Customer Relationship Management Via Social Selling
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Customer Relationship Management Via Social Selling Jouni Särkinen Bachelor’s thesis January 2018 Business Degree programme in International Business Description Author(s) Type of publication Date Särkinen, Jouni Bachelor’s thesis Month Year Language of publication: English Number of pages Permission for web publi- 32 cation: x Title of publication Customer relationship management via social selling Degree programme Degree programme in International Business Supervisor(s) Saukkonen, Juha Assigned by - Abstract Social selling is a growing phenomenon in the world. The increasing use of social media in personal and professional life is driving the decision-making process to online environ- ments. Nowadays, decisions are made based on recommendations from peers rather than based on facts. Professionals have started engaging their customers and decision makers directly in social media, which is making the sales process very personal. We are dealing with the next level of customer relationship management (CRM), which is not visible in the companies’ CRM systems. This led to the following question: Should we adapt social media channels as part of CRM? The aim of this study was to reveal why we should use social media channels as part of companies’ CRM. Other objectives were to reveal whether there would be some positive and negative aspects in doing so and whether customer engagement would be more effec- tive through social media. The research method that was used in this research was qualitative. Ten people from the small and medium sized business sector were interviewed. They were asked four to eight questions related to social selling and CRM. In the analysis part of the study, the focus was on finding the similarities and differences between the interviewees’ answers. The semi- structured interview method was used to collect this information. According to the results, the respondents seemed to agree on the potential of social selling in new contacts. However, people need still more information about social selling and the possibilities that are available when CRM and social media channels are connected. Keywords/tags Customer relationship management, Social selling, Marketing automation, sales force automation, Social CRM, Social media Miscellaneous 3 Description Tekijä(t) Julkaisun laji Päivämäärä Särkinen, Jouni Opinnäytetyö, AMK Julkaisun kieli: Englanti Sivumäärä Verkkojulkaisulupa 32 myönnetty: x Työn nimi Asiakkuudenhallinta sosiaalisen myynnin avulla Tutkinto-ohjelma International Business Työn ohjaaja(t) Saukkonen, Juha Toimeksiantaja(t) - Abstrakti Sosiaalinen Myynti on kasvava ilmiö maailmalla. Sosiaalisen median kasvanut käyttö arki- ja työelämässä on johtanut siihen, että päätöksentekoprosessi tapahtuu verkossa. Nykypäi- vänä päätöksiä tehdään tuttavien suosituksien mukaan, ei niinkään faktojen pohjalta. Am- mattilaiset ovat ruvenneet kontaktoimaan asiakkaitaan ja päätöksentekijöitä suoraan sosi- aalisessa mediassa, tehden myyntiprosessista hyvin henkilökohtaista. Kyseessä on kehitty- neempää asiakkuudenhallintaa, joka ei jätä jälkeä yritysten asiakkuudenhallintajärjestel- miin. Tämä johti seuraavaan kysymykseen: Tulisiko sosiaalisen median kanavat sisällyttää osaksi asiakkuudenhallintaa. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus oli selvittää pitäisikö sosiaalisen median kanavia käyttää osana yritysten asiakkuudenhallintaa. Muina päämäärinä oli selvittää olisiko tällä jotain po- sitiivisia ja negatiivisia vaikutuksia asiakkuudenhallintaan sekä selvittää onko asiakkuuden- hallinta tehokkaampaa sosiaalisen median kautta. Tutkimustapana käytettiin laadullista tutkimusta. Kymmenen ihmistä haastateltiin pienien ja keskisuurien yritysten sektorilta. Heiltä kysyttiin neljästä kahdeksaan kysymystä liittyen sosiaaliseen myyntiin ja asiakkuudenhallintaan. Analysointi vaiheessa keskityttiin löytämään samanlaisuuksia sekä eroavaisuuksia vastauksista. Vastausten saamiseksi käytettiin teema- haastattelua. Tulosten mukaan vastaajat näyttivät olevan samaa mieltä siitä että, sosiaalisen myynnin mahdollisuudet ovat uusissa kontakteissa. Ihmiset kaipaavat kuitenkin vielä lisätietoa sosi- aalisesta myynnistä sekä mahdollisuuksista, kun asiakkuudenhallinta ja sosiaalisen median kanavat yhdistetään. Avainsanat Asiakkuudenhallinta, Sosiaalinen myynti, Markkinoinnin automaatio, Myyntivoiman automaatio, Sosiaalinen asiak- kuudenhallinta, Sosiaalinen media Miscellaneous 1 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 3 2. Theory and knowlegde base ........................................................................... 5 2.1 Customer Relationship Management ......................................................... 5 2.2 Social Selling ................................................................................................ 7 3. Research approach, Design and Data Collection ............................................ 11 3.1 Methodology ............................................................................................. 11 3.2 Collecting Primary Data ............................................................................. 14 3.3 Analyzing the Data ..................................................................................... 16 3.4 Research Credibility ................................................................................... 16 4. Research Results ........................................................................................... 19 4.1 Behavior in Social Media ........................................................................... 20 4.2 Engaging with Customers .......................................................................... 21 4.3 Social Media Channels as Part of CRM ...................................................... 22 4.4 Possibilities of Social Selling ...................................................................... 23 5. Conclusions .................................................................................................. 24 6. Discussion .................................................................................................... 26 6.1 Assessment on The Quality of Research ................................................... 26 6.2 Discussion .................................................................................................. 27 6.3 Future Research......................................................................................... 28 References ........................................................................................................... 28 Figures Figure 1. The number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 in billions. (Statista.com 2017) ........................................................................................................ 8 2 Figure 2. Inter-relationship between the three core domains of trust. (Warrell 2015) ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Figure 3. Examples of primary data in social research. (Hox & Boeije 2005) .............. 13 3 1. Introduction History of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Before we had a superfast internet and highly complex information and communica- tion technology -systems (ICT), everything was done in a more traditional way. Pen and paper were the tools for practicing CRM. Those in charge of CRM had the name of the customer, knew their weekly order, and all they had to do was to write this in- formation down and they could predict the future. This kind of data was collected data from each customer, put in a box, and this resulted in a simple CRM system. However, the early stages of the process are for nothing if the data is just lying in the box and it is never used. After all, the main idea of CRM is to create sales for a busi- ness organization by using customer data. (Buttle & Maklan 2015) Nowadays, CRM ties together almost everything that is relevant to an organization’s business. Whether it is the customer or prospective customer contacts, leads, ac- counts or sales prospects, they can all be found in one central location. History of Social Selling The roots of social selling lead back to a study completed by the British Columbia University. They found that if a salesperson and a prospect share common interests, they are more likely to do business together. (Jiang, Dahl, Chattopahdyay & Hoegg 2009) In order to understand social selling, we should know something about the evolution of sales. Sales used to be about making numerous phone calls, convincing the prospect with the sales pitch and making them feel secure about the message, and the more one did this, the more closed deals one could achieve. (The 7 Steps of the Sales process) The sales have changed little from what was described above. The most clearly changed aspect in the sales process would be the customer behavior. Nowadays, unlimited data and information have driven prospects to look for infor- mation online and ask for recommendations from other people, which has led to a situation where customers are highly knowledgeable of their options in each market field. A study completed by Forrester shows that the average prospects have already completed 60% to 90% of their decision-making process before even engaging the 4 sales professionals. (Miller 2013) We are in the era of sales where the potential pro- spects know probably more about the seller’s business than the seller knows about theirs. This drives salespersons