There once was a woman who collected porcelain eggs. She loved those eggs and every time she was out and saw one for sale that she didn’t already own, she would buy the egg and bring it home for her collection. One year on her birthday, her family joined together and instead of buying her a present, they bundled the money they were going to spend and gave it to her saying, “Go buy as many porcelain eggs as you desire. Happy Birthday.”

The woman was overjoyed because there was a new shop near her house that had an entire section of unique porcelain eggs. She immediately went shopping and grabbed as many eggs as she could carry. Then she  grabbed a few more.

And a few more.

Everywhere she looked there was another egg she needed until they all ended up being carried by her to the register. She was barely able to pay, and refusing any help, she started for her car. She had ALL the eggs she saw and wanted and was ready to put them to good use. But when she was in the parking lot, the weight and cumbersomeness of the eggs outweighed her desire for them and she lost her hold, sending all the eggs to the pavement where they shattered. Ruined.

Choosing strategic KPIs for your Social CRM strategy can sometimes be a lot like that woman and her eggs. There are so many places to focus, how in the world are you supposed to choose? If you choose too few, you won’t have the full story, but if you choose too many, you can’t keep track and everything can easily come crashing down on you.

What to do?

Correctly Choosing Strategic KPIs

KPIs, or key performance indicators, are probably the best way to numerically account for how a tactic, person or program is performing against the greater expectations of your Social CRM strategy. They are exactly what they sound like and are a favorite tool of mine when I work with companies on forming strategies.

To successfully choose appropriate and measurable KPIs you have to make sure that you’ve established clear objectives for all departments and areas of your plan.

There are two types of KPIs to think of when you’re choosing and evaluating: Strategic KPIs and Tactical KPIs

Strategic KPIs are those KPIs that directly impact the overall vision and goals of your Social CRM strategy. For example, a strategic KPI would be one that states 50% of the department employees involved in the Social CRM system will have been trained and culture changes implemented within 6 months.

Tactical KPIs are those that move forward the overall strategy but apply more to specific tactics within the strategy itself as opposed to the overall vision. An example of a tactical KPI would be to say that all online inquiries and complaints will be responded to within 3 hours of being made.

These will come directly from the measurement points you set up within your Social CRM strategy and should be directly related to how you want to move things forward.

Here’s a few examples of what Social CRM KPIs could sound like:

• Revenue managed/brought in through social channels per salesperson or agency
• Customer Lifetime Value
• Response rate percentage of increase for social campaigns
• Complaint response time reduction
• Increased percentage of positive sentiment on social channels
• Ratio of administrative work to customer face time per salesperson
• Increased engagement percentage through chosen social networks
• Etc.

Framing your success will go a long way to actually creating success for your Social CRM strategy. After setting up your department goals and objectives, take the time to sit down and set up your KPIs and measurement processes to make sure that you and your team stay on track to that success through the lifetime of your strategy.

Thoughts?