Log in, connect. Then what?

Anyone who remembers all the hype around e-commerce and Web sites back in the day will recognise the latest flight to Web 2.0 and connected connectivity. And anyone who remembers that will also recall that, by and large, it all ended in tears.

Fast-forward past the dot-com bomb to 2009, where we find ourselves with yet another technology (or three) that's destined to take over the world. (Welcome Web 2.0. I hear 3.0 is already in the wings.) The technology hypesters are back on their horses - new hypesters, old horses? - trying to convince every corporate and its branch office that you just have to have a blog, a Facebook and Twitter account, and possibly a LinkedIn profile for each of your executives.

What has this to do with CRM, you ask? Well, a number of the braver (or more clear-headed) local corporates are using Web 2.0 technologies and tools to manage and enhance customer relationships (see case study). Beyond the hype and hyperbole, Web 2.0 tools and technologies offer another channel to market. And a relatively cheap one at that (if your advertising agency is charging R250 000 for a blog site, odds are, you're being ripped off. Trust us on this one).

What exactly is Web 2.0, anyway? Says Tom O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media: “Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an 'architecture of participation', and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

Social media is, fundamentally, about conversation.

Roger Strain, director, Liquid Thought

In other words, it's about content and people, and the technologies inherent in the World Wide Web that allow the two to mingle, feed off each other, influence each other and improve as a result. Web 2.0 doesn't refer to version two of the Web, per se, as most of the technology that enables Web 2.0 has been part of the Internet from the start.

A big Web 2.0 word is 'community'. Web 2.0 is about creating communities, or allowing communities to create themselves. And this is where the tech-savvy corporate can take advantage.\

Liquid Thought director Roger Strain says: “Social media is, fundamentally, about conversation. That means not just talking to customers, but listening to them as well. Companies that have really been doing CRM properly have been doing this for a while anyway. A CRM system that doesn't help initiate, respond to and track conversations with customers is not worth much. Specific tools may come and go - Facebook and Twitter happen to be the current favourites - but the fundamental issue remains: 'How willing are you to spend real time, effort and money on meaningful engagement with customers?' If one's attitude and strategy are right, plugging in the right technology is relatively trivial. If it's not, no technology in the world will do the job for you.”

Softline Accpac VP for strategic sales, Keith Fenner, says Web 2.0 is about collaboration, sharing content and so on. “If you turn it around, there are two areas where one can talk to clients. The first is user-generated content - the blog world. You can't govern the content itself, but need to understand it exists (on Web sites, blog sites and applications like Twitter) and that you need to have a mechanism in the business to monitor and respond. We say to a lot of our clients: 'Why not get your own blog? It will at least provide the opportunity to respond to what people say.' With most CRM applications, there should be a portal/self-service element so that you extend your CRM system to the world and have some sort of user-generated content functionality so that people can fill in their thoughts. You can then go into the system and respond. Hopefully the person will come back online and say: 'Okay. It's fixed. Thank you'.”

Web 2.0 or social media isn't for everyone, though. Says Gino Cosme, founder of online marketing and social media strategy consultancy Cosmedia: “There are companies that go out and sell a solution without necessarily understanding the customer's business. The technology needs to enable the business' strategy, not the other way around.”

This is a point that's relevant to every technology, and one that local and international players have been making for years. The fact that companies still fall for sales pitches doesn't necessarily bode well for anyone, including the vendors making this stuff.

“Specifically in a South African context, there's a learning curve we need to go through,” says Cosme. “IT and marketing need to learn. [They need to] go back to the beginning and look at social media from the point of view of what opportunities there are to meet business needs, and to look at it from the bottom up, not top down.”

As well as not being for everyone, as Liquid Thought's Strain notes, it's not the cure for all customer relationship evils. In fact, going the Web 2.0 route may end up making the organisation look even worse.

If the traditional customer service channels are ineffective, or downright bad, the odds are your internal processes and workflows are bad, and that you've had to circumvent these and put something special in place to service a new Web 2.0 channel. Companies that do this shouldn't be surprised when the wheels fall off due to the lack of a back-end. Rather fix it all than take to the Web as God's gift to customer service. Of course, if your normal service is good and you can integrate new channels into your CRM, PR and marketing activities seamlessly, then go for it. But, as Cosme says, make sure there's a business case or you're wasting your time and money.

Like so many 'contact us' buttons on corporate Web sites, which go to e-mail inboxes that are never checked, a Web 2.0 presence is something that is implemented in a rush of enthusiasm, which then gets forgotten about as trends, and employees, move on.

The first step must be a clear strategy. Keeping hold of the customer relationship is the next, as Strain notes: “Should you spend money on consultants to help you navigate the Web 2.0 world? The argument is that if you're not interacting with customers yourself, who's going to do it? As a company, you need to do it yourself. Familiarise yourself with the ways customers interact with you and how they get information from you. And it doesn't cost either you or the customer much to use social media channels.”

Making sure there's interaction with customers on the social media channel of their choice is also critical. There's no point signing up on Mxit if all your customers are over-35s, for example. Allowing staff access to social media channels is another big step. Most companies block them because employees apparently waste time on Facebook. But, to be blunt, if it isn't Facebook, it's e-mail, or telephone calls or smoke breaks that employees will waste time on.

Web 2.0 is entering the corporate environment at speed and finding uses in CRM, ERP and internal communications channels, for a start. Corporates need to move with the times and allow their staff to do so, too.

The incorporation of Web 2.0 capabilities into software applications has become increasingly important

Keith Fenner, VP for strategic sales, Softline Accpac

Says Softline Accpac's Fenner: “If companies incorporate a social networking function into their back-office systems as a service that can be used by ERP and other applications, they can set up controls to govern its usage. For example, ERP systems should have GPS capabilities, allowing vehicles to be tracked and traffic problems to be fed into the system so that drivers can be re-routed, based on updated information. The incorporation of Web 2.0 capabilities into software applications has become increasingly important, as a new generation of users enter the workplace.”

Corporates don't need to dive in, but dipping a toe into the social media waters, even as observers, will give them a better understanding of this new medium, and how it can be used to further their business' strategy. Sign up on Twitter (as an individual), get a LinkedIn profile, get a sense of how online communities work and how you can benefit customers, and how they can help you, in turn. There's a whole online world waiting to be exploited.