Features for Social CRM Technology - An Organizational Perspective

The new paradigm Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM) deals with the integration of Social Media into CRM. Social CRM is a business strategy supported by technology platforms to provide mutually beneficial value for companies and their customers. In this context, many companies evaluate the implementation of Social CRM tools in order to achieve and analyze customer’s content on their Social Media platforms. However, only little research has been conducted investigating technology features and their corresponding categories a Social CRM technology has to fulfill. To address this gap in research, the article presents the qualitative part of a two-stage multi-method approach comprising a literature review, a market study containing 40 vendor solutions and a first validation approach. In this effort, 18 Social CRM technology features and four categories of Social CRM technology are identified. A sorting procedure validates the corresponding classification and ensures a high degree of external validity.