I was reading "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu last night. This text has been a popular classic for developing strategy for business and rightly so since being competitive is often much like a battle in war. I was struck by one of the passages in the book that read "without deception you cannot carry out strategy, without strategy you cannot control the opponent ".

I appreciate the brilliant insights in this book and I do not mean to take this out of context here but there are many interesting thoughts revolving around this concept in modern business and I must challenge it as a sensible approach in the current global marketplace. Though a brilliant strategic mind Sun Tzu had for war and battle, I cannot help wondering what this author would have written considering the reality of social media and a flattening world economy as it relates to customer relationship management.

Strategy for Social CRM

My first thought around strategy for Social CRM is that we must never consider the customer as the "opponent" or someone you should be out to conquer. The reality is that collaboration and adding value to a mutually beneficial relationship has far more power than any divisive approach. Since customers now have access to so much information and public opinion, they can easily see through smoke and mirrors. With all of the mistrust in the geopolitical marketplace, consumers are hungry for a more personal and accountable relationship with you and they are taking more time to carefully pick who they will do business with. You must make customer experience your top priority and actually care about what you are delivering and how you are delivering it.

• Competition is global and crosses many international boundaries yet to be defined.
• There is also more and more aggregation of data which will only continue to offer more transparency.
• We have gone through a phase with technology automations that were not always used effectively and this has turned many folks in search of more personal connection with their venders and suppliers.
• Clumsy use of phone prompt systems, email auto responders, web sites that only allow you access via email or a ticketing system and yikes "Robo Calls" all have left a taint of frustration with many folks who want to buy your products or services.

If you can use technology innovations in a way they remains transparent and effortless, only then can these tools  make a difference in building your customer relationships. Make your customer appreciate the value they bring to you, be honest and care about giving or providing something they can truly benefit from and you can gain their loyalty and trust. Chris Brogan co-authored a book called "Trust Agents" where they devote a good portion of this book exploring this very concept. I highly recommend it.

People want to talk to people

One of my common rants in circles of discussion regarding social technologies is that people want to talk with other people not technology, so if the tools get in the way of the conversation they take away value from the relationship and if they empower more conversation and engagement then they add value. Take facebook for example, which I choose to use personally rather than professionally, as long as this helps me keep in touch with my friends or family and can nurture existing relationships it is a useful tool but it can never become the relationship itself since I alone hold the responsibility for that. If the technology went away I would still have the responsibility with these relationships. The difference though is that these kinds of tools can really help you manage more relationships and as long as you do not lose sight of the quality and priorities with your relationships.

Dependency with perspective

I suppose it is ok to be a little dependent on the tools over time. As a guy that helps companies implements these tools into their web programs yea... sure get addicted, it is good for business. If you use them more they will only offer a greater positive impact as long as you keep them in perspective.

Trends in the industry are telling us that people now get it when it comes to social media and as we see the gap between social networking and customer relationship technology systems lessen we will not only see more folks using them in new and exciting ways but they will grow more dependent on these socially aware CRM tools. Competition will transform more often into collaboration and we will all benefit from the new social culture that it creates.

"15 people fast" or "300 people strong"

For example our small but mighty company is made up of a group of specialists. Each adds value to the bigger picture of meeting the needs and satisfaction of our customers. We are globally dispersed and connected through our web based tools. This allows us to function actually more efficiently than a more traditional business all housed from a single bricks and mortar location. Since we are able to draw upon labor pools in areas with specialized skills and varied economies we are actually able to provide greater expertise with efficiency and added value to our customers. Our application of Social CRM also keeps our overhead lower and thus passes even more value to our clients. In addition, having Social CRM as a foundation for our operations and delivery infrastructure we can scale up or down to meet growing demands or downturns in the marketplace without passing on additional costs or losing any of our core knowledge assets.

Collaboative cultures built on trust

One of the things more and more companies are realizing is that you have to build a collaborative culture and sensitivity in your workforce of care and respect for your customers. It is especially important and possibly more challenging to achieve as more and more folks will be working from home, logging into their companies Social CRM system, putting on a head set and joining into a online "Go-To-Meeting" type collaboration session. In the end game our customers are people that want to connect to people. In general I think they/we all want to collaborate and contribute and not be dominated or controlled and all of the rules of human nature regarding us being creatures of social habit apply.

It is a brave new world out there in the Social CRM space and plenty of tools to distract us but we shall all have to remember "There is Art in Truth" if we want to win the hearts and minds of our next generation of customers. Building trust and loyalty are the most important factors of any successful relationship.