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Management for Professionals

Rainer Alt · Olaf Reinhold

Social Customer
Relationship
Management
Fundamentals, Applications,
Technologies
Management for Professionals
The Springer series Management for Professionals comprises high-level business
and management books for executives. The authors are experienced business
professionals and renowned professors who combine scientific background, best
practice, and entrepreneurial vision to provide powerful insights into how to
achieve business excellence.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10101

Rainer Alt
Olaf Reinhold

Social Customer
Relationship Management
Fundamentals, Applications,
Technologies

123
Rainer Alt Olaf Reinhold
Leipzig University Leipzig University
Social CRM Research Center Social CRM Research Center
Leipzig, Germany Leipzig, Germany

ISSN 2192-8096 ISSN 2192-810X (electronic)

Management for Professionals
ISBN 978-3-030-23342-6 ISBN 978-3-030-23343-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23343-3
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

After the World Wide Web and electronic commerce, social media may be viewed
as the third stage of the Internet evolution. Today, some hundreds of millions of
people regularly use social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat, WeChat, or YouTube. Like many key infrastructure technologies, social
media imply opportunities and challenges alike. On the one hand, they promise new
ways to interact with potential and existing customers as well as valuable sources to
obtain data on opinions, attitudes, and habits of individuals. From the viewpoint of
customer relationship management (CRM), this represents an important improve-
ment, since relationships become more “one-to-one.” On the other hand, social
media almost automatically provoke concerns regarding the privacy and the use of
this data. An important eye-opener in this direction happened in 2018 when the
misuse of Facebook data by the data analytics company Cambridge Analytica was
revealed. This company analyzed large volumes of data from users without their
consent and established detailed user profiles. The affair led to intense discussions
about the rules and limitations of social media. Eventually, extracting data from
social media platforms has become more restricted and platform providers have
embarked on restricting commercial activities and put privacy protection on top
of their agenda.
The concept of Social CRM as explained in this book aims to present a balanced
view. It conceives social media as a technology that companies need to take
advantage of in their customer-facing business processes. At the same time,
Social CRM needs to live up to high levels in terms of data privacy. A transparent
and trustful relationship with a large base of users—also known as “friends”,
“followers”, or “fans”—offers an opportunity to establish a target group or “com-
munity” of supporters that represents a valuable resource for CRM activities. The
potentials go beyond merely establishing presences on social media platforms and
include the support of business processes in the areas of marketing, sales, and
service. The following chapters of this book summarize basic knowledge about the
most important conceptual “ingredients” of Social CRM. They aim at a
practice-oriented and concise form and provide practical insights from several case
studies, which were also part of Olaf Reinhold’s Ph.D. thesis on “Integrated Social
Customer Relationship Management.” These comprise four companies, which are
applying Social CRM, and four companies that offer Social CRM software tools.

v
vi Preface

Table 1 Case study companies and representatives

Company Contact Company (tool Contact
(users) providers)
Cyberport Anne Raulf Falcon Social Jesus Requena
Dell Martin Zábojník, Janine Infoman Jens Grambau,
Wegner (Microsoft Andreas Klein
partner)
Spreadshirt Andreas Milles, Dave Viralheat Tobias Kemper,
Gorman, Eike Adler Suruchi Sharma
Deutsche Oliver Stalp, Martin Greger, Resultados Rafaela Blacutt
Telekom Oliver Nissen Digitais

We are much obliged to all these companies and realize that without their coop-
eration the underlying research and this book would not have been possible.
Therefore, we would like to thank the following individuals, who have contributed
during the case studies (see Table 1). It goes without saying that within this
dynamic market, the general state of social media developments as well as the cases
and the descriptions of the software tools are snapshots and could have changed in
the meantime.
Substantial groundwork for this book emerged in a number of applied resear-
ches. We are grateful for the funding that was provided by the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research for the projects “Social CRM Intelligence
(SCRM-I)” as well as “Shielding privacy within CRM (SPHERE)” and for the
support of the German Central Development Agency of Saxony in the project
“Social Content Quality Management (SCQM).” As a result of these projects, the
Social CRM Research Center (SCRC) was created at Leipzig University, Germany
(www.scrc-leipzig.de). This organization aims at providing an independent plat-
form for the transfer of knowledge from research projects and at developing
practical solutions in the field of Social CRM.
Finally, we would like to thank all colleagues who have been part of the final
steps of this book, in particular Janine Ankert, Douglas Ciqueira, Harry Cruz,
Constanze Gräsche, Dr. Gunnar Hempel, Dr. Julio Viana, Laura Martin, Florian
Nitze, Nico Pohlenz, Ingolf Römer, Christoph Stempin, Richard Stüber, and
Matthias Wittwer. We hope that you find this book’s attempt to provide a
design-oriented view on Social CRM interesting and useful for your social media
activities. Following the idea of social media, we would invite you to also share
your feedback on the book via the SCRC’s Facebook presence (SCRCLEIPZIG).

Leipzig, Germany Rainer Alt

July 2019 Olaf Reinhold
Contents

1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Social Web as Third Stage of the Internet Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Characteristics of the Social Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Social Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 Key Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5 Elements of Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 Social CRM: Four Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1 Cyberport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.2 Use of Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.3 Social CRM Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.4 Social CRM Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Dell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.2 Use of Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.3 Social CRM Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.4 Social CRM Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3 Spreadshirt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.2 Use of Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.3 Social CRM Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.4 Social CRM Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.4 Deutsche Telekom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.2 Use of Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.3 Social CRM Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4.4 Social CRM Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.5 Case Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

vii
viii Contents

3 Social CRM: Tools and Functionalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

3.1 Examples of Social CRM Application Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.1.1 Viralheat/Cision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.1.2 RD Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.1.3 Falcon Social . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.1.4 Microsoft CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2 Core Functionalities of Social CRM Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.1 Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.2 Analytics and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2.3 Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.2.4 Customer Relationship Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.5 Management and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Social CRM: Challenges and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 Strategies for Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.2 Organizational and Technological Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 Automatic Data Acquisition and Data Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.4 Privacy Protection, Personal Data and Data Ownership . . . . . . . . . 92
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5 Learnings for an Integrated Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Abbreviations

API Application programming interface

AS Application system(s)
B2B Business-to-business
B2C Business-to-customer
BDSG Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz)
BI Business intelligence
Bn Billion
C2C Customer-to-customer
CLV Customer lifetime value
CMS Content management system
CPM Cost per mille
CRM Customer relationship management
CSV Comma-separated values
DPO Data protection officer
DSL Digital subscriber line
DT Deutsche Telekom
EC E-commerce
ERP Enterprise resource planning
EU European Union
FAQ Frequently asked questions
GDPR EU General Data Protection Regulation
GTC General standard terms and conditions
HR Human resources
IPTV Internet protocol television
IS Information system
IT Information technology
JSON JavaScript Object Notation
KPI Key performance indicator
M Million
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OLTP Online transaction processing
POS Point of sale
PR Public relations
REST Representational state transfer

ix
x Abbreviations

SME Small and medium sized enterprise(s)

SMM Social media monitoring
SNA Social network analysis
SP Sub-process
TCP/IP Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol
TMG Telemedia Act (Telemediengesetz)
UGC User-generated content
UN United Nations
WWW World Wide Web
List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Number of internet hosts worldwide (left) (ISC 2019a)

and EC turnover in Germany (right) (HDE 2019) . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Fig. 1.2 Social media principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Fig. 1.3 Forecasted data volume of global IP traffic until 2022
(in exabytes per month) (Cisco 2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Fig. 1.4 Options for data transfer between social media platform,
Social CRM and CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Fig. 1.5 Activities within the customer life cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Fig. 1.6 Social CRM process architecture model. Adapted
from Alt and Reinhold (2012, p. 289) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Fig. 2.1 Cyberbloc with announcement of its first podcast . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Fig. 2.2 Cyberport in Facebook (left) and with link to the
online shop (right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Fig. 2.3 Example of a Facebook posting (left) and an offer
on Facebook (right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Fig. 2.4 Milestones in the early use of social media at Dell
(Versteeg 2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Fig. 2.5 Social media platforms used by Dell (Versteeg 2013) . . . . . . . . 28
Fig. 2.6 Community en.community.dell.com (left) and IdeaStorm.com
(right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Fig. 2.7 Dell knowledge base forum (https://support.software.dell.com/
de-de/kb-product-select) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Fig. 2.8 Dell news on the Twitter channel @DellGermany
and on Pinterest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Fig. 2.9 Social media presences at Dell (Versteeg 2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Fig. 2.10 Postings of Dell with offerings on Twitter (right)
and Facebook (left) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Fig. 2.11 Dell forum with examples (left: questions about
laptops, right: enquiry) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Fig. 2.12 Dell’s Social Media Listening Command Center (https://blog.
dell.com/en-us/dell-s-next-step-the-social-media-listening-
command-center) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Fig. 2.13 Topics and discussions in the Spreadshirt forum . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Fig. 2.14 Example for a posting in the Spreadshirt blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

xi
xii List of Figures

Fig. 2.15 Example of a designer shop (left) and a shopping

cart (right) in Spreadshirt’s Facebook shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Fig. 2.16 FAQ web page with information on payment methods . . . . . . . 42
Fig. 2.17 Overview on DT Twitter channels
(Deutsche Telekom 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Fig. 2.18 Example of a Telekom shop on Google Places (left)
and of “Borders were yesterday” as a topic of the campaign
“Life’s for sharing” on Flickr (right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Fig. 2.19 Offer for refurbished iPhones (left) and flagship store
on Facebook places with campaigns (right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Fig. 2.20 Customer interaction on Twitter at DT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Fig. 3.1 Functionalities of Social CRM systems for the Social
CRM elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Fig. 3.2 Selection and configuration of specific sources
(screenshots from Synthesio Q3/2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Fig. 3.3 Examples for query configuration (below, left) in Synthesio,
content filtering (above, left) and source filtering (above, right)
in Viralheat and content filtering in Earshot (below right)
(screenshots from Synthesio Q3/2018 and Viralheat Q4/2016,
Earshot Q3/2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fig. 3.4 Structure and customization of an owned community
in Lithium (screenshots from www.lithium.com, www.bt.com,
www.sephora.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fig. 3.5 Example of a tagged posting and a positive sentiment
(screenshot from Viralheat Q4/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Fig. 3.6 Dashboard for the visualization of sentiments
(screenshots from Synthesio Q3/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Fig. 3.7 Neutral marked posting in Synthesio (Q3/2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Fig. 3.8 Relevance score for postings and authors (screenshots
from Synthesio Q3/2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Fig. 3.9 Relationship analysis between postings and authors in
Bottlenose (left) and NetworkedInsights (right) (screenshots
from www.bottlenose.com and www.networkedinsights.com
Q2/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Fig. 3.10 Information on reach and influence of a social media platform
from Alexa WebMetrics in Synthesio (screenshots
from Synthesio Q4/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Fig. 3.11 Template-based dashboard configuration in Synthesio
(screenshots from Synthesio Q4/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Fig. 3.12 Carlsberg marketing dashboard in Falcon Social (2015)
(screenshot from www.falconsocial.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Fig. 3.13 Data sharing function in Synthesio (screenshot from
Synthesio Q2/2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
List of Figures xiii

Fig. 3.14 Scheduling of postings with marketing calendar in Falcon

Social (screenshot from www.falconsocial.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Fig. 3.15 Impact analysis of postings in Synthesio (screenshot from
Synthesio Q2/2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Fig. 3.16 Configuration of a Facebook app via templates with Falcon
Social (screenshots from www.falconsocial.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Fig. 3.17 Task assignment (above, left), communication template
(above, right) and option to assign a posting with
a sentiment (below) in Viralheat/Cision (screenshot
from Viralheat Q4/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Fig. 3.18 Dashboard with social media analytics in Microsoft
CRM (screenshot from cloudblogs.micorsoft.com) . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Fig. 3.19 Dashboard for reaction on a twitter posting in Earshot
(screenshot from Earshot Q3/2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Fig. 3.20 Social campaign definition in Salesforce (screenshot
from www.salesforce.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Fig. 3.21 Dashboard with ongoing interaction workflows across
different channels in Microsoft CRM (screenshot from
community.dynamics.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Fig. 3.22 Group configuration of three accounts in Viralheat
(screenshot from Viralheat Q1/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Fig. 4.1 Social CRM strategies (based on Reinhold
and Alt 2012, p. 156) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Fig. 4.2 Technological elements of Social CRM
(based on Alt and Reinhold 2012, p. 290) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Fig. 4.3 Option for data integration in Social CRM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Fig. 4.4 Analytical options in Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fig. 4.5 Examples of vocabulary lists (left, following Backhaus
and Nissen 2014, p. 16) and ontologies (right). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Fig. 4.6 Regulations affecting the ownership and the use of UGC . . . . . 95
Fig. 5.1 Customer-focused customer life cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Fig. 5.2 Integrated Social CRM architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
List of Tables

Table 1.1 Popular social media categories and platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Table 1.2 Content categories relevant for Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Table 1.3 Data available via APIs from four platforms (depending
on permissions and privacy settings, examples from 2018) . . . . 10
Table 1.4 Examples of services built around Social media and UGC
(based on https://lumapartners.com/content/lumascapes/
social-lumascape) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Table 1.5 Number of fans of selected brands worldwide
in January 2015/July 2019. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Table 1.6 Elements of Social CRM solutions
(Alt and Reinhold 2012, p. 290) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Table 2.1 Social media application areas at Dell
(based on Mathisen 2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table 2.2 Evaluation of case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Table 3.1 Application systems for Social CRM
(following Alt and Reinhold 2012, p. 290) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Table 3.2 Functionalities of Viralheat/Cision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Table 3.3 Functionalities of RD Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Table 3.4 Functionalities of Falcon Social. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Table 3.5 Functionalities of Microsoft CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 4.1 Tasks of Social CRM organizational units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Table 4.2 Criteria to evaluate data quality in Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Table 4.3 Relevant legal regulations in the field of Social CRM in four
countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Table 4.4 Criteria of an initial data protection check for Social CRM . . . . 99
Table 4.5 Examples for a data protection check in Social CRM . . . . . . . . 100
Table 5.1 Effects of Social CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

xv
Social CRM: Evolution and Building
Blocks 1

Social CRM means applying social media technologies in the field of customer
relationship management (CRM). After social media have initially focused on the
networking among individuals, many companies now try to be active on social
media platforms. Today, well-known brands have attracted a large number of
members, which are referred to as “followers”, “friends”, or “fans” depending on
the terminology of the respective networks. Although these relationships are rather
loose, they represent a potential for CRM since each member has expressed an
interest in a certain company and/or brand. This is an opportunity for all CRM
processes, which comprise marketing, sales, and customer service or rather
(after-sales) services. Social media contribute an additional interaction channel
towards customers with a unique set of features. Compared to existing channels,
such as call center, sales office or e-mail, social media are superior regarding
availability, interactivity and reach. In the last years, numerous examples—positive
as well as negative—have emerged for Social CRM, However, the concepts,
methods, and information systems (IS) used for Social CRM vary widely. In par-
ticular, they often differ from established IS in businesses, such as systems for
enterprise resource planning (ERP) or CRM. Whereas enterprise systems are
developed in well-planned long-term projects, social media are often used ad hoc in
a rather experimental manner. This is also due to the broad scope of Social CRM
and important differences in data quality. The case studies in this book offer insights
on how companies tackled the potentials of Social CRM. Together with an over-
view on typical Social CRM tool functionalities, they serve to establish a com-
prehensive understanding of Social CRM. Finally, this is brought together in the
concept of integrated CRM and a collection of key challenges, such as automation,
data protection and data mining, which businesses need to address.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

R. Alt and O. Reinhold, Social Customer Relationship Management,
Management for Professionals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23343-3_1
2 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

1.1 Social Web as Third Stage of the Internet Evolution

In the first place, Social CRM denotes the use of social media technologies by
companies to interact with (potential) customers. Initially, social media have been
referred to as Web 2.0 technologies, which have become known as a third stage of
the internet evolution. The first stage goes back to the birth of the internet in 1962.
Distributed transport protocols, such as TCP/IP, enabled a redundant and worldwide
electronic transfer of data. In 1989, the World Wide Web (WWW) was developed,
which allowed to publish and organize data more easily on the basis of hypertext
pages. The WWW also formed the basis for electronic commerce (e-commerce, EC),
initially via companies’ web pages and later via catalogs and marketplaces, such as
Amazon or eBay. During this second stage, internet presences and transactions have
increased exponentially, as illustrated by the number of servers connected to the
internet and the development of EC turnovers (see Fig. 1.1). Today, there are around
one billion (bn) Internet hosts (ISC 2019b) and an estimated four bn active internet
users1 worldwide (We are Social 2018). In Germany, there have been about 44.75
million (m) hosts in 2019 (ISC 2019b) and about 63 m regular internet users in 2018
(Press Releases Destatis 2018). Today, 87% of all European Union (EU) households
have access to the internet, which represents an increase of 45% compared to 2008
(Eurostats 2018). Since 2001, a third stage has emerged, which describes the rise of
Web 2.0 and mobile devices that enable access to the internet from any location.
The third stage adds to the previous stages and enhances the functionality of
internet-based services. Similar to the first two stages, the technological innovations
led to the creation of new businesses. Players of stage one and two (e.g. Amazon,
Google, eBay) were complemented by social media companies, which offer services
in the social web. The social web is broad term and covers all actors (e.g. providers
and users of content, services, platforms and technologies, data protection organi-
zations) that are involved in interaction by means of digital content. Social media (or
social software) are more specific and include providers of digital platforms (see
Table 1.1) based on Web 2.0 technologies as well as a variety of other service
providers. Compared to the first two evolution stages, the social web is significantly
more dynamic with the number of worldwide social network users having more than
doubled from 1.99 bn in 2010 (Statista 2017) to 4.38 bn in 2019 (We are Social
2019). Many social media platforms have appeared since for different purposes (e.g.
blogs, messaging, networking, media sharing). Today (Q4/18), millions of users are
active on the dominant platforms. For example, Facebook reports 2.27 bn (Facebook
2018a), Twitter 325 m (Twitter 2018), WeChat 1082 m (Tencent 2018), WhatsApp
1.5 bn (Facebook 2018c) and YouTube 1.9 bn (Wojcicki 2018) monthly users.
Over time, the functionalities of the platforms have continuously evolved (e.g.
messaging on Facebook, media sharing on LinkedIn or livestreaming in Twitter
(Kantrowitz 2017)). However, despite the providers kept adding new forms of

1
A user is person who uses or operates something. Users in Social CRM are persons that use or
operate a system, tool or platform. Customers in Social CRM are users, but with an economical
interest towards a product or company.
 1.1 Social Web as Third Stage of the Internet Evolution

Fig. 1.1 Number of internet hosts worldwide (left) (ISC 2019a) and EC turnover in Germany (right) (HDE 2019)
3
4 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

Table 1.1 Popular social media categories and platforms

Social media Examples of social media platforms (including year of foundation)
category
Blog Tumblr (2007), myblog.de (2002)
Messaging 1. Messages: Twitter (2006), WhatsApp (2009), Weibo (2009), Snapchat
(2011), WeChat (2011), Telegram (2013)
2. Location: Foursquare (2009)
Social networks 1. Individuals: Facebook (2004), VKontakte (2006), Google + (2011,
shutdown in 2019)
2. Business: LinkedIn (2003), Xing (2003)
3. Science: ResearchGate (2008)
Media sharing 1. Images: Flickr (2004), Pinterest (2011), Instagram (2010)
2. Documents: Slideshare (2006)
3. Video: YouTube (2005), Vimeo (2004)

interaction, such as “chatbots“ or virtual reality functionalities (e.g. and virtual

reality in Facebook 360 (Kabroviski 2017)), the growth rate of the social media
population is expected to decrease in the long-term. In view of a limited user base,
crowding out-effects already occur where certain platforms grow at the expense of
others. For example, contrary to Twitter, Facebook has experienced stable growth,
which in turn is outpaced by messaging-oriented platforms, such as WeChat or
WhatsApp. There is competition between platforms and an ongoing quest for active
users (Alt and Zimmermann 2019).

1.2 Characteristics of the Social Web

Web 2.0 technologies are known since 2004. They are the basis for social media
and allow users to create and share content via the internet. This is also included
in notion of “user-generated content”, UGC. At the same time, they enable other
users and services to reuse this data. Basic technologies of the Web 2.0 are Ajax,
the Really Simple Syndication format (RSS), or microformats (e.g. microblogs).
While so-called Web 1.0 technologies from the first and the second internet stage
(e.g. HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP) focused on publishing and linking electronic content
on the internet, Web 2.0 technologies were created for users to interact directly with
each other. As mentioned above, the term “social media” denotes digital platforms
that support creating, using, and sharing UGC. The dynamics on these platforms
follow some basic principles (see Fig. 1.2), whereas users may not only (passively)
read content, but also (actively) publish and forward this content as well as com-
ment (or rather evaluate) on it. Depending on the respective social media platform,
this occurs in communities (e.g. private communities like a WhatsApp group or
professional communities like a nurse forum), which are either private or public in
nature. The former consist of selected users that have connected themselves before
(e.g. as “fans”, “followers” or through direct messages) and the latter make content
accessible to all social web users (e.g. a public platform such as Youtube).
1.2 Characteristics of the Social Web 5

Social media
(presence/contact)

Social media platform C Platform A

connect connect blogging

Community A Community B Community C

publish forward Platform B
private public professional
contacts

User User User Platform C

UGC UGC networking
P R P R P R

Platform D
comment/ comment/ sharing
evaluate evaluate
Platform A
Legend: P: publisher, R: reader locations

Fig. 1.2 Social media principles

In addition to stationary devices (e.g. desktops), mobile devices enable users to

easily connect, create and share UGC among each other. This has led to a trans-
parent and broadly accessible representation of communication streams between the
involved parties, which comprises content, metadata and other derived data, in
particular the well-known “likes” (see Table 1.2). Data and information are often
distinguished: Data denotes “raw resources” consisting of symbols that represent
properties of objects, events and their environment. Information is inferred from
data and gives meaning in a certain application setting (see Ackoff 1989). This
distinction is also used in this book, which conceives UGC as data that needs to be
interpreted for CRM purposes. Only then, it becomes information.
With these properties, social media have several advantages compared to other
customer channels. First, due to their 24/7 availability, they are accessible like web-
pages for customers and businesses alike. Second, interactions are initiated by persons
that not only have an identity (ID) or name, but a rich profile (e.g. current location,
personal interests, network of friends, activities, preferred brands). Third, they com-
bine in one channel features for 1:1 communication (as in direct calls) and broad-
casting to millions of users (as in television) at the same time. Fourth, users of social
media may enrich the content (e.g. with simple likes that indicate the popularity of
content, by commenting or by sharing it within communities). Fifth, automated fea-
tures such as chatbots allow interactivity together with higher efficiency (Davydova
2017). The combination of these properties in one channel presents the value of social
media for customer interaction. For example, companies may target micro-segments of
customers, distribute individualized ads, provide a chatbot in case of basic questions
and jump into a bidirectional interaction at any time for a price much lower than in
traditional channels such as in TV, newspaper or sales representatives.
6 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

Table 1.2 Content categories relevant for Social CRM

Social media content Description
1. Sources
Web forums/social Content (text, images, etc.) created by authors, that represents a
networks (Posting) current discussion, followed by a community in web forums.
Typically, they are organized hierarchically and relate to other
entries. In contrast to blogs, postings in forums or social networks
are created by multiple authors
Blog/weblog Topic-related entries on a web page with a sequential feed of
content in terms of a diary or a journal. Frequently, blogs are
written by one author (first-person perspective) or a company
(corporate blog)
Microblog/messaging Postings limited in length or characters (e.g. 280 characters at
Twitter, so-called tweets) aim at rapid interactions. In contrast to
forums or blogs, the restriction of available characters favors the
use of abbreviations (e.g. by the way, BTW), emoticons (e.g.
smiley) and references (e.g. hashtags, ShortURLs) in microblogs.
Messaging services (e.g. WhatsApp, Snapchat) for individuals and
groups work in a similar fashion and are publicly available or
restricted to personal networks or contacts
Feeds/podcasts Content of a web page that is processed in a standardized format
(e.g. really simple syndications, RSS) and forwarded in so-called
feeds (e.g. news ticker). Users register the RSS function at a web
page, whereupon their client regularly checks the server of the web
page for changes
Sharing platforms Rich content (text, videos, pictures, presentations, music, etc.)
created by authors and published on a social media platform for the
access and use of others. These platforms often combine features
for interaction with the presentation of content, so that users can
provide feedback by comments, likes or by sharing it. Often these
platforms provide interfaces (API’s) for automatically accessing
profiles and content
2. Content
Text Most frequent type of content in the social web that contains
among others messages, opinions or news around specific topics,
products or brands as unstructured data. The processing of large
amounts of text marks a key functionality in Social CRM systems
Images/videos Medial data that includes products or brands. Images and (in
particular streamed) videos are regularly subject to legal dispute
about copyrights. While technologies in the field of machine
learning allow the processing and comparison of images,
Social CRM systems providers (see Table 1.4) have introduced
features that allow the recognition of brand logos or products in
images (e.g. Talkwalker, Linkfluence, LogoGrab)
Audio Audio files or audio streams with product-related mentions,
reviews or opinions may contain data that is relevant for CRM and
help in the identification of influencers. Features that inspect audio
data in social media platforms are rarely available in Social CRM
tools. However, the increasing popularity and maturity of
speech-to-text technologies may lead Social CRM system
providers to include basic functionalities in their tools
(continued)
1.3 Social Big Data 7

Table 1.2 (continued)

Social media content Description
3. Metadata
Meta metadata (platform) When UGC content is created on a social media platform,
additional information such as the time of the entry, the device type
or geo coordinates of the user device are logged and associated
with the entry. Sometimes this information is made available for
third parties and can be used for optimization of the targeting
process or improved usage statistics
Metadata content In addition to visible content (text, images, video), postings also
(postings) include metadata, such as message ID, subject, news group, data
source, and references to other postings (see Table 1.3). Metadata
is per default data in structured form and amenable to be processed
in online transaction processing (OLTP) or business intelligence
(BI) systems
Metadata user (profiles) Every social media user has a profile, which includes his/her real
name or another kind of identity (user name or pseudonym) as well
as some demographic data and data on the use of the account
(group membership, friendships, subscriptions, likes, etc.). As
metadata associated with content (postings), user metadata is also
structured in nature
4. Other
Emotions Depending on the functionality of the platform, users may evaluate
postings in the social web with a “like” (or e.g. +1, positive emoji)
due to its utility (e.g. 3 out of 5 stars) or also with a “dislike” (e.g.
report posting, negative emoji). These emotions may be followed
and evaluated separately
Links Connections between profiles and postings may be established, for
example friendships between profiles or references between
postings

1.3 Social Big Data

In view of the increased use of social media, the amount of UGC has risen in the last
decade. In 2016, Facebook users have commented on postings about 3.3 m times per
minute and the amount of short messages (“tweets”) on Twitter has increased from
347.222 per minute in 2014 to about 448.800 in 2016 (Allen 2017). Another example
are media sharing platforms such as YouTube: while in 2010, a total of two bn videos
was viewed, this number has doubled within two years. Since 2010, users provide
YouTube with more hours of video material than they could watch within 24 hours.
In 2015, this amount already climbed to an average of 400 hours of video material
being uploaded per minute (Tubefilter 2015). WhatsApp alone reports more than
1.5 bn users that exchanged more than 60 bn messages a day in 2018 (Facebook
2018b). For Facebook, an estimated daily data volume of more than 500 terabytes
was calculated based on the daily volume of about 2.5 bn pieces of content and 2.7 bn
likes as well as 300 m photos in 2012 (Budde 2012).
8 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

Despite the fact that the volume of UGC and the adoption of mobile tech-
nologies (e.g. smartphone, tablet) indicate a certain saturation in the future, new
location and/or situation-specific services (e.g. fitness, travel) create an additional
wave of data. Due to the heterogeneous nature of this data (see Table 1.2) the
growing volume of UGC in social media is referred to as “social big data”. It is
expected that the content from social media substantially contributes to the globally
forecasted data volume in the next years (see Fig. 1.3). The processing of this data
is challenging and features all characteristics of big data: it is large in size (vol-
ume), generated in real-time (velocity), often unstructured in nature (variety) and
the participants are not always known (veracity) (cf. Zikipoulos et al. 2013).
Obviously, this prevents the data from being analyzed manually and requires
automation through sophisticated systems for data management, information pro-
cessing and workflow automation.
Data in social media platforms may be assessed and extracted in different ways
(see Fig. 1.4). The basic form is to manually access data from social media plat-
forms and to forward it to other systems, such as Social CRM or CRM systems. For
example, social media managers may read and answer postings of followers in a
social network. In case they identify relevant postings they may create a sales
opportunity in the CRM system. More advanced is an electronic integration
between the systems, which provides a basis for automation and handling an
increasing number of platforms, profiles and interactions (see Sect. 4.3). Social
media managers may then see postings in a Social CRM tool that has electronically
extracted data from the selected platforms in a separate Social CRM database. This
single point of access allows to browse and to answer postings or to define rules or
alerts for specific events. The intermediate Social CRM system and database are

Fig. 1.3 Forecasted data volume of global IP traffic until 2022 (in exabytes per month) (Cisco
2019)
1.3 Social Big Data 9

Social media
(presence/contact)
CRM Social CRM Social web
Platform A
blogging
Manual Manual
transfer transfer
CRM Social Social media Community Platform B
system CRM tool platform contacts

User Platform C
Electronic Electronic
transfer Social transfer
networking
CRM Platform
CRM P R
database database
database
Platform D
sharing

Platform A
locations

Fig. 1.4 Options for data transfer between social media platform, Social CRM and CRM

features in most Social CRM systems. They result from the separation from
enterprise systems (e.g. CRM) and the different data quality that is present in the
social media platform (tends to be low) and the enterprise CRM system (tends to be
high).
Electronic access is an important element in Social CRM and enables to effi-
ciently address the big data challenge. Table 1.3 shows some examples for elec-
tronic access on data from social media platforms, which may prove relevant for
CRM. This data is available via so-called application programming interfaces
(API) that allow data extraction via electronic interfaces. However, the interfaces as
well as the accessible data of the various platforms may change. New services (e.g.
selling data for advertising) and new data fields (e.g. access to links between users
at LinkedIn) may appear as restrictions to access data. Consequently, companies
that obtain data and services via electronic interfaces or crawlers need to adapt these
interfaces regularly. This involves continuous changes regarding the electronic
interfaces. Above all, businesses need to realize that the extraction of data is
inherently linked with the question of data protection. In particular, privately shared
and personal data may only be collected when the necessary permissions are
available (see Sect. 4.4).
Since third parties may also access, process and distribute UGC, an extensive
ecosystem of service providers has developed in addition to Social CRM tool
providers (see Chap. 3). These service providers offer a variety of services related
to Social CRM strategies and are based on the creation or processing of UGC
(Brinker 2018) (see Table 1.4). For example, market researchers analyze the
behavior of users for general trends, marketing agencies share and enrich UGC
during campaigns or data analysts predict the sales success of products. Besides
services, also providers for data have emerged. Such third party aggregators (e.g.
Datasift, Promptcloud) continuously collect and pre-process public content from
social media platforms and provide this content via unified interfaces for other
companies. Businesses have the advantage that these service providers handle the
10 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

Table 1.3 Data available via APIs from four platforms (depending on permissions and privacy
settings, examples from 2018)
Social media Data available via API (examples)
platform
Facebook Facebook ID, name, link to profile, place of residence, user’s description,
work, schools visited (including name, year of graduation and type of
school), gender, time zone, language, state of data, friends, timeline
entries, stream, images, videos, notes, likes, events
Twitter User ID, contents (tweets, timeline, hashtags, private messages), number
of tweets/retweets, relation between users (follower, following, blocked,
ignored), followers, trends (due to location/country, nearby
location/country)
LinkedIn LinkedIn ID, user/company name, date of birth, profile headline, location,
industry sector, position, picture, skills, certifications, courses, contents
(current shares, picture, summary of the professional profile), links to other
users (number of connections, following, related-profile-views)
Instagram UserID, data about the user, content liked, comments, relationships
(follows, followed by), data about the content (tags, locations, comments,
likes)

Table 1.4 Examples of services built around Social media and UGC (based on https://
lumapartners.com/content/lumascapes/social-lumascape)
Service category Service provider
Content curation Flipboard, Storify
Social commerce platforms Fluid Social, Storenvy
Advocate platforms and social ad networks Speakr, RhythmOne, SocialChorus, LifeStreet
Social scoring Kred, PeerIndex Brandwatch
Social shopping Fancy, Wanelo
Data aggregators Datasift, Promptcloud

electronic integration with the social media platforms and deliver ready-to use
services and insights.
Social content is an ambiguous data resource. Regarding the trust (veracity) in this
data, studies suggest that traditional media, such as newspapers or TV, score above
social media when it comes to truth (TNS Opinion & Social as a Request of the
European Commission 2017; BBC News 2018; Ries et al. 2018). While young people
put more trust in the truth of UGC than older people, most people are rather critical
about the security of their data in social media (Holz 2016). The picture is different
when compared to the general marketing of companies. Here, online media are
regarded as more trusted resources and recommendations or positive reviews obtained
through social media, are known to positively influence the buying decision. This
might change as soon as businesses try to influence the discussion about brands and
products with paid advertising or influencers. Even more critical are cases where
businesses abuse data. Among the examples that surfaced since 2018 are the report of
1.3 Social Big Data 11

Greenwald (2013), which yields insights in the observation of UGC by special

intelligence services. It not only shows the extent of available data, but that authorities
make use of this resource to gain insights into behaviors, interests or opinions. The
report also revealed that businesses may obtain UGC almost as easily as intelligence
services and may use these insights to create highly detailed personal profiles that
might even allow them to secretly influence a person’s voting behavior. Although
research confirmed that the first event had only a small effect on the actual use of
social media, the impact on public trust in social media was significant (Holz 2016). It
emphasizes the need for transparency and privacy, which is the topic of Sect. 4.4.

1.4 Key Terminology

Availability, interactivity and reach were introduced as major improvements of

social media technologies. These features offer many opportunities in the interac-
tion with customers. To provide a deeper understanding of the Social CRM ter-
minology, the key elements of social media and CRM shall be described in the
following. Social media platforms are broadly used and allow businesses to
interact directly with numerous potential and existing customers on a simple and
cost-effective basis. This way, they represent an additional interaction channel with
four specific characteristics2:

– Targeted community. Interaction in social media is frequently topic-related and

occurring directly between users. Social media platforms offer access to groups of
individuals with similar interests, which means that communication/interaction is
already occurring within a focused target group.
– Multidirectional interaction. Social media may be used for contacts among
customers as well as between customers and businesses. Depending on the sit-
uation, social media allow to easily switch between asynchronous postings and
synchronous bidirectional communications via text, audio and video among
multiple parties.
– Individualized contact. Instead of a “one-to-many” marketing, which distributes
the same content to many recipients, social media technologies represent a step
towards a “one-to-one” marketing. The goal is to provide highly individualized
offers and messages that have the potential to convey more emotions and
closeness.
– Electronic communication. In contrast to traditional (mass) media, social media
enable interaction with (end) customers in real time. Depending on the design of
the platform, communication threads are archived and available for further use by
other users. However, many users are not using their real names or identities in
social media.

2
This book conceives the terms “customer” and “consumer” (often used for end customers) as well
as the terms “communication” and “interaction” synonymously.
12 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

Table 1.5 Number of fans of selected brands worldwide in January 2015/July 2019
Company Fans (m) Company Fans (m) Company Fans (m)
Coca-Cola 92.65/107.43 Oreo 38.59/42.44 Skype 32.61/27.98
YouTube 86.11/83.64 Nike Football 38.45/43.87 Windows 32.61/45.90
Red Bull 45.80/48.88 Starbucks 38.05/36.90 Nutella 29.89/31.60
Coffee
Converse 40.89/45.73 Pepsi 34.35/37.80 Pringles 27.70/24.18
Playstation 39.22/38.37 iTunes 33.04/discontinued in Angry 27.53/24.01
2019 Birds

In the beginnings of the social media era, communication was mainly among
individuals and within their personal network. It was only later that companies have
established presences in the social web. Meanwhile companies with well-known
brands (see Table 1.5) were able to attract millions of users (“fans”, “friends”,
“followers”). In general, the number of these users and the number of “likes”
indicates a certain affinity to the company or the brand and thus, a willingness in
obtaining news or offers. Businesses have slowly developed their social media
presences since they became aware that attractive content needs to be provided
continuously. Among the examples are corporate presentations, (micro)blogs, and
videos (Parker and Thomas 2012). Many companies also saw social media as an
opportunity to reduce costs in customer acquisition. In fact, social media promise a
decrease in this respect with costs between $0.1 to $30 cost per mille (CPM) for
simple campaigns compared against $40–$400 for classical channels depending on
the industry (Chen and Hitt 2002).
Since social media are primarily an interaction channel (with a number of
additional functionalities), making it amenable for CRM requires an alignment with
corporate CRM processes and strategies. Their overall goal is to create and
maintain long-term customer relationships to increase customer lifetime value
(CLV). Typical CRM areas are to be found in all customer-facing activities, i.e.
marketing, sales, and (customer) service. These processes are usually supported by
(one or multiple) CRM information systems (referred to as CRM system in the
following). Typically, the CLV concept assumes a customer life cycle, where
companies (or their products) attract (potential) customers from the anonymous
market. This initiates a relationship, where potential buyer are “converted” to
customers who undertake repeated purchases (see Fig. 1.5). To distinguish the
various stages in this cycle, the CRM literature usually separates between the initial
contact who is not qualified (contact or “lead”), the potential customer with a sales
opportunity (“opportunity”), who receives a customized offer (“offer“) and the
customer who made a purchase or signed a contract (“customer“). The customer life
cycle has multiple touchpoints to the three core CRM processes and their
sub-processes (SP) (see Chen and Popovich 2003; Greenberg 2009):
1.4 Key Terminology 13

Covers all tasks for raising awareness and

moƟvaƟng interacƟons in the market
Anonymous market
Campaign management (SP1.0)

Marketing (1)

Lead
Cross-functional processes (SP4.0) Lead management (SP1.1)
Opportunity Covers all tasks for the qualifying iniƟal
interacƟons into addressable persons and a
sales potenƟal
Repeated
purchases
Offer
Complaint management (SP3.2) Offer management (SP2.0)
Covers all tasks related with Covers all tasks that help to transform sales
complaints Service potenƟals into purchases
Customer
Service (3) case
Sales (2)

Service management (SP3.1) Feedback management (SP3.0)

Covers all tasks for solving all issues that Covers all tasks related with collecƟng,
arising from a purchase analysing and using feedback from the market

Legend: SP: sub-process

Fig. 1.5 Activities within the customer life cycle

– Marketing. Although the marketing of products and services may be influenced

by all activities along the customer life cycle, a more precise understanding sees
marketing primarily in the early stages of the life cycle. It comprises the initial
phases with the sub-processes campaign management (measures for approaching
target groups) and lead management (measures for qualifying market feedbacks
to addressable contacts).
– Sales. From a business perspective, the sales process starts with the formulation
of a specific offer and includes the purchase transaction itself. The sub-process
offer management covers negotiating and arranging activities via one or more
interaction channels and ends with closing a contract or sale and the settlement of
the transaction with delivery and payment.
– Customer service or “Service”. The service process contains interactions between
customers and businesses after purchasing and during possessing or using a
product. It covers the sub-processes complaint management, activities connected
with maintenance or defects (service management), as well as the handling of
feedback from customers about the company or its products and services (feed-
back management). Although revenues are typically associated with the sales
process, the service process often yields stable service fees and is vital for cus-
tomer satisfaction.

In addition to these CRM core and sub-processes, cross-functional processes

may be distinguished. They either apply to more than one CRM core or sub-process
or link a CRM process with other business processes. Among the latter are the
management of target groups (or “customer management”), brand care and
14 1 Social CRM: Evolution and Building Blocks

development (brand management), the development of new products and/or ser-

vices (innovation management), as well as market research or decision support.
Besides the core and cross-functional processes, a second dimension exists that
emphasizes four possible design areas of a CRM solution. Following (Alt and
Puschmann 2004; Peppers and Rogers 2004; Alt and Reinhold 2012) these are:

– Operational CRM. Among the structured routine task processes in marketing,

sales and service are call center conversations in campaign management or a
ticket system3 for complaints or service enquiries. Operational processes have a
high potential for automation (“workflow”) and information from social media
may often be added. For example, additional information on the company or its
products that is shared by customers may be included in campaigns or a support
enquiry may automatically be forwarded to the appropriate department.
– Analytical CRM. Based on operational interactions occurring via various chan-
nels, analytical CRM creates the basis for decision-making on CRM activities,
such as customer segments or campaign definitions. Social media often represent
additional sources for market knowledge or customer segmentation.
– Communicative CRM. Since the goal of CRM is a consistent and individualized
interaction with customers, it requires the provision of services across several
channels and a coordinated management of these channels. Social media are
additional channels and communicative CRM is usually responsible for seamless
cross-channel interactions (“journeys”) at defined touch points.
– Collaborative CRM. The fourth design area refers to the interaction of multiple
product and/or service providers. This is necessary when customer problems (or
customer processes) involve a bundling of various offerings. For example, vari-
ous providers collaborate in mobility (e.g. rail, air, road carriers), fitness (e.g.
trackers, shoes) and medical solutions (e.g. doctors, hospitals). Social media may
serve as platforms for collaboration in open or closed communities.

Social CRM now combines social media and CRM. The concept dates back to
the second development stage of the internet (see Sect. 1.2) before the social web
came into being. Social CRM solutions have emerged within the third stage around
2007and brought a new quality to CRM with a stronger and more direct interaction
potential with individual customers. By definition, Social CRM denotes the use of
social media in the relationship of customers with companies. Compared to other
terms, such as social networking or social media management, Social CRM focuses
on applications in the field of CRM and the link to CRM processes and systems.

3
A ticket system compiles a case (“ticket” ) for every user enquiry, which guarantees the workflow
until it has been revised.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Large shirts or tobes, ready made, of striped cottons, and
white calico.
Coarse white calico. ⎱
much esteemed.
Fine do. do. ⎰

Frankincense,
⎫
purchased of the Jews in Tripoli, or
Ottaria, ⎬
Leghorn.
⎭
Spices,
The beads most in demand, indeed the only ones that they will
purchase, are:—
H’raz-el mekka, white glass beads, with a flower.
Merjan tiddoo, mock coral.
Quamur, white sand beads.
Quamar m’zein, small black beads, with yellow stripes.
H’raz-el pimmel, ant’s head bead, with black stripes.
Contembali, red and white.
Hazam el bashaw, the bashaw’s sash.
Sbgha m’kerbub, red pebble, from Trieste.
Sbgha toweel, long bead.
H’shem battura, Arab’s nose, a large red bead.
Arms of all descriptions, of an inferior quality, will always meet
with a ready sale, as well as balls of lead, and what we call
swan-shot.
 JOURNAL

OF

AN EXCURSION,
ETC. ETC.
 PREFATORY NOTICE
TO THE

Narrative of Captain Clapperton’s Journey from Kouka to Sackatoo.

The Manuscript of the following Journal was placed in my hands by Captain

Clapperton, on his departure from England, with a request that I would see it
through the press, whenever the account of the recent mission to Central Africa
should be published. In complying with this request, I have carefully abstained
from altering a sentiment, or even an expression, and rarely had occasion to add,
omit, or change, a single word; so that my easy task has been confined to the
mere ordinary correction of the press.
Captain Clapperton, like Major Denham, as will appear from his Journal, makes
no pretensions to the systematic knowledge of natural history. They were both
excellent pioneers of discovery, and capable of ascertaining the latitude by
observations of the heavenly bodies; and also to compute, to a certain degree of
accuracy, the longitudes of the various places which they visited: and even this is
no trifling advantage to geography, though it has but too commonly been neglected
by travellers. By a strict attention to these points, by comparing them with the
courses and distances travelled, and by Captain Clapperton’s frequent endeavours
to verify the estimated results by lunar observations (though not much to be
depended on by one observer, on shore), we may now be pretty well assured of
the actual and relative positions of many places, which have hitherto been wholly
dislocated and scattered at random on our best maps of Africa,—all of them bad
enough,—and the situation of cities and towns have also been ascertained, whose
names even had never before reached us.
The only traveller of the party, who was supposed to possess a competent
knowledge of natural history, was Doctor Oudney; and he was unfortunately
disabled from the pursuit of it by a protracted illness, which terminated in death. As
so little appears in the present volume from the pen of Doctor Oudney, and as
Captain Clapperton has stated (page 5) a wish expressed by that gentleman, a
short time previous to his death, that “his papers should be put into the hands of
Mr. Barrow, or Professor Jameson, provided the request meets with Earl Bathurst’s
approbation,” I feel it necessary to say a few words on this subject. Nothing could
have been more gratifying to me than to have undertaken and executed, to the
best of my power, such a task: it is quite natural that I should have willingly done
so, were it for no other reason than my having been instrumental in his
appointment, from the strongest testimonials in his favour which I had received
from Professor Jameson, whose acquirements in natural history stand so
deservedly high in public estimation, as to entitle any recommendation from him to
immediate attention. Unfortunately, however, for this branch of science, Doctor
Oudney, at a very early stage of their journey, caught a severe cold, which fell on
his lungs, and which rendered him, on their arrival in Bornou, nearly incapable of
any exertion. It will be seen from Major Denham’s Narrative, how frequently and
how seriously, not to say alarmingly, ill, he became from the first moment of their
arrival in Bornou. In a letter addressed to Mr. Wilmot Horton, of the date of the 12th
September, 1823, Doctor Oudney says, “I send you a simple itinerary from Fezzan
here; that to the river Shary, and the borders of Soudan, and my remarks on
Bornou, I must leave till another time. I cannot write long; one day’s labour in that
way makes me ill for a week.”
No account of these journeys to the river Shary, and the borders of Soudan,
appear among his papers; nor any materials respecting them, beyond what are
contained in a very general account of the proceedings of the Mission, in an official
letter addressed to the Secretary of State. The papers, delivered to me by Captain
Clapperton, consisted of an account of an excursion, jointly performed by these
gentlemen, from Mourzuk to Ghraat, the first town in the Tuarick country:—some
remarks on the journey across the Great Desert, which appear not to have been
written out fair:—and the rest, of mere scraps of vocabularies, rude sketches of the
human face, detached and incomplete registers of the state of the temperature,
and a number of letters to and from the Consul at Tripoli, respecting the pecuniary
and other affairs of the mission, wholly uninteresting, and of which no use
whatever could be made.
The Journey to Ghraat above mentioned, I have caused to be printed at the
end of the Introductory Chapter, with which it appears to be partly connected,
omitting some trifling details, of no interest whatever; and I requested Major
Denham to add a few foot-notes, chiefly geological, to his own Journal across the
Great Desert. It seems to have been well known to the party that Doctor Oudney
could not possibly survive the journey into Soudan; and, indeed, he was well
aware of it himself; but his zeal to accomplish all that could be done, would not
suffer him to remain behind. It was that zeal which led him to undertake the
journey to Ghraat, which not a little increased his disorder; for, to say the truth, he
evidently was labouring, while in England, under a pectoral complaint; but when I
told him so, and strongly advised him not to think of proceeding (as I had before
done to his unfortunate predecessor Ritchie), he, like the latter, persisted that,
being a medical man, he best knew his own constitution, and that a warm climate
would best agree with it. Neither of them, however, seem to have calculated on the
degree of fatigue, and the sudden changes of temperature, to which they were
necessarily to be exposed.
 With every disadvantage of collecting, preserving, and bringing home from so
great a distance, and over so dreary a desert of twelve hundred miles, specimens
of natural history, it will be seen, by reference to the Appendix, that this department
of science has not been neglected.
JOHN BARROW.
 JOURNAL

OF

AN EXCURSION,
ETC. ETC.
 SECTION I.
FROM KOUKA TO MURMUR, WHERE DR. OUDNEY DIED.

From our first arrival in Bornou, we intended to avail ourselves of

the earliest opportunity of exploring Soudan. Our preparations being
at length completed, and the sheikh having consented to our
departure, although with some degree of reluctance, Dr. Oudney,
notwithstanding the infirm state of his health, and myself, were ready
to set out on the 14th December, 1823. Accordingly we sent off our
camels and servants in the morning, and went in person to take
leave of the sheikh. On this occasion we found him in an inner
apartment, attended by two or three servants only. He asked us, as
he had often done before, if, in the course of our travels, we
proposed going to Nyffee. We answered, yes, if the road was open.
He replied, it was a great distance; and he feared we were not likely
to return to Kouka. We told him we hoped to return, if possible,
before the rains set in; but however that might be, we assured him
we should ever retain a grateful sense of his exceeding great
kindness towards us. He bade us farewell in the most affectionate
manner. About noon we left the town, accompanied by our comrade,
Major Denham, and most of the principal inhabitants. Even Hadje Ali
Boo Khaloom, with whom we had frequent occasion to be
dissatisfied, joined the train: they attended us to the distance of four
or five miles, and then took leave; our friend, the cadi Hadje
Mohamed Zy Abedeen, having first repeated the Fatha, or first
chapter of the Koran. We halted at the village of Fuguboo Thorio,
where our servants had pitched our tents, being distant from Kouka
about ten miles.
Our party consisted of Dr. Oudney and myself, two servants,
Jacob the Jew, a sort of major domo, and three men of Fezzan. We
had three saddle horses, and four sumpter camels; the servants,
except Jacob, were on foot. There were also in the kafila (commonly
pronounced goffle) twenty-seven Arab merchants, two of whom were
shreefs, or descendants of the Prophet, one from Tunis, the other
from Houn, near Sockna, and about fifty natives of Bornou. The
Arabs were mostly mounted on horses, which they intended for sale;
some having besides a led horse. The Bornouese were on foot; one
of them, a hadje or Mahometan pilgrim, who had visited Mecca,
would on no account stay behind at Kouka, but persisted in
accompanying us, for the express purpose of having his hand
regularly dressed by Dr. Oudney: he had been wounded by the
accidental bursting of a gun; he invariably pitched his tent close to
that of the Doctor, whom he always regarded with the utmost
respect.
Dec. 15.—We started at seven o’clock. The road was the same
we had travelled on a former visit to Old Birnee. We were no longer
annoyed with the noise and confusion in pitching the tents, or with
the clamours of obstreperous camel drivers; which we had formerly
experienced when under the guidance of Boo Khaloom. The weather
too was clear, cool, and pleasant. A little after mid-day we halted at
the wells of Budjoo; distance, north-west by north, seventeen miles.
Dec. 16.—We met several kafilas from Gubsharee and the
surrounding country, going to Kouka. Their heavy goods were
carried on bullocks; the smaller packages, weighing from twenty to
thirty pounds, were borne on men’s heads. The bearers poise their
burdens with much dexterity and ease to themselves, by cords
hanging from the sides of the packages, which are carried
lengthwise on the head; by this simple contrivance they avoid the
fatiguing posture of keeping the arm raised. We halted about three
o’clock in the afternoon.
We still pursued the Old Birnee road: we saw several of the large
red and white antelopes, called by the Arabs mohur. We encamped
on the margin of one of the lakes, formed by the overflowing of the
Yow; the river was only about a quarter of a mile distant from us, to
the north. It had now fallen fully six feet, and its current might be
about three miles an hour.
Dec. 18.—We travelled along the banks of a chain of small lakes
formed by the Yow, once, perhaps, its original channel. I observed,
by the roadside, the tracks of various wild animals,—among others
of the hippopotamus and lion. We passed one of the country fairs,
held on a small hill, near the ruins of a large town which had been
destroyed by the Felatahs. We halted at Damasak, near an
encampment of the sheikh’s cowherds; who, on hearing that we
were in the kafila, brought us an abundant supply of milk.
Dec. 19.—As the low grounds from Damasak to Mugabee, about
ten miles distant, were inundated, we were obliged to make a long
circuit by an upper road, frequently wading across hollows filled with
water. At noon we had to halt on the banks of one of those
temporary rivers which are formed during the wet season: it still
contained a considerable body of water, which was running at the
rate of about two miles an hour. We met here several kafilas of
loaded bullocks, on their way from Gubsharee and Soudan. The
people were busily floating their goods over the river on rafts, made
of bundles of reeds; but there being too few in number to transport
our baggage, it was necessary to make new rafts for ourselves. We
therefore pitched our tents; and one man was sent by each of the
Arab merchants to cut long reeds, which are readily made into rafts,
by lashing bundles of them across two long poles.
I proceeded two or three miles up the banks of the river, which
last summer did not contain a drop of water. The lower road certainly
exhibited the appearance of being overflowed during the rains; but
nobody, from merely seeing it in that state, could suppose that for
nearly one half of the year it is a broad sheet of water, or that the
upper road itself is traversed, for the same period, by several large
streams falling into the Yow. The ferry-dues, paid to the people who
swim over with the rafts, are a rotal for every camel load of goods:
the rotal is now merely nominal, and represents a pound of copper,
eight or ten of which are equivalent to a Spanish dollar. The bullocks,
horses, and camels, are made to swim over, together with the negro
slaves.
Dec. 20.—Hitherto the atmosphere had been clear and serene,
but to-day it became hazy, and was particularly cold about day-
break. Hadje Ali, the invalid alluded to, having a very large raft, we
ferried over our baggage upon it without the smallest accident, by
means of a rope fastened to each end. It was far otherwise with the
Arabs a little lower down the river; there was nothing but hubbub and
bustle among them: many, through ignorance or obstinacy, had their
goods much damaged. The greatest difficulty was with the camels
and female slaves; the women screamed and squalled with great
vehemence; several of the men seemed almost in as great a panic
as the ladies, especially those of Fezzan, none of whom could swim;
and some of them jumped off the raft into the water three or four
times, before they could muster courage to cross. The camels
occasioned a great deal of trouble, one man having to swim before
with the halter in his teeth, while another kept beating the animal
behind with a stick, which every now and then attempted to turn
back, or bobbed its head under water. Before all had crossed, it was
too late to continue our journey that day; we therefore encamped on
the west bank for the night.
Dec. 21.—We still travelled along the upper grounds, on account
of the extent of the inundation. Yet the earth itself was so dry, that we
were put in some slight danger by a kafila, near Old Birnee,
carelessly setting the grass on fire in the course of the night: the fire
advanced rapidly, like a sea of flame, and must have put us all to
flight had we not had the good fortune to obtain shelter within the
ruined walls of the city, which checked a little the progress of the
conflagration. We did not halt, however, but continued our route to a
town called Bera, on the banks of a beautiful lake, likewise formed
by the overflowing of the Yow. Immediately there was quite a fair in
our camp, the townswomen coming with gussule or Guinea corn,
bean straw, cashew nuts, and milk; which they offered in exchange
for glass beads and gubga, or native cloth. The beads in greatest
request are pretty large, of a chocolate colour, with a small spiral
white ring round the middle, and are called by the natives
conteembalee, or Muckni; the latter appellation is derived from a
sultan of Fezzan of that name, who was originally a merchant, and
first brought these beads into fashion. A single bead exchanged for a
quart of Guinea corn. The gubga is narrow cotton cloth, of native
manufacture, about a palm in width; forty fathoms of which are
usually valued at a dollar. The value of commodities in barter seems
to be maintained with a certain stability, somewhat like the money
rate of exchange in Europe, by fixing a local standard price for those
articles in greatest demand, in lieu of the fictitious par of exchange,
which, with us, powerfully influences and indirectly regulates all
money transactions.
Dec. 22.—We crossed over a neck of land formed by a bend of
the river to a town called Dugamoo, where we halted. The banks of
the river are every where studded with towns and villages.
Dec. 23.—The morning was cold. Dr. Oudney had been very
unwell during the night, and felt himself extremely weak. At eight
o’clock we left Dugamoo, and, following a winding path, nearly due
west, we reached Deltago, having passed a number of towns and
villages, one of which, called Kukabonee, was of considerable size,
and contained perhaps 5000 or 6000 inhabitants. The country to the
west of Old Birnee rises in gentle undulations of hill and dale. There
are very few trees, except on the banks of the Yow. The soil is chiefly
a red clay. The inhabitants raise great quantities of Guinea corn, and
beans something like calavances. We had a very plentiful market.
The people here preferred coral, and the beads called
conteembalee, in exchange for grain, &c. to native cloth. Gunpowder
was much sought after as a medicine. To-day we gave a sheep as a
boozafer or gift, by way of footing, which all pay who travel this way
for the first time; a practice akin to our usage on doubling capes, or
crossing the tropics and line. Cotton seed bruised is very much used
for feeding sheep, bullocks, asses, and camels. These animals soon
become extremely fond of it: it is an excellent food for fattening them.
In the evening gussule was sent for our horses and camels, as had
been done in the other towns: we passed as soon as the people
learned we were the friends of the sheikh.
Dec. 24.—Dr. Oudney felt himself much better. We halted to-day,
on account of one of the merchants’ camels falling lame; the owner
was obliged to send to Dugamor to buy another. The kafila kept a
grand boozafer day, and all merchant new-comers paid a dollar
apiece, or gave its value in goods.—Time is to these people of no
importance: whatever accidental occurrence takes place to detain
them, they bear the delay with perfect indifference.
Dec. 25.—The weather clear and cool. We left Deltago, and,
winding along the banks of the river, or occasionally cutting off a
bend by a cross path, we reached Bedeekarfee. There is more wood
here than we had yet seen, and the soil is still a strong red clay.
Villages and towns are numerous; the inhabitants principally belong
to the Alluanee tribe of Shouah Arabs. The town of Bedeekarfee is
large and populous. The governor, commonly called in this and other
African towns Sultan, although holding a subordinate command, had
seen us when we were on the expedition to Munga with the sheikh of
Bornou. On our arrival he came out to meet us, and gave us a very
cordial reception. He was an elderly man, much afflicted with a
urinary disorder, for which he consulted Dr. Oudney. His dwelling,
large, extremely clean, and constructed after the manner of the
country, consisted of a spacious quadrangular enclosure,
surrounded with mats fixed to high poles, within which were several
small round huts, also of matting, with thatched conical roofs, each
surmounted by an ostrich egg. In outward appearance, these huts
somewhat resemble our bee-hives. Their walls are frequently made
of clay. The ostrich egg is a distinctive mark of the occupant being a
man of rank. The floor inside is covered with sand; and the only
furniture is a bench to supply the place of a bedstead, and a few
mats for squatting upon, besides some carved or coloured gourds
and wide-mouthed earthen jars, piled above one another, and
intended to combine ornament with utility. There is but one opening
or door-way, which is round at the top, and closed by a wicket. The
door always faces to the west, on account of the prevailing rains
coming from the opposite quarter. The grand entrance of the
enclosure is often a hut erected at the western side of the square,
with an open thoroughfare, where a black slave officiates as porter.
Each separate hut is called a coozee.
The Arab women of this place are really beautiful; they wear their
hair differently from their countrywomen elsewhere: the fashion of it
is such, that at a distance it might be mistaken for a helmet,—a large
braid on the crown having some semblance to a crest, and the side
tresses being neatly plaited and frizzled out at the ends. There are
also many women of Bornou among them, who imitate the same
style.
 Guinea fowls abound in this part of the country: I went out after
we halted, and shot five of them, besides a wild duck and a quail.
Mohamoud El Wordee, one of two Fezzanee merchants, to whom
we were particularly recommended by the sheikh of Bornou, and
who had always appeared to me to be a man of strong natural
sense, was thrown into a sad fright by losing a charm or amulet off
his horse’s neck, with a number of which almost all are equipped.
This charm is nothing more than a short sentence from the Koran.
Had he lost an only child he could scarcely have been more afflicted.
I gave him a scrap of paper to make another, which Hadje promised
to write out for him.
Dec. 26.—This morning after sunrise, Fahrenheit’s thermometer
stood at 49°. The merchants were busily employed firing off their
guns and putting them in order for the Bedites, an ancient race of
native Bornouese, who have not embraced Islamism, and who
occupy an adjoining territory, chiefly protected by its natural
fastnesses. They are held both in dread and abhorrence by all the
faithful. Every thing being ready at eleven o’clock, we broke up our
encampment. Our kafila was now of an immense size. We had been
joined at Bedeekarfee by 500 people at least, who were waiting
there for an Arab kafila to pass through the Bedee country; for all
Arabs are esteemed by the natives here extremely formidable, as
well from the possession of fire arms, as from their national
intrepidity. Their muskets, however, in comparison of those of
Europe, are of the meanest quality; and so uncertain in their fire, that
they are hardly worth more than their weight as old iron. The
courage, too, of most of these Arabs is very questionable. When
successful they are overbearing and cruel in the extreme, and in bad
fortune are in like degree servile and abject.
The natives of Haussa carry their merchandise on the head, and
go armed with bows and arrows. Those of Bornou convey their
goods chiefly on asses and bullocks, and are armed with spears.
The Haussa merchants deal in tobacco, Goora nuts, Koghelor or
crude antimony, cotton cloth in the web, or made into dresses called
tobes and turkadees, and tanned goat skins. Goora nuts are the
produce of Ashantee and other parts near the west, and are chewed
by all people of consequence, on account of their agreeable bitter
taste, not unlike that of strong coffee, and the supposed virtue of
curing impotency. They are even in great esteem as far as Fezzan
and Tripoli, where they bring the exorbitant price of two dollars a
score. Crude antimony in powder is applied by both sexes to the
eye-lashes, to render them dark and glossy. Native cloth, or gubga,
as before mentioned, is extremely narrow, seldom more than four
inches in width. The tobe is a large shirt with loose hanging sleeves
like a waggoner’s frock, generally of a dark blue colour, and is an
indispensable part of male attire throughout central Africa. The
turkadees are articles of female dress, commonly of blue cotton
cloth, about three yards and a half long and one broad. Sometimes
they are made of alternate stripes of blue and white (of the breadth
of African cloth), or are all white, according to fancy. Women of better
circumstances commonly wear two turkadees, one round the waist,
and another thrown over the shoulders. These articles are bartered
in Bornou for trona or natron, common salt and beads; which,
together with coarse tobes, are also carried by Bornouese
adventurers to Haussa. Our road lay over an elevated clayey plain,
with low trees, most of them mimosas. We passed the ruins of
several towns, and such of our travelling companions as were best
acquainted with the country informed us it was well peopled before
the Felatah invasion. At sunset we halted, being already in the
Bedee country.
Dec. 27.—The temperature this morning was remarkably low, and
the water in our shallow vessels was crusted with thin flakes of ice.
The water skins themselves were frozen as hard as a board[65].
These water skins, by the way, are goat skins, well tanned and
seasoned, stripped from the carcass over the animal’s head. They
are extremely convenient on a tedious journey over arid wastes and
deserts. The horses and camels stood shivering with cold, and
appeared to suffer much more than ourselves. The wind during the
night was, as usual, from the north, and north-north-west. Dr.
Oudney was extremely ill, having become much worse from catching
a severe cold. We now travelled south-south-west, over a country of
much the same kind of soil as that above described. As we
approached the low grounds it was better wooded, and the trees
were of greater size and variety. Of these, the most remarkable were
the kuka and the goorjee.
The kuka is of immense size, erect and majestic; sometimes
measuring from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference. The
trunk and branches taper off to a point, and are incrusted with a soft,
glossy, copper-coloured rind, not unlike a gummy exudation. The
porous spongy trunk is straight, but the branches are twisted and
tortuous. The leaves are small, somewhat like the young ash, but
more pulpy, and growing in clusters from the extremities of the lesser
twigs. The tree is in full leaf and blossom during the rainy months of
June, July, and August. The flowers are white, large, and pendulous,
somewhat resembling the white garden lily. The fruit hangs by a long
stalk, and is of an oval shape, generally larger than a cocoa nut, with
a hard shell full of a powdery matter, intermixed with reddish strings
and tamarind-like seeds. In its unripe state it is of a beautiful velvety
dark green colour, and becomes brown as it approaches maturity.
The tree, whether bare of its leaves, in flower, or in full bearing, has
a singularly grotesque naked appearance; and, with its fruit dangling
from the boughs like silken purses, might, in the imagination of some
Eastern story-teller, well embellish an enchanted garden of the
Genius of the Lamp. The leaves are carefully gathered by the
natives, dried in the sun, and used for many culinary purposes.
Boiled in water they form a kind of clammy jelly, giving a gelatinous
consistence to the sauces and gravies in most common use. I have
also eaten them boiled with dried meat, according to the custom of
the country, but did not much relish such fare. Both leaves and fruit
are considered, to a certain degree, medicinal. The leaves, mixed
with trona and gussub, are given to horses and camels, both for the
purpose of fattening these animals, and as a cooling aperient: they
are administered to the former in balls, and to the latter as a drench.
The white mealy part of the fruit is very pleasant to the taste, and
forms, with water, an agreeable acidulous beverage; which the
natives, whose libidinous propensities incline them to such remarks,
allege to possess the virtue of relieving impotency.
 The goorjee tree much resembles a stunted oak, with a beautiful
dark red flower, when in full blow rather like a tulip. The natives make
use of the flower to assist in giving a red tinge to the mouth and
teeth, as well as in seasoning their food. These two trees are
generally found on a strong clayey soil, and are peculiar to Haussa
and the western parts of Bornou.
At noon, we came in sight of a lake called Tumbum, apparently
formed by some river in the rainy season. All the country to the
southward and westward, as far as the eye could reach, was a
dismal swamp. Just as we arrived within a short distance of the lake,
—at the very spot in which of all others the Arabs said we were most
likely to encounter the Bedites,—two men made their appearance.
They were dressed in the Bornouese costume; a loose tobe and
drawers, with a tight cap, all of blue cotton cloth. Each carried on his
shoulder a bundle of light spears, headed with iron. I was a little way
in front of our party, and first met them; they saluted me very civilly,
and I passed on without further notice, when the other horsemen
meeting them, and putting some questions, which the strangers did
not answer to their satisfaction, immediately seized, stripped, and
bound them. Considering it a matter in which I had no authority to
interfere, I merely requested that their drawers might be returned to
them, remarking, it was better not to treat them ill, as they might
prove to be honest men. “Oh! d——n their fathers,” (the strongest
imprecation in Africa), replied the captors, “they are thieves; what
would they be doing here if they were honest men?” I still urged the
propriety of taking them to Bedeguna, at least, to afford them a
chance of being recognised by the townspeople, before treating
them as robbers. I now rode off to water my horse; when I returned, I
found the magnanimous El Wordee guarding the two unfortunate
wretches, one of whom was a Shouah Arab, and the other a Negro.
The latter, while I was absent, had received a dreadful cut under the
left ear from a Bornouese, who pretended that the Negro had
attempted to escape; an attempt little likely in his desperate situation.
Notwithstanding the wound, they were leading the poor fellow by a
rope fastened round his neck. He was covered with blood, and Dr.
Oudney assured me, if the wound had been a little lower down it
must have caused instant death. I could not refrain from beating the
merciless Bornouese; and I obliged him to use his own tobe in
binding up the wound, at the same time threatening to lodge the
contents of my gun in his head, if he repeated his cruelty. The
occasion prompted me to impress on the minds of the Arabs
generally how unworthy it was of brave men to behave with cruelty to
their prisoners, and to suggest, that it would be far better to sell
them, or even to put them to death, than wantonly to inflict such
barbarities. The Arabs threw the blame on the Bornouese, and
although evidently exulting in secret over their captives, they were
fairly shamed into good behaviour, and promised to liberate the men
if innocent, or, if guilty, to surrender them to justice at Bedeguna.
Our road skirted the border of the great swamp, and we arrived at
Bedeguna at sunset. The galadema, literally “gate-keeper,” or
governor, was a Felatah, and a particular friend of Mohamoud El
Wordee, by whom we were introduced to him. He was tall and
slender, with a high arched nose, broad forehead, and large eyes;
and, indeed, altogether as fine a looking black man as I had ever
seen. His behaviour, too, was at once kind and dignified. Besides his
native language, he spoke with fluency Arabic, and the tongues of
Bornou and Haussa. He asked us a great many questions about
England, of which he had heard; and said his master, the Sultan of
the Felatahs, would be glad to see us. He applied to Dr. Oudney for
medicines, on account of a urinary obstruction, a disease very
prevalent in this country. We made him a present of a small paper
snuff-box full of cloves; he sent us, in return, a plentiful supply of
milk.
The territory of Bedeguna, or little Bede, formerly belonged to
Bornou. The inhabitants are Bornouese, and speak their native
language. The territory includes many towns and villages, and
produces much gussub, Indian corn, wheat, and cotton. Herds of
cattle are also numerous. The principal implement of agriculture is a
hoe made of native iron, of their own manufacture. They reap with a
crooked knife, and merely cut off the ears of corn, which they store in
round thatched huts of clay, or matting, raised on wooden blocks
from the ground. The grain is cleaned from the husk by hand
rubbing, and ground into flour between two stones. We saw no
plough to the southward of Sockna, a town between Tripoli and
Fezzan. I inquired of the governor about the source of the swollen
river we crossed on a raft between Gateramaran and old Birnee,
which again presented itself close to our present encampment. He
told me it rose in the country of Yacoba, among rocky hills, and,
running to the eastward of old Birnee, soon afterwards entered the
Yow. On questioning him further about Yacoba, the name of the
country, he said it was the sultan’s name; for the people were
infidels, and had no name for their own country. The river, he added,
was distinguished by the appellation of the Little River, and in these
parts did not dry up throughout the whole year.
The country to the south-east and south-west appears to be an
entire swamp, overflowed of course in the rainy season. Felatahs are
in features, and in the manner of wearing the turban, very like the
inhabitants of Tetuan in Morocco. They are here much esteemed by
the people whom they rule for the impartial administration of justice,
and were uniformly kind and civil to us. Our two prisoners happened
to be well known, having only left the town that morning. They were
accordingly liberated, but their clothes were not restored.
We were not a little indebted to the Arab merchants for the good
name they gave us. They almost looked upon us as of their own
nation; and although Kafirs, we, as Englishmen, were allowed to
rank at least next to themselves. I really believe they would have
risked their lives in our defence. Travelling in a kafila was much more
pleasant than any mode we had hitherto tried; all being ready to
oblige one another, and all vying in attention to us. The lake
Zumbrum is about twelve miles south-south-west from Bedeguna.
Dec. 28.—At sunrise to-day the thermometer was at 45°. Our new
friend, the governor, accompanied us two or three miles out of town.
At parting he prayed God to bless us; and, laying his hand on his
forehead, said he hoped we should ever continue friends. The road
at first followed the borders of the marsh, by the side of the Little
River, which suddenly breaks off to the southward, at a town called
Goobeer. There we filled our goat skins with water. We continued our
course, and shortly came to a strong red clay soil, densely covered
with grass so long that it actually overtopped our heads, although on
horseback. At sunset we halted in the woods for the night. The
horses and beasts of burden were last watered, when we filled our
water skins. Dr. Oudney was attacked with ague, but luckily the
evening proved very mild. For two or three nights past he has had a
fire in his tent, which seemed to abate the violence of his cough. This
evening, addressing me with resigned composure, he said, “I feel it
is all over with me. I once hoped to conduct the mission to a
successful termination, but that hope has vanished. Whenever my
death takes place, I wish my papers to be put into the hands of Mr.
Barrow, or Professor Jameson, provided the request meets with Earl
Bathurst’s approbation.” As this was a painful subject, I did not
encourage its renewal, and, according to this solemn injunction of
my lamented friend, I have delivered all his papers to Mr. Barrow.
Dec. 29.—After toiling two hours through a thickly wooded
country, we came in view of a large plain, with numerous towns and
villages. We found the towns by no means so neat as in Bornou, the
coozees, or huts, being much smaller, and often in bad repair. The
people raise great quantities of grain, principally gussub. We saw
five ostriches, which made off from us with great speed. Dr. Oudney
was a great deal better. In the afternoon we arrived at Sansan. Our
horsemen skirmished a little in front of the caravan before entering
the town, and then galloped up in pairs to the governor’s door, firing
off their muskets. This is the common compliment paid by kafilas in
such cases. The governor was absent on an expedition, headed by
the governor of Katagum, against the Bedites, who are in the
immediate neighbourhood. As before observed, the Bedites have
never received the doctrines of Mahomet; and, although speaking
the language of Bornou, and acknowledging a kind of nominal
sovereignty of the Bornouese sultan, they are every where regarded
as a race of outlaws, whom it is incumbent on every good
Mussulman, Bornouese, or Felatah, to enslave or murder. This race
is said to have no religion; but their common practice of first holding
up to heaven the carcass of any animal, killed for food, belies their
being atheists—a reproach attributed to them solely by their
enemies. On the contrary, it harmonizes with those universal feelings
of reverence and awe for a Supreme Being, which have ever existed
among all nations, and in all ages. The favourite food of this
persecuted tribe is said to be dogs, which they fatten for the
purpose. Their country is of small extent, defended by impenetrable
morasses and forests, by which alone they preserve a precarious
and dangerous independence.
At Sansan we were waited upon by the principal native
inhabitants, and the resident Arabs. Among the Arabs there was a
cousin of the sheikh of Bornou, Hadje El Min El Hanem. The reports
of our travelling companions, the merchants, contributed very much
to exalt our character wherever we went.
Dec. 30.—At noon I found the latitude of our encampment to be
12° 20′ 48″ north by meridian alt. of lower limb of sun. Sansan in
Arabic signifies “the gathering,” where the scattered parties of an
army assemble previous to an expedition. The town had its name
from a late sultan of Bornou, making it the rendezvous of his army
when he went to conquer Haussa. The place where he pitched his
tent is still held in great veneration, and the buildings around it were
first erected by his army. The neighbouring district also abounds in
towns and villages, which, together with Bedeguna and Sansan, are
under the governor of Katagum, who is himself subordinate to the
governor of Kano. Sansan is formed of three distinct towns, called
Sansan Birnee, Sidi Boori, and Sansan Bana. The principal one, in
which the governor resides, is Sansan Birnee, or Sansan Gora,
signifying “the walled,” from a low clay wall in ruins, surrounded by a
dry ditch almost filled up. The mosque is without a roof, and the huts
and houses of the inhabitants are old and dilapidated. Sidi Boori,
another of the three towns, having a signification so indecent that I
must forbear to translate it, is about half a mile west of Sansan
Birnee, and inhabited by Shauah Arabs. The third town, called
Sansan Bana, or, “of the banners,” where the sultan’s tent stood, is
about a mile distant from Sansan Birnee, and is inhabited by
Bornouese, who are here in great numbers, and were first brought
by force from Old Birnee, and other towns of Bornou. At present they
are quite reconciled to the change, and now remain from choice.
The sister of the sultan of Bornou, having been made captive by
the Felatahs, was living here with her husband in great obscurity,
although her brother, the sultan, is surrounded by all the barbaric