Social Networking - A justifiable CRM tool for businesses?

With the growing level of competition in today’s business world, the importance of effective customer retention cannot be over-emphasized. A way of achieving retention is by going beyond just maintaining a connection with customers-social networking but also using such connections to channel ways of improving internal business processes and creating new business opportunities-Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

However, having read the article on the relatedness of Social networking and CRM by Denis Prombiant, I quite see reason why some companies may feel reluctant about connecting some of their social networking initiatives to CRM. In the same light, it is not enough to term such CRM initiatives as ‘mere’ social networking. Without careful linkages between the effectiveness of social networking programs and business process and performances, most firms are likely to continue to ignore the importance of social networking in their CRM programs.

By linking social networking and incentives for companies such as increased sales or increased profits, just maybe these companies can better justify investments in CRM from a social networking perspective.