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The level of technology on Social Customer Relationship Management

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The level of technology on Social Customer
Relationship Management
CRM, Social Networking, SCRM, CRM Systems, SMM

José Duarte Santos, Instituto Superior Politécnico Gaya and Instituto Superior de
Contabilidade e Administração do Porto, jds@jdsantos.net
Fernando Almeida, Instituto Superior Politécnico Gaya; falmeida@ispgaya.pt
José Augusto Monteiro, Instituto Superior Politécnico Gaya; jaam@ispgaya.pt



Abstract.
In the context of this article it is intended to identify and analyze a set of key technological elements that
Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) applications must possess in order to facilitate and
deepen the interaction with the client. The process of acquiring, retaining, and supporting customers is a
very challenge task in these times of economic slowdown and even recession. At the same time, the recent
explosion in social media usage, combined with the increase transformation of consumers in a more active
role, has permanently changed the relationship between a company and its customers. Therefore, we
intend to analyze the technologic evolution of CRM software into Social CRM platforms and look how
these solutions address the new challenges for enterprises, in the context of Social Media, more
specifically on social networks. The aim is to verify the existence of features that the applications may have
to facilitate interaction with the client via social networks and/or integrate the software in a more
customer-focused vision. As conclusion we analyzed the main criteria that could help companies to choice
the most adequate social CRM according to their needs and we identified two approaches adopted by
SCRM vendors based on an extended CRM functionality or a completely dedicated SCRM platform. We
also concluded that the success of a SCRM implementation is less about technology, but more to do with
the strategy that is employed by the company.

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1. Introduction
In the contemporary world the consumer plays an increasingly active role and customer relationship management
(CRM), in times of economic downturn and especially in times of recession, it is becoming increasingly crucial to the
survival of organizations. There are different conceptions of the CRM concept, but there is a tendency of predominance
of the orientation of the company to a 360-degree perspective of the customer, looking to create added value for the
customer and at the same time aiming to increase customer value to the organization.
The development of the Internet, the emergence of new technologies has driven companies to use new types of
interaction to seek to maximize the relationship with the client. The emergence of Social Media supported on the web
2.0 brings new responsibilities to the companies, because the client has been transforming itself from a static version
for a more dynamic and there is a client-to-client relationship and not just company-client.
This article begins by presenting the main perspectives of the CRM concept. Then try to contextualize the social
networks and identify key players. The third point deals with the management of customer relationships via social
networks. In the three following sections deals with software technology, primarily in terms of the traditional version,
after integrating the social dimension and finally presenting aspects to be taken into consideration in the choice of
technological alternatives.

2. The Customer Relationship Management

The literature is inconsistent and highly fragmented on the CRM concept. Some authors (Shaw et al, 2001; Verhoef &
Donkers, 2001; Xu et al, 2002) underline the technological perspective of CRM, others (Croteau & Li, 2003; Kumar &
Reinartz, 2006; Parvatiyar & Sheth, 2001; Zikmund et al, 2002) focus on management-oriented business processes of
customer experiences. On the other hand there are different definitions of CRM, although some have conceptual
similarities. In a survey (Zablah et al, 2004) which encompassed academic papers, articles on portals about CRM and
CRM software companies, met distinct definitions of CRM, explicit or implicit way, allowing to obtain five dominant
perspectives in the conceptualization of CRM: process, strategy, philosophy, capacity and technological tool. CRM as
process includes activities to maintain and develop durable and profitable activities managing customer interactions. In
strategic perspective there is a focus on how to build the right relationship with each individual. CRM as business
philosophy is based on the concept of relationship marketing, delivering customer value by developing a customer-
centric culture. The capability approach in CRM stands out the need for companies to invest in resources that allow the
modification of its transaction to relational orientation. Finally the technological perspective emphasizes the
importance of this to the operationalization of the CRM, making it easy to build relationships with customers.
Santos e Castelo (2010) analyzed different models proposed by several authors – Chalmeta, 2006; Chen & Popovich,
2003; Curry & Kkolou, 2004; Galbreath & Rogers, 1999; Park & Kim, 2003; Parvatiyar & Sheth, 2001; Payne & Frow,
2005, 2006; Ryals & Payne; 2001; Sin et al, 2005; Urbanskiené et al, 2008; Winer, 2001; Zablah et al, 2004 - , for the
adoption of customer relationship management, and considered that CRM is a strategy, whose conceptualization is
based on a formulation according to a determined relationship model, influenced by the benefits that one can get and
having a philosophy with influences of relationship marketing. Its implementation is supported in the definition of
organizational structure, human resources, processes, technology and best practices in the permanent application
which include management metrics.

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So, the company needs to have human resources capabilities and an organizational structure to develop the business
processes required to support the CRM strategy. In the design of processes it is important to take account of the needs
of customer interaction and the channels used, as, for example, social media, sales force, call centers, web sites and
points of sale. In turn, the technology, which aims to facilitate company access to customer information and interaction
with it, cannot be alienated.

3. The Social Networking

The social relationships are not a recent phenomenon. Nevertheless, over the time, it has being assumed different
forms. The most recent form of human relationships is from social networks. People interact with other people without
having in same physical place. So far, nothing is new, except the fact of this situation it verifies in real time. The
potential of the new paradigm is the possibility to know how extent is the number of the people contacts and how they
are related. A very difficult task without a registration support, namely, in the context of the traditional human contact
forms (Jamali & Abolhassani, 2006).
In the context of organizations, CRM already support contact registration to track the customer and, in some cases,
allow identifying how customers relate each other. However, traditional CRM, it is been far from the potential of the
social networking. Today, organizations are becoming to perceive the advantages of having an online presence, in
particular, in the more popular networks. They start to become more visible to a broad set of contacts and, they have
the possibility to get information about its fans or the fans of its products more easily than when they have the efforts
to initiate the contacts and the task of fill all forms parameters of some potential costumer (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
In social networks we may consider two categories of presence: (i) individuals and (ii) organizations. However, the
classifications of its relationships are more extent and have multiple forms. It depends the concept of each one views
the relationship. For example, the network of an individual could have: (i) family; (ii) friends; (iii) colleagues; (iv)
classmates; (v) acquaintances; (vi) friends of friends. In the same context, an organization could have: (i) employees;
(ii) vendors; (iii) customers; (iv) suppliers; (v) partners; (v) fans; (vi) friends of fans.
Looking to these classifications, it seems clear that groups are formed by individuals. However, depending of the
context, the groups could be created according segmentation needs.
Additionally, we may consider other categories or concepts, nevertheless it seems common sense to perceive that when
an organization makes a new contact, it have associated a multiplied factor related with the connections of these
contact. Differently from the traditional communication technologies (tv, radio, press, etc...), social networks not only
provide the ability for users to communicate with each other but also enable users to form ad hoc groups and
communities based on mutual interests where are used to promote discussion, sharing and enable creativity, among
other things. It potentiates two emerging powers: (i) the power of the masses (free translation) and (ii) the power of
organizations that are able to drive its influence over the masses (the customers).
Considering that social networks tend to grow in popularity and in number of users, organizations can no longer ignore
the fact. With this new paradigm, the way how organizations communicate with the target public cannot rely only on
traditional mediums technologies to communicate new products. The social networks, in theory, are “open” 24h a day,
7 days per week, 365 days by year. It constitutes an optimum medium to stay connect permanently with customers. We
may infer that, if a an organization has a presence on social networks, it is available 24h a day.

3
The sensation that we have when we are online, is that the other people that share a profile with us are still present all
the time, even if they were disconnected. By generalization, in the case of an organization, to the individuals that are
part of the network of the organization, the perspective is: “They are there”. No matters if it is lunch time or they are
closed. This means that is latent the idea that presence online means available in real time.
The social networking has brought a major proximity to the potential customers and a very diverse and infinite set of
opportunities. However, like the abundance of the information that came with the propagation of Internet, it becomes
urgent to know how to deal with the abundance of contacts on social networks. Once more, like in the context of the
Internet, and later, in the context of social networks, the technology has an important role and social media also enables
customers to talk to enterprises (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).

4. The Social Customer Relationship Management

According Greenberg (2010, p. 34) “Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology
platform, business rules, processes, and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative
conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment”.
The SCRM not nullifies the efforts developed by CRM marketing, but provides a supplement, reinforcing the company's
customer focus and facilitating knowledge of behaviors, attitudes and feelings (Woodcock et al, 2011).
Social media, allow an interaction on an individual basis with each client and can be framed in the following categories:
blogs, social networks (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter), Youtube, photo sharing (such as Flickr), interactive
applications (such as, for example, applications for mobile devices like PDA and Smartphone), on local networks,
aggregating channels (for example, comparison sites), independent and sponsored sites, communities, review sites,
webinars, discussion groups/user forums, events online, company website and search engines (Woodcock et al, 2011).
Social media will facilitate contact with the client, the client with the company and between customers. The customer's
power has been increasing (Stone, 2009) and it is important for companies to monitor and intervene in conversations
that are held in social media, providing content and experiences to improve the customers ' trust (Woodcock et al,
2011).
Faase et al (2011) propose a SCRM model where the concept view has two parts: (i) customer management focused
with customer lifetime value, customer behavior and customer interaction; (ii) customer engagement supported in
user-generated content in architecture of participation and harnessing the power of the crowd. This model has a
system view that integrates the concept view with information and infrastructure. According to these authors the aim is
customer retention (CRM) and their involvement (SCRM).

5. The traditional Customer Relationship Management Software

The dimension technology has an important role in the adoption of a CRM strategy, and may find themselves three
strands in their use, that being enhanced to profitability contribution: information flow, capture of information and use
of information (Ismail et al, 2007).
The CRM Software allows you to collect information about the client at various points of contact, store it, analyze it and
be accessible in various channels of interaction with the client (Shaw, 2002). Thus, facilitates the access to customer
information, the implementation of activities, interaction and supports decision-making (Nguyen et al, 2007), allowing
you to manage the customer's knowledge (Ryals & Know, 2001). Provide information to support operational, analytical
and collaborative CRM processes (Alt & Puschmann, 2004), With the technology is easier to identify the most valuable
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customers and focus on better marketing efforts allowing improvements in customer loyalty (Chen & Popovich, 2003)
and enable organizations to leverage the customer relationship (Frow & Payne, 2009).

5.1. Features of a CRM system

To support CRM processes, technology offers a set of features that aggregate CRM areas (operational, collaborative and
analytical) and the functional areas of the organization on which there is a focus of CRM (marketing, sales, service).
Marketing automation supports marketing activities, especially the management of marketing campaigns, comprising
(Cooner, 2009; Fredricks, 2009; Piepiorra; 2008; Torggler, 2008):
• Campaign planning: definition of objectives, targets, costs, communication channels, planned dates for
execution;
• The execution of the campaign: use of rules for selection of recipients and by the choice of communication
channels it is possible to customize the communication;
• Campaign control: allows you to monitor and control the evolution of the campaign and the results obtained.
The sales automation supports sales activities, seeking also to record the different phases of the sales cycle. There are
three major features (Cooner, 2009; Fredricks, 2009; Piepiorra; 2008; Torggler, 2008):
• Sales management: help to manage leads, follow up the sales cycle, as well the orders received;
• Sales force support: help to register and plan sales activities, as well manage contacts;
• Product configuration: facilitates the process of finding the best product/service to the customers’ needs, or,
carry out combinations of products.
In service automation, after sales important, the main important features are (Cooner, 2009; Fredricks, 2009; Piepiorra;
2008; Torggler, 2008):
• Help desk: support for customers using the knowledge databases that include past and similar situations that
provide automatic identification of the problem and the ability to provide immediate aid;
• Claims management: allows you to keep on record any customer feedback, categorizing complaints and
manage the responses to those complaints;
• Requests to the service: includes the history of interactions with the client and enables the management of all
cases still pending.
There is still a set of features common to the three functional areas of Business Software (CRM, 2008; Lin, 2003):
• Contact management: allows access to the detailed information of the entity on which it will focus the
commercial force, marketing and service/support. Is of recognized importance, access to accurate and timely
information about the caller, before establishing contact;
• Calendar, agenda and management activities: management of commitments and actions to be taken with the
contacts make it necessary to the presentation of these features integrated and simple way for users;
• Management of opportunities: this functionality is one of the most common options in any CRM software and
allows you to register potential business and its evolution throughout the sales cycle;
• Sales forecasting: the sales forecast is based essentially in the sales funnel, i.e. graphic mode provides an
overview of the various ongoing business contemplating the probability of achieving the same.

5
Xu et al (2002) considering the functional areas of CRM, present a set of impacts, provided by CRM technology, as can
analyze in the following table.

Characteristics
Salesforce automation
Customer service and support
Field service
Marketing automation
Impacts
Greatly empowered sales professionals
Customer problems can be solves efficiently through proactive
customer support
Remote staff can efficiently get help from customer service personnel
to meet customers’ individual expectations
Companies can lean clients like and dislikes to better understand
customers’ needs. Consequently the companies can capture a market
before their competitors

Table nº 1 – The characteristics of CRM system.

Source: Xu et al, 2002, p. 443.

5.2. CRM technological alternatives

To analyze CRM alternatives, we propose three dimensions: (i) how software becomes available to be used
organizations; (ii) how software becomes available in terms of code; (iii) and what are the alternatives in terms of
categories of infrastructures to host software.
Started by how software becomes available to be used organizations we have divided in two categories:
 On demand: in this category it is not needed to install software or to have a complex network infrastructure.
Software is already available online, pre-configured, and ready to be used. In some cases, organizations do not
need to have the traditional office concept. Users could be connected with the application anytime and
anywhere. All of they need to have is an Internet connection and a valid access to the software. The access
usually implies a license per user or a license per group of users. Some services provide a limited period of
experimentation. Others provide a free access to the service with a limited number of functionalities.
Customizations are limited by the offer of the service. Nevertheless, some services provide an Application
Programing Interface (API) that allows creating customized applications to integrate local data with online
data. While the software configuration has a hi-level interface with users, the API needs technical programing
knowledge. Also, it is common to have associated technical support to users included on the service.
 On premise: this is what we consider a traditional option. It implies to have hardware devices, an in site
infrastructure, or in alternative, to have a host or housing solution (above it will be explained these concepts)
to implement on premise software solutions. The software package is installed on desktop computers
(depending on the number of workstations needed) and the server version is installed on a dedicated server.
The objective is to make easy the share of information among users and the data more secure to organization
(Santos & Lopes, 2006). In this case, organizations need to plan what will be the more appropriated
infrastructures and devices (in accordance with software requirements) to implement the software. Due the
“physical” possession of the software, this category has implicit more options to obtain the software than the
on demand category. The organizations can obtain the software by different ways: (i) proprietary software, for
example, the Service Level Agreements (SLA); (ii) Free software, for example the community versions of a
certain software product; (iii) and open source, for example, a software developed and supported by a
community of users.

6
The second dimension is how software becomes available in terms of code. Some organizations consider important to
create “add-ins” to the software to adapt to the existent legacy applications or to improve the software functionalities.
To classify the options we consider three categories:
 Proprietary: CRM software, that usually is available on media support, by download or throughout an online
service. The first and the second, after acquisition has no additional held fees. In terms of the interface, it can be
based on classical desktop applications or Web based. In the case of the he third option, the software usually is
available on the Internet (web based interface) and is not needed to install on desktops or in a local server. It
implies a fee by use which depends of a determined form of consumption (numbers of users or time). It can be
framed like Software as a Service (SaaS) and it releases the organizations of the management of the IT
resources allowing focusing on its core business (Santos & Lopes, 2006). Additionally, proprietary software, it
is characterized by a cost associated to the acquisition and by being closed in terms of the code. Which do not
leave the possibility of being modified by users.
 Free version software: this category does not imply to pay fees by the acquisition or the use of the software.
However, this not means that the source code is available. Some variants of this software can be: discontinued
versions of proprietary software; new products of software that are in the market acceptance phase (less
common to found on CRM software products). In parallel with the paid versions, some brands, made available
free versions with less features, designated by “community version”. This allows small organizations to have
access to basic and functional CRM software. Like in the case of proprietary software, free version software are
available to download or online as SaaS. In some cases it is possible to find some advertising in this software,
which can be disabled on paid versions. By this reason we cannot say that the free version software has no
costs. As we mentioned before, SaaS releases the organizations of the management of the IT resources and
focusing on its core business (Santos & Lopes, 2006).
 Open-source software: this category of software is freely distributed and the code can be accessed by users
(developers) to be adapted, modified, maintaining the core characteristics, without additional fees. By opposite
proprietary software, open source software has no direct cost of acquisition. However, freely distributed does
not mean that has no other costs. (Hawkins, 2004). The term open source, associated to the software, was
original created by OSI (Open Source Initiative) and also can be referred as a free software (term defined by
Free Software Foundation). The main differences among these two designations are mainly identified by of
how both are available to users. The first is centered on the technical aspects and the second is more centered
on the ethical perspective (Fuggetta, 2003). There are some costs associated to this category of software, like
installation, training users and maintenance (Economides & Katsamakas, 2006).
The third dimension that should be considered is the alternatives in terms of categories of infrastructures to host
software. In a simple way, two approaches can be taken before adopt a CRM software solution: (i) Top-down: start by
choosing the software that meet the needs of the organization and, in the last, choose the hardware infrastructures that
will meet the needs of the software. (ii) Bottom-up: Start by analyze the infrastructures options, decide what type of
software fits the needs of the organization in terms of the process and the implications on the hardware infrastructures.
 Software as a Service: in this alternative, as we mentioned before, the hardware infrastructure is on the side of
the service. Organizations do not buy the software. The software is always hosted on the infrastructure of the

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 service provider. The costs (if have…) are only related with the software and the communications (Internet
service). Organizations only use the software and pay the utilization, per period of time and (or) per user. In
this concept, there is no need to invest on hardware, the costs are predictable and the software is always
updated.
 Local/Desktop: based on the classic paradigm client/server this alternative is adopted by the organizations
who intend to maintain the applications locally and under by self-control. Theoretically it is based on the
traditional intranet concept and does not require an Internet connection to support software operation.
Nevertheless, today, most of the organizations are connected to the Internet.
 Hosting: the hosting category is based on the concept of web hosting, traditionally used to host websites. The
service takes from the basic hosting where it only allow a simple website to the professional hosting where is
available a large amount of disk space and also the more actual web frameworks to the most diverse proposes.
Naturally, it implies a connection to the Internet. It should be notice that not all applications could be installed
on web hosting services. Some factors like the traffic, disk space, framework technologies, database
technologies, should be taken in consideration. It should be analyzed case by case.
 Housing: this concept is based on a service that includes dedicated hardware, infra-structures and is remotely
accessible. Comparing with the local/desktop alternative, in the housing concept, the organization have its
main systems, hardware and (or) software hosted on the housing service. It only needs the basic devices and
an Internet connection to access to the service. The care of the hardware is on the side of the provider. Below,
on table nº 2 we illustrate our approach with a classification of ten different CRM software brands: CiviCRM;
GoldMine; Maximizer Sofware; Microsoft Dynamics CRM; Oracle Siebel; SalesForce; SAP CRM; Sugar CRM;
vTiger; Zoho CRM. Our criteria to choose these software options were drive by the need to demonstrate with
practical examples our analytical dimensions.

Proprietary Free version Open source

Maximizer Software Zoho CRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
On demand Oracle Siebel Not applied SaaS
SalesForce
VTiger
Zoho CRM
Maximizer Software CiviCRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM VTiger
Oracle Siebel Sugar CRM Local/Desktop
SalesForce
SAP
Sugar CRM CiviCRM
On premise VTiger Hosting
SugarCRM
Maximizer Software CiviCRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM VTiger
Oracle Siebel SugarCRM Housing
SalesForce
SAP

Table nº 2 – Brands of CRM software and its positioning.

Source: author.

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6. The Social Customer Relationship Management Software
Currently, a significant number of CRM vendors are moving their applications to the Social Customer Relationship
Management (SCRM) environment, by integrating their solutions with social media tools or by letting customers to
build and manage online communities. A social CRM solution is essentially any software product that gathers and
manages data from social platforms to help companies better manage their relationships with their customers (TEC,
2012).
The incumbent CRM vendors have responded to this request by adding new features that allow their products to
interact with Web 2.0 applications, providing new technological solutions or offering add-ons to their products. At the
same time, it has appeared on the market new technological companies that have identified this gap and market
opportunity. These companies typical does not offer common CRM functions like marketing automation and sales force,
but provide technology solutions specifically targeted to the interaction and communication between people through
social software. Some of these products have ended up by being acquired by major vendors in the market that already
have strong know-how in the CRM field or in Web 2.0 applications.
The most relevant advantage brought by the introduction of social media functionality to CRM is the continuous
monitoring and dialogue between companies and their potential and current customers. These benefits are not only
focused in the marketing campaigns, but can be extended to other activities, such as customer service, event planning
or product development. The value of this approach is based in fact that social data is continuously updated and
growing. However, according to Sexton (2012) there are some practical issues that a company should consider before
enter in the social CRM, namely invest in a polite interaction with their unsatisfactory customers, avoid a reactive
behavior but invest in a proactive approach and finally establish always a plan for the social CRM campaign.
Actually, the relationship between companies and companies are becoming interactive. The CRM solutions are
increasingly turning more flexible, which gives the opportunity to some CRM vendors to expand their core activities,
filling the gaps left unfilled by large CRM vendors. These small CRM firms are looking for the integration of their CRM
solutions with other solutions, developing newer platforms, establishing partnerships and creating applications
marketplaces. Their purpose is to offer new functionalities that are not typically found in a CRM system, but is being
increasingly viewed as complementary to a solid CRM strategy, such as content management, human resources and
project management.
The key component of SCRM applications is the smooth integration of outside information sources and the leverage of
Web 2.0 concepts of collaboration and community, including social networking applications. The major vendors are
mainly following an approach where social media management capabilities are offered in the form of modules that
integrate with their existing CRM platforms. Modules can range from simple (just a Twitter, LinkedIN or Facebook
integration) to complex (complete community management) depending on the business goals. The implementation is
done using web-based systems, APIs, programming platforms and languages such as .NET and Java, which allow a
seamless integration between different systems. Add-on solutions can be embedded into core CRM packages, and end
users can use different tools in the same browser and machine.
The main advantage of extended CRM functionality is that it affords customers more functionality than a traditional
CRM system. On the other hand, some vendors may not offer CRM modules that could be considered necessary by the
customers, forcing them to use two or more systems (e.g., one of marketing campaigns and another for sales

9
processing). Extended functionality can also be available in the form of development frameworks, which allow
companies to not only manage their CRM packages, but also create applications and add-ons that could be required for
specific business domains. Lastly, another benefit of extended CRM functionality is that it incentives the purchase of a
best-of-breed solution. Add-ons can be plugged into existing systems and typically requires minimal intervention.
The other alternative approach is to offer a SCRM platform focus almost exclusively on customer relationship
management through social networks. These SCRM products are developed with community engagement and online
communication in mind, and are less process-centric than the previous model. The majority of these platforms are
standalone, but it is also possible to find in the market solutions that are already integrated with major CRM platforms.
In both approaches, there are common components of SCRM which includes (BS, 2010):
 Brand monitoring: track conversations regarding the brand or business. This can be made tracking user
conversations or opinions collected at customer service/support calls;
 Social media platform: ability to access and contribute to social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
This component should also allow the creation and managing of customer communities from within the
platform;
 SCRM analytics: inclusion of business intelligence tools supported in data mining algorithms to allow
sentimental and behavioral analysis, and to monitor customer interactions within the business’s online
communities.
There are already in the market several companies that are starting to offer SCRM solutions. The most relevant players
are depicted in table nº 3.
Social Business Open
Product Extended CRM
Plataforms Intelligence Collaboration
Bazaarvoice NO NO YES YES
Jive NO YES YES YES
Lithium Social Customer Suite NO YES YES YES
Nimble YES YES NO NO
Salesforce.com YES YES YES YES
SugarCRM YES YES YES NO

Telligent Enterprise Suite YES YES YES YES

Table nº 3 – Comparative analysis of major SCRM products.

Source: author.

The extended CRM applies when the company already has a CRM standalone solution available in the market. The social
platforms brings support for external connection with popular social software as twitter, facebook or google plus. The
business intelligence add-on provides centralized views in dashboards and the ability to make change to reports, drill
down for more details, and share statistics and graphs with other people. At last, the open collaboration benefits from
the community or collective knowledge, and combines the efforts of individuals to create and maintain information that
can be used by companies and their customers. The business intelligence and open collaboration features can be found
in Extended CRM and Social Platforms models.
In the SCRM the integration of structured (quantitative data) and unstructured (qualitative data) is a huge challenge.
The data can be structured in four levels, like it is shown in figure nº 1.

10
 Figure nº 1 – Categorization of data type.
Source: author.

The internal structured data is the category best understood by the enterprise. However it is usefulness is reduced
because a company needs to shift focus to external and unstructured data. On the other side, and looking only in the
structured layer, the external structured data is a logical extension of the current analytics done on internal structured
data in the enterprise. Looking for the unstructured perspective the internal unstructured data is a prime learning
ground for the company to understand how to get value from these data formats. The last quadrant intersects the
external with unstructured data and represents the largest area of opportunity for the enterprise to gather consumer
insights. According to Pritchard (2012), the business potential of this last segment is very high, considering that 80% of
the world’s data is unstructured and it is growing at 15 times the rate of structured data.
Finally, the appearance of cloud computing has allowed companies to buy and use more software functionality for
relatively low costs, compared with on-premise solutions. Solutions adopting a cloud computing approach are easier to
integrate with other products in the cloud because they use similar technology and platforms. This approach is
particularly adopted by vendors that follow an extended CRM approach because it can decreases significantly the
incompatibility issues between the core CRM functionalities and social modules. The use of cloud system also brings
opportunities for social media interactions, considering that the social media occurs almost exclusively on the Internet.
According to Liu et al (2009) to provide value-added trustee services, the cloud should be capable of identifying the
customer relationship communities and answering for users’ innovation strategy. At the same time, to maximize
flexible integration of computing resources, the cloud should integrate both human computing resources and electronic
computing resources. This implies that the cloud should be responsible for tracking customer information and
understanding the interaction way of its users.

7. The choice of software SCRM

The acquisition of technology implies a careful analysis and covering your entire development framework strategy so
as not to be seen in isolated technology (Messner, 2005). Technology is an enabler of organizational strategy
implementation, so it is important that is perfectly aligned (Ryals & Knox, 2001). It is suggested that even if the own
technology investment plan be included in the strategic plan of the organization and that the technology is framed and
adapted to the operational needs of the organization (Raman et al, 2006) which will allow the implementation of the
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strategy. There are different technological solutions for different social CRM objectives, because each company has its
own way of doing business and managing the relationship with your customers and the social CRM software requires
an exhaustive configuration. Thus, the choice of social CRM technology occurs only after there has been a decision to
adopt the social CRM as a strategy (Buckley, 2013), the organization is able to perform change at his organizational
levels (Woodcock et al, 2011), and there is a culture of sharing information and knowledge between customers and
employees (Askool & Nakata, 2010).
Social CRM does not intent to replace completely the already installed CRM solution, but should be used in conjunction
with it. ThinkTank (2012) argues that companies should look to SCRM platforms as a tool to further enhance customer
relationships maintained through traditional CRM functionality, keeping always the customer as the main focus. On the
same direction, Magniant and Lévy-Bencheton (2011) defends that new improved strategy originated by the
introduction of a SCRM solution should combine the benefits of social media with those of the current CRM approach,
namely in terms of target, objectives and budget. Additionally, the company should take proactive steps to encourage IT
teams to familiarize themselves with social tools relevant to their area of work (Pydimarri, 2012).
The entry cost for social CRM is relatively low considering that many vendors already offer in the market a free or demo
solutions for smaller users. According to Verrill (2013) there are essentially two types of SCRM buyers: enterprise
buyers and best-of-breed buyers. The former are investing in company-wide CRM products with contact management,
marketing automation, and help desk management. For them, seamless integration is likely more important than
specific features. The latter, typically SME companies tend to be less focused on enterprise-wide applications and more
focused on maximum effectiveness at particular activities.
Independently of the adopted SCRM strategy, the company should also choose carefully from many SCRM options
according to its needs. Therefore, Currah (2012) establishes that it should be evaluated the cost and features of chosen
vendors, including their ability to integrated media monitoring and community management platforms. Primault
(2012) makes a deeper analysis and adds some new choice attributes like flexibility, integration capabilities, scalability
and ease of use. Finally, it should be defined metrics to assess the performance of social CRM in terms of customer
satisfaction and operating costs. For that, the company should determine the most relevant key performance indicators
that will help to figure out the effectiveness of the social CRM (Magniant & Lévy-Bencheton, 2011).

8. Conclusions
The relationship with the client aims to provide greater value for the company and also for the customer. CRM assumes a
dynamization of the interactions with the client and a leverage of existing knowledge. With social networks the client takes a
more active role, but also there is an interaction between different actors which forces companies to act even more targeted to
the client. The SCRM is the CRM strategy based on web 2.0 creating engagement between the company and the customer, the
process of reviving the enterprise-customer interaction, but also being present in client-client looking to listening what is being
said about the company, the brand and the products.
CRM software industry still remains developing on premise versions, mainly because were organizations where data cannot be
host outside. However, new alternatives based on demand concept are emerging. Brands like Microsoft; SAP or Siebel that
mainly offer on premise solutions has “shifted” its CRM products to on demand versions. Our belief is that the success of the
Salesforce software has “attracted” other competitors. Another factor that influences this shift of paradigm was the emerging
of social networking concept. Now we assist to a reformulation of the traditional CRM software to embrace social network
concepts and, in parallel, industry start by offering a new concept of software called Social CRM.
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Social CRM can be used by companies to improve the customer experience by amplified the voice of consumers in the
marketplace. Social CRM platforms can help team across an enterprise to manage campaigns across different social media
platforms, and gain better insight into customers’ general online behavior. There are already appearing in the market a
significant number of tools and vendors that offer Social CRM solutions based on an extended CRM functionality or a
completely dedicated SCRM platform strategies. However, independently of the adopted approach, the success of a social
CRM implementation is less about the technology level, but more to do with the strategy that is employed by the company.
Before a company spends money, time and resources in building out a complex social CRM platform, it must be established a
social CRM plan that promotes a culture around customer service and success. Additionally, companies should identify and
map out the customer metrics that will help them to measure and manage the success of the customer experience.
In this work we only analyzed at the seven largest technology players SCRM, which can constitute itself as an opportunity to
develop this study. On the other hand we suggests a future empirical study on implementation by enterprises of existing
functionality in the software of SCRM.

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