CRM

Thunderhead.com Smooths Out the Wrinkles in Customer Communication
June 17, 2013

Almost a year after launching its ONE Correspond for Salesforce, Thunderhead.com rolled out version 2.0. A part of the company's flagship ONE customer engagement platform, ONE Correspond for Salesforce allows users to create communications for customers. Via Salesforce's Chatter, it also has strong collaborative features that give users a way to review, edit and approve documents internally.

5 Places Customer Relationships Go to Die
June 14, 2013

Building a customer relationship -- the kind that lasts a long time -- is a not an easy thing. There are lots of occasions where things can go awry, touch points where signals can get crossed and communications that can unwittingly turn a customer off. In a lot of cases, the conclusion is triggered by something the business does that brings the relationship to a premature end.

Where CRM and BPM Meet
June 13, 2013

Pegasystems held PegaWorld in "PegOrlando" this week, and a good show it was. I have always wondered about the difference between CRM (social and otherwise) and BPM, or business process management, so I was happy to attend. Both CRM and BPM deal with the interaction between the vendor and customer, and each is involved in doing the things that make customers come back.

Overdraft Protection May Do More Harm Than Good
June 12, 2013

Overdraft costs on consumer checking accounts vary widely across financial institutions and often result in more costs and more involuntary account closures for consumers who opt into such coverage, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported on Tuesday. "Consumers need to be able to anticipate and avoid unnecessary fees on their checking accounts," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.

SAP Pulls Hybris Into Its Stable
June 11, 2013

SAP acquired Switzerland-based enterprise resource planning company Hybris last week in order to add cloud-based, next-generation e-commerce capabilities to its offerings. Hybris has developed an omnichannel commerce platform that allows businesses to incorporate Web, mobile, call center and store actions in their efforts to track and respond to customer activity.

Bonitasoft Revs Its Execution Engine in Bonita BPM 6
June 07, 2013

It has been a busy three years for Bonitasoft. Since its launch, the company has: 1) commercialized its open source business process management technology, which it created out of the Bonita Project in the mid-2000s; 2) pulled in $28 million in venture funding; and 3) attracted some 600 customers. This week, the company hit a fourth milestone: the release of its first major upgrade.

How's Your Mistake Process Management?
June 06, 2013

Perfection is elusive, if not impossible to achieve. Businesses are made up of people, and people are imperfect. They make mistakes -- mistakes involving internal operations and mistakes that affect customers. How many have planned for those inevitable instances when people prove fallible? Not many. We don't like to envision ourselves as vulnerable to making mistakes.

BigContacts Makes Complex Workflow Building Look Easy
June 03, 2013

BigContacts has unveiled a new iteration of its CRM application. BigContacts 2.0 is a full-featured CRM suite "that is couched in a simple and easy-to-use format," said founder and CEO Bob Walton. That is a point of pride for the company. "We have taken the pillars of what a CRM system needs and made them very robust but in a way that our customers tell us hides the complexity of that robustness."

CRM Vendors Are the Worst CRM Practitioners
May 31, 2013

I've worked as a journalist covering CRM, and I've worked with vendors trying to explain and educate potential customers about CRM. In both roles, I've seen one troubling trend that very few vendors seem able to buck. That trend is this: Most CRM vendors suck at CRM. I know -- if anyone should get CRM right, it should be the CRM vendors. They should be modeling proper usage to their customers.

Siebel at 20
May 30, 2013

Siebel saved my life. Not really but sort of. By the early 1990s, I had been selling software for what seemed like a lifetime and dealing with the typical frustrations of life in sales. There weren't enough leads, and there was always more work to do than you could squeeze into a day. I kept records on legal pads and file folders, and I had a Rolodex that I would never update.

When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 2
May 28, 2013

The case for mobile CRM is an easy one to make. Smartphones are now ubiquitous, and the way most people work requires 24-7 accessibility. Not being tethered to a desktop to access customer records is also a plus, if not an outright necessity in some cases. However, mobilization is getting to the point when some apps are mobilized -- and they needn't or shouldn't be.

Crowdsourced App Helps Otis Lift E-Service to Another Level
May 24, 2013

Mobile CRM is well entrenched in the sales and marketing spaces -- perhaps too entrenched in some cases. However, the third tier of traditional CRM -- service -- has barely been breached by mobile technologies. Some headway has been made, but for the most part it has been in fits and starts. Only a few vendors offer e-service applications for the mobile environment.

SuiteWorld Reveals Cloud ERP's Moment in the Sun
May 22, 2013

NetSuite bloomed this week, in part because of a very well-produced user meeting, SuiteWorld, held in San Jose. However, it also bloomed because there can no longer be any doubt that the market for ERP technology is turning to the cloud. What was once unthinkable -- that ERP could or would ever be delivered as a cloud solution -- has been gaining acceptance

The 5-Step Plan for Picking the Right CRM Consultant
May 21, 2013

Pretty much all CRM deployments need some degree of customization, the exceptions being those rare situations where businesses have very simple needs. Customizations can be as simple as the modification of a field to accommodate a local convention for addresses, or as complex as the addition of workflows that introduce social media data or specific sales and marketing behaviors.

When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 1
May 20, 2013

The case for mobile CRM is an easy one to make. Smartphones are now ubiquitous, and the way most people work requires 24-7 accessibility. Also, not being tethered to a desktop to access customer records is a plus -- if not an outright necessity in some cases. For sales reps or anyone who interacts with customers in the field, mobile CRM is essential.

InsideView Provides New Insights Into Sales Leads
May 17, 2013

InsideView earlier this month debuted a new marketing offering housed on its InsideView CRM Intelligence Platform. This first iteration of InsideView for Marketing focuses on automated lead enrichment capabilities, said Marc Perramond, VP of product. It was built with an eye to enhancing a company's lead records with social, media and financial information.

Sorry, the CRM Niche Is Full at the Moment
May 15, 2013

There are two questions that emerging companies in the CRM space hear when they face the analysts: When are you going public? Why don't you build out a full CRM capability? The first question is easily and deftly handled by most executives, and it must be. An IPO has its own cadence, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is very keen to protect its turf.

CRM's Stairway to Stardom
May 14, 2013

Although the acronym "CRM" has been around for a long time, most people have no idea what it means. That's kind of a shame, because they brush up against the effects of CRM every day in their interactions with the businesses they patronize. As a result, when I say I write about CRM, I'm often asked to explain what it is. That leads me to think a lot about a practical definition of "CRM."

How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 2
May 13, 2013

You wouldn't think it was easy to bungle a mobile marketing campaign -- but it definitely is doable. Six in 10 decision makers planned to increase their companies' mobile marketing budgets in 2013, Forrester said earlier this year, reporting on a survey conducted for Acquent. However, 42 percent of those respondents were worried about achieving ROI. They have good reason to be.

Trulia Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Real Estate Pros
May 10, 2013

In a move to bolster its offerings for the real estate market, Trulia said this week that it would acquire Market Leader, a Software as a Service-based CRM company targeting agents and brokers. The acquisition, expected to close in the fall, will provide Trulia with tools to help real estate professionals manage and track leads.