Lithium Technologies and Microsoft Corporation have signed a strategic alliance agreement to integrate Lithium social interactions and community data into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. So finally we can integrate customer records with community and social… there’s an ROI model in there! The agreement extends Lithium’s industry-leading community platform to customers who rely on Microsoft Dynamics and offers enterprises more capabilities and choice in their customer relationship management (CRM) needs. Lithium provides a community platform with more than 100 million members participating in Lithium-powered community every month. Microsoft Dynamics has distinguished itself as the leading customer engagement solution for delivering business insights that help companies of all sizes grow and delight customers. The close integration of Lithium community data within Microsoft Dynamics offers businesses greater insights from the wealth of customer signals embedded in communities that can drive better customer experiences. Will be looking for case studies of how the integration works with real customers and how they benefit.]

Rob Tarkoff, president and CEO of Lithium Technologies said, “We are proud to be a strategic community partner for Microsoft Dynamics. Our customers want to extend the power of Total Community across their intelligence and data infrastructures. Working closely with Microsoft, we now make both possible for a much broader set of our customers—and bring the power of our platform to businesses who rely on Microsoft Dynamics every day.”

Bob Stutz, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics CRM added, “As an established leader in social interactions and community data, Lithium is an ideal community partner for Microsoft Dynamics. Our customers rely on Dynamics CRM for insights and capabilities to help them better engage with their customers.  Through this strategic alliance, we can now  offer  access to the rich customer data available in Lithium communities to enable organizations to take their digital and social efforts to the next level—and better inform other marketing and service efforts throughout the enterprise.”

MY POV: Connecting social, digital, CRM and community are key to delivering a great customer experience. These two companies are forging a great partnership. Exactly how it works and seeing it deployed will something I will look forward to. While announcements are great, its really when customers are getting an ROI from the integration that counts with me. We need a way to give attribution to digital and social and connecting these types of technologies is a great step in the right direction.

@drnatalie, Constellation Research Covering Marketing, Sales and Customer Service using CRM and Customer Analytics to Drive Amazing Customer Experiences.