Lithium Reinvents Itself as a Social CRM

Written by Steven Walling / July 18, 2009 11:45 AM / 13 Comments

Lithium has changed its game. Once limited to customer communities, the company has moved to become a complete social CRM for the enterprise.

Lithium's new approach creates a flow of information from the social web into your community. The result is the creation of valuable content, community-driven support, and the identification of engaged customers. The only stumbling block may be the ambiguity behind the company's new messaging.

Defining Social CRM

Released this week, Lithium's new suite takes their previously forum-centric software and ushers it in to a Web dominated by Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, they've decided to brand themselves with a buzzword that lacks a fixed meaning in the market currently.

The social CRM (or CRM 2.0) label may be accurate when applied to Lithium, but it depends on which definition you pick. We've seen vendors tout CRMs with internally-focused collaborative features called as such, but what it commonly means is CRMs connected in some way to public social media or support systems. With such a wide ranging use of the term, Lithium is likely to have a hard time maintaining a clear and focused message on what the software actually does.

Social Media Middleman

All marketing aside, there is substance to what is new about the software. Lithium acts as content repository and community site like before, and this is retained in what's now quaintly called the "tribal knowledge base," formed of something like a wiki, instead of just forums.

Lithium is also is now acting like a channel between the consumer Web, your community, and your company CRM. They integrate with leading CRMs like Salesforce.com, and they draw in blog posts and Twitter search. For the Twitter tie in, the widget can be embedded in just about any page, and the keywords can be set on a page-by-page basis. If there's a particularly relevant discussion going on, then a tweet can be used to seed a forum thread.

Stiff Competition

Lithium is one of the top community solutions for the enterprise, but in this new space, they're facing some determined competition.

Many see the core of social CRM as being a way to monitor public conversations about the enterprise from within your usual CRM software. In that frame of mind, Lithium is going to have a hard looking more useful than tools such as Oracle social CRM and Salesforce.com's Service Cloud, which already integrates with Twitter.

Compared to other examples of social CRM, the core base for Lithium is still going to be those who want a customer community that identifies and rewards engaged people. Whether or not the customers that make these communities tick are going to get excited by integration with the social media spectrum is the question that remains to be answered.

Comments

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Nice article on Lithium. I'd be interested to know which other upstart CRMs you alluded to in your article would be considered to fit the bill as "social?" and not just the big players.

On another topic, in addition to simply providing social search results from within the CRM (essentially just aggregating data into a single view) it would be far more interesting to see actual insights or patterns detected based on those social interactions: such as determining who of your contacts in a particular prospective organisation is a thought leader, and influencer, or has close relationships and conversations with other key decision makers. I'm not holding my breath for these features as they appear to be at least a few years off, so salespeople can rest assured they still have their work cut out for them!

Posted by: Get Pragmatic | July 18, 2009 2:10 PM

Jive Software's Clearspace SBS platform is a solid competitor. Nomenclature and structure take a bit to get used to but features, administration and support of OpenSource projects are key bonuses. They've got a realtime chat project and a couple others that play nicely too.

Posted by: justinkramp | July 18, 2009 2:33 PM

You're absolutely right Justin, Jive is definitely a leader in this sector too.

Posted by: Steven Walling | July 18, 2009 2:47 PM

Guys, don't forget Blogtronix, we practically invented Enterprise 2.0 and the social software suite almost 5 years a go when both Jive and Lithium were still playing with forums. With our new version 3.0 and pricing (due next week) will change things once again.
Cheers, Vassil

Posted by: blogtronix | July 18, 2009 3:56 PM

You might want to read the now widely accepted definition for Social CRM (erstwhile CRM 2.0): http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=829

For more information on Social CRM theres the #scrm hashtag stream on Twitter where a lot of stuff surrounding Social CRM are discussed, debated, defined & shared.

Posted by: Prem | July 19, 2009 6:45 AM

I don't see any of the traditional CRM vendors being that strong in Social CRM currently, as it relates to real integration with social networks. All they are mostly doing, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM falls into this bucket as well, is some basic social media monitoring so you can watch Twitter conversations from within your CRM app. As far as I can make out, none of them are taking the wealth of public profile information taht exists on socnets to keep customer records updated automatically, which should be one of the most basic functions of true Social CRM.

There is plenty of room for new and innovative entrants to the Social CRM market.

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester has a great vision of what Social CRM will become which I subscribe to fully; and his view is that this market will be at its hottest in 2 - 4 years time. It is still in its infancy.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Posted by: Ian Hendry | July 19, 2009 10:16 AM

Ian, I agree when you say that most traditional CRM vendors are only bringing social media monitoring tools into the fold.

But how do you actually achieve the functionality that you state - automatically scanning the social web & updating the CRM contacts DB with customer profile? It has major privacy issues. For one your social CRM system cannot know that Prem Kumar Aparanji who is also called A. Prem Kumar is known on the social web as scorpfromhell.

But if you mean that the social CRM systems should use the social tools like open ID, facebook/google connect, opensocial & other social tissues (Jeremiah's preferred term), you are right. No traditional CRM system does that yet.

The problem is that most traditional CRM systems do not have any integration with any front end web sites that could ask the customers to register with their open ID, etc. This is where someone like Lithium or Jive or any of the online community platforms could help. People come & register themselves in these communities using one of the social tissues & then the integration b/w the community software & the traditional CRM system enables adding this information to the contacts DB.

This is what I have tried to explain in my Social CRM [IT] landscape presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/scorpfromhell/crm-20-understanding-the-social-crm-landscape-1232107

Regards,
@prem_k

Posted by: Prem | July 19, 2009 11:53 AM

Great discussion here! As Prem directs us to with his link, the consensus is becoming clear that Social CRM is about 'co-creation' between customers and the company.

Said simply, we think Social CRM is about creating the Customer Network. A Network of advocates who can be engaged and then amplify efforts for the company. That network helps organizations Innovate for them, Promote for them, and Support each other for them. This is the secret to unlocking millions of dollars in tangible value.

Without the Customer Network, what you really have is just integration (or as someone mentioned above, just data aggregation). This is what some traditional CRM providers such as Salesforce.com do today -- essentialy just create another channel to hear from an individual customer (e.g. Twitter instead of email). There is some value there, but certainly more limited because the compnay is not actually gaining any leverage from the social customer network. With yet other traditional providers such as Oracle -- and even some community providers -- the focus is on internal collaboration. These systems focus on how employees can conect with each other (e.g. how sales people can share ideas and best practices with each other). Again, this is good, but doesn't unlock the value in the customer base and network.

I describe a real example in a blog post http://bit.ly/29fAok : A prospect asks a question about a company on a social network like Twitter, "Is ACME worth the money?" This is automatically fed into the company's online community where it is seen by an advocate, who starts a discussion thread based on it. That discussion automatically surfaces in the CRM system, alerting a sales rep. The sales rep can then engage other advocates -- a trusted source -- to weigh in on the thread, within the online community, on behalf of the company. The advocates provide honest and favorable commentary and the deal closes within a week -- at little to no cost of sales.

Now imagine that happening at a scale of thousands or millions. If you have built a bigger network of customers and advocates than your competitors, you win. And, here's the kicker, not only do your sales go up as you build a bigger network...but, your costs go down as your network gets bigger and those advocates do more and more for you.

After many, many discussions with enterprises leading up to this launch, they suggested that there are 5 key components to delivering Social CRM (that must be present):
1) Customer-focused community applications (let customers interact with each other);
2) Reputation and Profile Management (know who my advocates are and who might become one);
3) Workflow-based connection to existing CRM systems (bring interactions into the day-to-day business processes and make them actionable);
4) Integration with broader social networks (allow the company to engage in conversations across the social web -- allow advocates in the company community to engage with other social networks);
5) Actionable analytics (allow the company to identify and act on trends that drive ROI)

We're looking forward to the continued dialogue and further clarity around the Customer Network and Social CRM! Let us know whether you are hearing these 5 key requirements from companies as well!

Sanjay Dholakia
Chief Marketing Officer
Lithium Technologies
Twitter: @sdholakia

Posted by: Sanjay Dholakia | July 19, 2009 1:07 PM

Looks like Jive Software is sending their living drones to these articles just to mention themselves... hello Steven Walling. Kind of pathetic, Jive.

http://friendfeed.com/stevenwalling/f87bbd96/made-it-just-in-time-pdwi-at-jive-software

Posted by: Steven Wallen II | July 20, 2009 12:51 AM

Well hello "Steven Wallen II",

As you failed to notice, I couldn't have been sent here by anyone, because this is my post.

As for the FriendFeed comment you point out: that was PDX Web Innovators, an independent event that was hosted by Jive. I'm not a Jive employee.

Posted by: Steven Walling | July 20, 2009 10:37 AM

Which is better, Jive or Lithium? The cost is about the same.

Posted by: Joe Chotirawi | August 4, 2009 2:39 PM

Out of interest anyone know the pricing model for lithium and jive?

Posted by: MarkRichards | August 5, 2009 8:30 PM

It's going to be a tough time for Lithium to establish themselves as a leader when competing with Oracle, Microsoft and Salesforce.com. I think the key for their success will be the ability to engage and create community better than those other platforms. If this can happen, it may be their competitive advantage over the larger companies.

Posted by: HighPoint SEO | January 27, 2010 10:12 AM