I think I recall reading a whitepaper recently (Gartner? Forrester?) that indicated that most implementations are presently taking place in the marketing department. Whether this is the right decision is debatable of course, but seems as good as any: it has to have a starting place to build out from some where. With a lot of these social tools being in the cloud it is also worth noting that one department that definintely does not appear to be steeting crm is IT!!!!! A major irony this one when you think about the over bearing role that IT departments had on crm in the past. I don't know whether I have answered your question or not but hope that this has added a little kindling to the fire...............

Social CRM is a strategy that covers marketing, sales, service, even extends into product development and other departments of any given company - if not implemented in spots only.

Social CRM can unfold its potential only if silos are broken down.

Having said that and due to the importance of the overall topic Social CRM cannot be owned by a functional department like marketing, sales, service. On the contrary I would argue that Social CRM belongs to the COO or the office of the CEO, in order to avoid departmental agendas taking the lead.

Rgds

Thomas

 ....who owns the customer. Is it the retailer with hundreds of stores and thousands of customers, the eshop with thousands of customers or the etailer with thousands across shared channels but having different requirements depending on the channel. Those organisations with multiple channels have a dilemma but in the old bricks and mortar operations do they really have customers; they certainly dont know the customer details name, address, telephone number and if they are signed up to the social network links.  So in my view its the channel that relates most directly to the customer although they need to understand the customers other needs. 

Ray,

I do not think that the answer is that obvious. A customer lifcycle starts well before the "customer" is actually a customer.

Using the same line of argumentation that you use I could say that "Customer Service" should own Social CRM as service is where loyalty can be amplified, which is very important for keeping customers.

The history of CRM shows that departmentalization doesn't lead to success. CRM (and Social CRM with it) is a holistic business strategy and thus cannot be owned by a functional department because that would cement existing silos.

So, an integral part of the answer to the question "Who owns Social CRM" must be the answer to another question, namely "How can I/company provide most value to my customers?"

Rgds

Thomas

Hi Thomas

In a way I agree partially with what you say but there are very few CEOs and COOs that really understand CRM let alone the ownership of the customer. Why is that! Firstly its impossible to show as a tangible benefit on the balance sheet until the whole organisation adopts the concept and begins to make substantial inroads into change and demonstrate financial benefits; so my view around making "channels" start the process is the point from where the real action can commence. Yes the CEO and the board can adopt and own the customer in their view but its so much a stronger case for a channel to commence ownership and get the support from the CEO. A great example I have seen of this is Clarks shoes (UK). This is a strong brand but no one really owned the customer until that is the ecommerce development started and now the momentum that this has gained is now peculating though the rest of the organisation and with marketing the strength of this development is paying dividends as each customer touch point is jointly aligned and relating to the needs. All I need them to do is to send me a new pair of shoes the day before mine break/wear out  - that would be real service (I will pay of course).

 Thanks Ray

Dealing with a number of companies in this sphere, they have all to a greater or lesser extent changed their organisational structure to incorporate a Social team.  This can be a low level operational group or a department with horizontal capabilities taking in Marketing, Customer Service etc.

A lot depends on your company's exposure to Social Media and also the corporate appetite for doing this.  It is like Pandora's Box so you need to be careful in your approach as once you start allowing contact with your customers via Social channels it is almost impossible to stop.