IBM on Social CRM – Relevant for Healthcare

I was reading the IBM executive summary called “From social media to Social CRM“, and I thought I would share some of my takeaways. (Note that CRM = Customer Relationship Management)

Social CRM “recognizes the role of business today is to facilitate collaborative experiences and dialogue that customers value.” Exciting! This seems like what many healthcare companies should be doing.

Some of their findings include:

• Nearly 80% of the online customers surveyed have at least one account on a social networking site
• Almost 50% have accounts on media-sharing sites
• Only 5% say they nearly always respond to others comments or post original content [creating a world of voyagers]
• Only 45% use social media to interact with brands…but the majority of those say they need to feel a company is communicating honestly before they will interact

There was a huge gap between why companies use social media and what customers want businesses to use social media for (as shown below):

Additional data points:

• Consumers who engage with a company via social media already have an affinity for the company or brand [key point…self-selection bias and identification of advocates]
• 70% of companies think social media will increase customer advocacy while only 38% of consumers agree
• Less than ½ of companies monitor their brand online
• Only 53% of companies offer social media training to their employees
• Only 27% of companies say they share social media insights across functional areas

As I read on into the details of the study, they share the Best Buy case study which showed $5M in reduced call center calls based on their social media strategy. They also point out that social CRM is about engagement not management which is another key point relevant to a lot of the healthcare discussions today.

Where are you on your social CRM strategy?