The CRM 2.0 Imperative

Customer relationship management (CRM) is evolving from its traditional focus on optimizing customer-facing transactional processes to include the strategies and technologies to develop collaborative connections with customers, suppliers, and even competitors. In this new world, traditional CRM solutions will continue to aggregate customer data, analyze that data, and automate workflows to optimize business processes. But CRM professionals must find innovative ways to engage with emerging "social consumers" enrich the customer experience through community-based interactions, and architect solutions that are flexible and foster strong intra-organization and customer collaboration. How? First, you must define who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to accomplish, and how you plan to strengthen your relationships with the new social customer. Then you can expand your thinking beyond traditional CRM solutions and consider new ones based on social Web principles.