Introduction
To find out how blogging (short for web-logging) can be used as a method of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) we first need to define the two keywords.
Blogging:
“A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.” – Wikipedia (2007)
CRM:
“Acronym for customer relationship management. CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it be sales or service related. CRM an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organised way.” Creotec (2005)
As the definition suggests, blogging is a series of web-based publications and the definition for CRM mentions “CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer”. We can see there is a clear overlap here which makes me ask one further question:
How would a business use blogging as a customer relationship management tool?
How and where do they overlap? In what way can regular online posts form and be some sort of interaction between the customer and a company. This question I endeavour to answer in my findings and summarise in my conclusion.
Findings
Are Blogs Useful?
I found out that yes they certainly are. Like most things on the Internet, there’s great information but there is also worthless information; Weblogs follow this trend.
“You care about blogs if your organization wants to develop real relationships with customers and wants to do so better than its competitors.
Blogs aren’t just a media or PR tool. Business blogs are being used by a variety of industries and companies to circumvent the media and the competition to connect directly with customers.” – F. Christopher (2005)
It’s made clear that blogs can not only make a connection with your customers but actually help you do better than you competition. They’re a very cheap, simple and fast way to give your customers updates on just about anything. They can also create communities and allow value feedback to occur. This feedback is free too because anyone can post an opinion on a blog (in most cases). It is now becoming clear that blogs are useful for these reasons.
Types of Blogs
According to F. Christopher (2005) there are six types of business blogs which you can categorise nearly any blog under. When I say business blog, I mean a blog that is related to a company or is the company itself; a blog that has some sort of commercial nature. These types of blogs directly relate to the question this report attempts to answer:
How Would a Business use Blogging as a Customer Relationship Management Tool?
A business could use any of the following types of blogs as a CRM tool:
- The Tour Guide
- The Recommender
- The Maven
- The Customer Advocate
- The Do-er
- The CEO Blog
The Tour Guide
As the name suggests, this type of blog gives you a guided tour of a company. It gives you a behind the scenes look at what’s going on in the company and perhaps who is behind it all.
From a business perspective this is useful to draw customers in and create good customer relationships because a customer might be very impressed with some of the things they see happening inside the company. They may also feel special being able to see behind the scenes. It makes the customer feel more confident as nothing is being hidden from them.
The Recommender
This sort of blog is an intermediary for a customer trying to find information about something. The blog must maintain and build up a reputation for having good recommendations to survive.
This sort of blog is quite different from the others and is also more difficult to create good customer relationships from it. One example could Apple’s iPod. There’re lots of third party products which complement iPods. If Apple created a blog which recommended these third party products to the customers, the customer might become happier with the iPod itself because one of the third party products was something the customer was looking for but Apple didn’t offer it. Just by letting a customer know about another product, indirectly they have become more satisfied with your product as a result of that.
The Maven
“The Maven” type of business blog contains posts from experts in a company. Rather than being orientated around the company it’s more about the experts and what they have to say. The blog normally covers a very broad topic rather than something very specific and narrow focused.
Even though the readers of the blog are after expert advice from the writer, it gives the company an appearance of expertise. The user might say to themselves “this expert works for this company, so this company must be really good”. If the users can see this expertise, the company might get customers which choose that company over their competition as a result of this.
The Customer Advocate
This type of blog is one of the most effective in business. The Customer Advocate blog directly engages with the customer. It allows the customer to write feedback and ask or even answer others questions.
This blog allows a high level of communication which can often be of great help to the company and the customer. One way it could be helpful to the company is if a new product is in development and perhaps a sneak preview is posted online. Readers could post feedback on what they think is good or bad about the product. The company could use these good ideas and adjust the product before the final release. The feedback is free so effectively the product is made better at nearly no cost.
It can also be helpful for the customer if they have a question about something and they post it. The question will then be answered and the customer will be happy. But because it’s on a blog and online the question stays online. If another customer has the same question they might find their question has already been answered.
The Do-er
The Do-er is a more focused version of the Maven blog type. Rather than covering a broad range of issues The Do-er blog type is more focused on specific topics and issues. The information is written by experts in a company.
This type of blog really shows that the company is up with the play to the users who read it. The posts might also be very cutting edge. The blog will demonstrate to the readers that the employees in the company are doing great things. This also gives the employees a boost of confidence because company has allowed them and often encourages them to post interesting things that they know about to the public. This gives the employees a sense of importance and in some ways it might be rewarding.
The CEO Blog
The CEO Blog is a blog where the CEO posts information about the company and relating issues. He or she might release new products or get feedback on various things but the key point is that the head of the company is directly talking to the customers. It removes the barriers and allows customers to interact directly with the head of the company.
The customers benefit by have a direct line of communication with the CEO and the CEO benefits by receiving feedback from the customers directly and not having it filtered through several managers before reaching him or her.
Conclusion
We have learnt that blogs can be a very powerful tool in business. It’s cheap, simple and can be very effective. A blog can be a great way to form excellent relationships with your customers but there are also great company benefits too. You can keep employees happy by showing them that they are intelligent enough to post information under the company name and the public. You can gain better feedback on products by allowing comments and discussions to happen.
The six types of blogs outlined, show six different ways and focuses a blog can have, each with different benefits. To make a business blog the most successful you need to decide which blog type best fits your business situation. Which one in your specific case will suit your company’s vision and the customer’s expectations?
To finally answer the question:
How would a business use blogging as a customer relationship management tool?
A business would have to carefully look at the pros and cons of each type of blog and come to a decision on which one is best. Then setup the blog and make sure regular postings occur. This is how a business can successfully use blogging as a CRM tool.
References
Christopher, C. F. (2005). The Business Blogging Field Guide.
Retrieved November 4, 2005, from
http://www.cerado.com/download/CeradoBusinessBloggingFieldGuide.pdf
Christopher, C. F. (2005). Why blogs?
Retrieved November 4, 2005, from
http://www.cerado.com/download/CeradoBlogDatasheet.pdf
Creotec (2005). electronic business terms and definitions (glossary).
Retrieved November 4, 2005, from
http://www.creotec.com/index.php?page=e-business_terms
Mohammed R.A., Fisher R.J., Jaworski B.J. and Paddison G.J. (2004). Internet
Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy (2nd Edition)
Wikipedia (2005). Blog. Retrieved November 4, 2005, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging