CRM Buyer : Archives

PRODUCT PROFILE
Twilio Lets Devs Build Contact Centers in the Cloud

Thursday - May 9, 2013

Twilio last week rolled out capabilities that extend its communications API platform into the cloud contact center market. The new functionality is aimed at companies that want to migrate part or all of their traditional contact center operations to the cloud, or those that want to enhance existing traditional operations with a cloud-based component. The new functionality is an extension of Twilio's original goal of bringing telecom into a Web app environment, said Lynda Smith, chief marketing officer at Twilio. [More...]

INSIGHTS
Economics Imitates Life, and Life Has a Lot to Do With CRM

Wednesday - May 8, 2013

It's been wonderful this spring, being a part of all the vendor briefings now in high gear. That's because in short but sometimes painfully dense bursts, we get to know what each vendor has in store for the months ahead. It's a lot and that's a good sign. There seems to be a breakout happening. One of the themes running through all the events -- like a kid on a tricycle -- is marketing [More...]

OPINION
Tap CRM to Give Your Customers a Pleasant Surprise

Tuesday - May 7, 2013

So you have your CRM application in place and humming, collecting information about customers and potential customers and organizing it -- but how are you using it? Most companies pour it back into sales, marketing and support to keep feeding those machines, which is good. It's the way you realize the value from your CRM investment. [More...]

How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 1

Monday - May 6, 2013

This year could be the best of times and the worst of times for mobile marketers, suggests a report Forrester released earlier this year. Six in 10 survey respondents -- people who make decisions about their company's mobile marketing strategy -- planned to increase mobile marketing budgets this year, according to the report. [More...]

PRODUCT PROFILE
Salesforce Communities Pick Up Where Portals Left Off

Friday - May 3, 2013

Salesforce has announced that a product it first unveiled last summer, Salesforce Communities, will go live this summer. Since its original debut, Communities has been tweaked to take into account user views and feedback. Salesforce's user community got a taste of similar functionality last month with the company's rollout of Chatter Topics and Expertise. [More...]

PRODUCT PROFILE
New Tools Play Up Twitter Games, Polls for CRM

Thursday - May 2, 2013

Fan Appz provided more tools for digital marketers Wednesday when it added a suite of Twitter features to its real-time customer feedback platform. The new features help brands interact with followers by running polls, hashtag games and loyalty-based reward activities on the social network. Those interactions can help build a brand's database. [More...]

INSIGHTS
The Ethics of Selling the Old vs. the New

Wednesday - May 1, 2013

It hit me last week while attending Oracle's Analyst World briefing. We met in a conference center on the Oracle campus in Redwood Shores to learn about the company's latest developments in hardware and software, and to be briefed on its future road map. How extensive was it? Let's just say that my brain hurt when it was over, and I had to sign a five-year NDA agreement to get out of the building. [More...]

OPINION
Social Savvy Beats Cold Read for Warming Up to Customers

Tuesday - April 30, 2013

If you're a dedicated skeptic like I am, you probably know the way a psychic's cold read works. Start by asking a broad question that fits almost anyone -- like, "Have you lost someone you love?" Allow the mark to fill in the blanks, and then ask further leading questions based on information fed to you until the mark thinks you're actually communicating with a dead relative. [More...]

PRODUCT PROFILE
PowerMap Lets Users Visualize the Lay of the CRM Land

Monday - April 29, 2013

PowerObjects has released PowerMap, a new add-on for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "It is a way to create a visualization of geolocation in the database," said PowerObjects CEO Dean Jones. At its core, PowerMap does what the name suggests -- allows users to plot addresses of a group of entities on a map within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. [More...]

Why Mobile CRM Rules

Friday - April 26, 2013

If you think mobile CRM has been popular to date, you ain't seen nothing yet. There will be an eye-popping 500 percent increase in the number of mobile CRM apps available for download on app stores between now and 2014, Gartner predicted. That number is expected to grow to more than 1,200 by next year from 200 or so today. [More...]

Hoopla: It's a Brand New Sales Game

Thursday - April 25, 2013

Hoopla has debuted Game Center, a new sales performance module that uses contests to incentivise CRM software users. It typically works this way: A sales organization identifies a certain behavior or goal, such as prompting sales staff to make more cold calls or follow up with prospects. Results are published on live animated leaderboards. [More...]

INSIGHTS
How to Ride the New Analytics Wave

Wednesday - April 24, 2013

I can't tell you how many emerging analytics companies have contacted me since January. Every day it seems there is another company -- smelling blood in the proverbial water -- wanting to brief me. I know why. Now that Big Data questions have transitioned from "how do we store all this stuff?" and "what's valuable in this pile?" to "how can we slice and dice this raw material," everybody wants a piece of the action. [More...]

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