
products such as Creative Suite 5. an event showcasing the launch of the
Cius Tablet.
Social media gives buyers a voice Software companies such as Social media can be used as an
on product reviews and feedback TurboTax leverage reviews and additional sales channel. Dell has
to attract new buyers. Amazon TurboTax Social Hub to help surpassed $3 million in sales via links
Sales leverages both product reviews and consumers with their buying from one of its Twitter accounts.
users with strong reputations to offer decisions.
testimonial reviews of products sold
organically.
Social media enables vendors to Social media enables vendors to Social media enables vendors to
partner with their resellers to drive provide better and faster customer crowdsource new features, submit
more traffic to their stores, eBay service while reducing support requests and knowledge sharing.
launched eBay Ink Social Media costs. Intuit QuickBooks Live VMware uses multiple social media
Service Seller program to drive traffic to its Community helps users exchange channels to promote knowledge
social medial seller profiles and/or helpful information to quickly solve content, communicate relevant industry
their e-commerce stores. technical challenges, which has content and events through various
reduced customer service calls. industry- specific Twitter feeds.
Figure 3
ing creating social communities for interaction, from active listening, must be analyzed and
positive communications, listening solutions, converted into intelligence that can be incorpo-
analytics and a strong back-office to convert this rated into actions that help companies engage
intelligence into action. In a technology industry with customers, improve service delivery and
context, the SCRM approach can be broadly clas- deliver measurable results.
sified into three components (see Figure 4).
• Customer and Partner Development: Tech-
Specific to the technology space, companies need nology companies need to create social com-
to apply these emerging social CRM approaches munities and engage with members to create
in the following ways: positive sentiment and
build trust. VMware, for Technology companies
• Social Media Listening and Analytics: Tech
example, created focused need to create social
companies should gather feedback, questions,
communities with discus-
sion forums, self-help communities and
suggestions, etc. through listening solutions
and analyze these inputs to generate intelli-
groups and online chat engage with members
gence for devising consumer strategies. They
capabilities to support to create positive
can listen to user content in key tech social
various subgroups, such
as industry best practices, sentiment and
networking sites (such as Mashable.com,
TechCrunch.com and Twitter) to capture
spotlights and industry build trust.
information on products, perceptions and
leader blogs. The commu-
services and use business intelligence tools
nity is engaged and run by users to collaborate
to help formulate strategies to improve their
and exchange ideas while companies can use it
products, services and communications. Ideas
to share news, press releases and other forms
on strategy and implementation should also
of content.
be gathered from all internal stakeholders
through blogging, wikis and other forms of idea • Sales and Marketing, Product Management
and content sharing, since the best ideas come and Service Delivery: Having a social media
from the grassroots level. This data, gathered presence and interacting with consumers
cognizant 20-20 insights 3

4. Compartmentalizing Social CRM
Tools to leverage
Activity Implementation Approach
Social Capabilities
Create social • Community creation and management: Build focused • Jive Technologies, Lithium,
communities and communities with discussion forums and self-help groups. Liferay and open source
Customer and engage with them Gather feedback, questions, suggestions, ideas, etc. software such as Drupal,
Partner to create positive • News publishing and awareness creation. Joomla.
Community sentiments and build
• Corporate branding and public relations.
Development trust.
• Internal collaboration across teams for idea generation
and content sharing.
Listening solutions for • Listen to the user-generated content in key tech social • Network Hippo, Radian6,
information capture networking sites. biz360,Omniture, Nielsen
and analysis. • Capture, process and cleanse info. BuzzMetrics, Cognizant
Social Media Customer Listening
• Feed the social media insights into strong analytics and BI
Listening & solutions. Convert raw data into opportunities that can be
Solution (CLS).
Analytics harnessed and provide measurable results.
• Compare current sentiment vs. historical sentiment and
perform trend analysis.
Synthesize information • Capture and store sales leads and opportunities in • Variety of Analytics
and design solutions CRM Application. and Marketing & Sales
to engage, retain and • Product development: Design innovative products suitable Enablement tools
Sales and influence customers for a specific group of customers. including SAS, Oracle and
Marketing, in specific market
• Feed marketing insights to the marketing and product Salesforce.com.
Product segments.
group to design promotions, campaigns, surveys and
Management product enhancements.
& Service • Process improvement: Effectively use feedback to improve
Delivery servicing and originations processes.
• Customer information management and profiling.
• Improve customer service and issue resolution.
Figure 4
is necessary, but not sufficient, to leverage cess excellence — and even more so today.
SCRM for competitive market advantage. The Over the past six years, Intuit’s user com-
SCRM infrastructure needs to feed consumer munity for its TurboTax products, Inner
sentiments into a strong analytics and BI Circle, has more than 25,000 members
engine to convert raw data into opportunities and has become an integral part of the Tur-
and leads that can be harnessed to provide boTax product updating and improvement
measurable results. The information captured plan. SCRM can help build positive brand
through SCRM must be leveraged to boost image through community creation, aware-
sales and improve perception, products and ness creation, corporate branding, public
services. Doing this requires the following: relation campaigns and crowdsourcing for
new product and service development.
> Services Analysis Solution: Companies
can leverage information captured through > Sales Analysis Solution: With so much
SCRM tools and infrastructure to identify advertising noise and so many options,
process gaps and inefficiencies in custom- customer acquisition is a big challenge for
er service and improve processes that will technology companies. Listening to and
have maximum impact on enhancing cus- analyzing customer comments on various
tomer experience. They will be surprised to social networks can help identify potential
learn that most of the complaints pivot on a customers and provide insights into prod-
lack of communication and clarity. ucts consumers are looking for or want
companies to offer. This analysis will help
> Product/Brand Analysis Solution: In all
launch new products or services that are
technology companies, positive publicity
already in demand.
and brand image are as important as pro-
cognizant 20-20 insights 4

5. Moving Forward and support a company’s products and services.
Engaging the right social media listening and
Demographic, social and behavioral shifts have
analytic approach can help companies to better
implications for all businesses. The increased
analyze and react to customer needs. Alignment
abundance of social networks and media usage
and integration with sales and marketing, product
has led to a change in customer behavior when
development and service delivery will bring true
it comes to deciding on what products and
end-to-end social CRM execution.
services to purchase. This is even more important
for businesses where customer experience is Technology companies that successfully imple-
a key factor, such as the technology industry. ment social CRM will have distinct listening own-
Companies need to adapt in order to remain ership of customers through social media chan-
competitive. Many technology companies have nels and have the ability to directly influence the
noticed this shift and have made efforts in social decision-making experience. Additionally, those
channels in order to engage and influence their companies that are further able to effectively
customers. The usual outcome is a set of mixed optimize and maximize social CRM efforts will be
results due to a number of factors caused by not able to quickly react to customer needs through
having the right social CRM strategy. metrics and analytics and exceed expectations
through effectively delivering for those needs
Social CRM incorporates a set of strategically
— thus helping to enable those same customers
aligned activities in order to produce optimal
to positively influence new, prospective custom-
results within the social media space. The devel-
ers through the social network channels and
opment of a social community with partners and
beyond.
customers can be used as a channel to market, sell
Footnotes
1
http://www.insideview.com/social-crm.html
References
“Five Steps for Succeeding with Social Media and Delivering an Enhanced Customer Experience,”
Dileep Srinivasan, Cognizant Technology Solutions, June 2011.
“Five Steps for Succeeding with Social Media and Delivering an Enhanced Customer Experience,”
“Why Your Company Needs to Embrace Social CRM,” http://mashable.com/2010/05/21/social-crm/.
“Social CRM: The New Rules of Customer Relationship Management,”
http://thechrisvossshow.com/social-crm-the-new-rules-of-customer-relationship-management/.
“35-Plus Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action,”
http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/corporate-social-media/.
About the Authors
Abhijeet Khadilkar is a Director within Cognizant’s Business Consulting practice, where he advises
technology companies on sales enablement and business transformation. Abhijeet can be reached at
abhijeet.khadilkar@cognizant.com.
Tom Pai is a Manager within Cognizant’s Business Consulting practice focused on helping technology
companies with customer experience, customer support strategy, social media enablement and
enterprise technology business challenges. Tom can be reached at tom.pai@cognizant.com.
Yupeng Gao is a Consultant in Cognizant’s Technology Solutions practice. He is currently working on
a variety of social media marketing, social CRM, Web analytics and process management consulting
engagements. Yupeng can be reached at yupeng.gao@cognizant.com.
cognizant 20-20 insights 5

6. About Cognizant
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