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The Talk of the Web
February 08, 2012
There's been a lot of activity on the Web and in our industry in the last week, and I thought it might be fun to try and tie at least some of it together. Much of it in one way or another involves Facebook -- or "FB," as the proposed ticker symbol suggests. It's widely assumed that its IPO will make the very earliest buyers a nice pile of profit, but what about those looking for a longer-term investment?
Microsoft Dynamics Update Promises 'CRM Anywhere'
February 06, 2012
Microsoft has taken the wraps off of its forthcoming service update to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which will be released in Q2 2012. The service update will build on Microsoft's rollouts last year in such areas as social CRM and mobile. "We are on the path to deliver a significant new set of capabilities," said Craig Dewar, director of Microsoft Dynamics CRM's product management group.

Desk.com Makes Help Desks More Mobile, Social
February 03, 2012
Salesforce.com unveiled a new customer service help desk tool this week. Desk.com works with customer requests delivered over a social network. It is the byproduct of Salesforce.com's acquisition of Assistly last year. However, it is no mere product integration, said Alex Bard, former Assistly CEO and now vice president and general manager of Desk.com.
5 Ways to Sell Salespeople on CRM
January 26, 2012
The way the concept of CRM is defined during the sales process can sow the seeds of its ultimate failure. Because the decision makers are often sales managers rather than actual salespeople, the pitch is usually made that CRM makes it easier for the managers to manage their sales staff. Which is true. But what's in it for the sales staff?
It's Showtime for CRM
January 23, 2012
CSC and Infovisionix announced a new agreement at Retail's BIG Show 2012 in New York City. Under the agreement, Infovisionix's suite of retail reporting and analysis tools will be incorporated in CSC's Retail Enterprise Intelligence offering. The new capabilities will help retailers understand and improve key operational and customer performance metrics.
When B2C and B2B Worlds Collide
January 20, 2012
Having spent more than 20 years in the tech industry, I've seen many trends (and related buzzwords) come and go. One trend that I continue to see each year is the "consumerization of IT." While it hasn't always been referred to by that label, consumer demand has manifest itself across a variety of sectors in the industry, from PCs and email to the cloud.

What's Good for Social Business Is Good for Social CRM
January 19, 2012
I'm ensconced at the Swan and Dolphin Hotels at Walt Disney World in Orlando this week for IBM's concurrent Lotusphere/IBM Connect shows, and all the announcements here paint the picture of a company and a partner ecosystem that is going all-in on collaboration. Big Blue's fuddy-duddy reputation is being completely overhauled, it seems.
The New Cyber Savannah
January 10, 2012
Peter C. Whybrow, M.D., is a neuropsychiatrist and director of the Semel Institute for Neuorscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, or at least he was when he published American Mania: When More Is Not Enough in 2005. In the book he quotes numerous economic thinkers and writers from the last 300 years, including Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville, as he analyzes how we behave in modern business.

CRM in 2012: Big Changes in the Wind
January 09, 2012
The CRM landscape is shifting gears -- and it looks as though 2012 will be the year that will see investments in technologies to cash in on a veritable explosion of social media, mobile and integration opportunities. The winners in 2012 will be those that can figure out new ways to distinguish themselves on the customer service front, said Ajay Kapoor, vice president of customer service for Avaya.
It's an Intuitive, Integrated, Cloudy, Mobile World
January 06, 2012
Mobility, intuitive cloud-based tools, iPads, iPhones, and social media have forever transformed the sales ecosystem. Across all industries and sectors, salespeople are no longer chained to a desk or landline, and managers and executives agree that integrated technology makes selling more efficient.

Bad Employee Attitude in a Social CRM World: It's Payback Time
January 05, 2012
In our careers as consumers, we've all encountered employees from time to time who display a shocking lack of manners, aggressive ignorance of what their company sells, or a toxic attitude that suggests we're seen as an enemy rather than a customer. "How in the world did this person get this job?" we might ask as we hang up the phone or flee the store. "And how in the world is this person allowed to keep this job?"
The Road to Resilience
January 04, 2012
Welcome back to the discussion. At the top of my list is the idea of resiliency, which I consider a more practical form of sustainability for business. We are now encountering a wave of sustainability-oriented ideas in the popular culture. Forty miles per gallon is the new 30, someone said, and I have seen or heard the word "sustainable" used tentatively more than once in advertising.

The Beginning of the Bounce
December 21, 2011
There was an interesting article in the January 2012 edition of Vanity Fair, a magazine I've come to enjoy though for many years regarded as another of those things my wife would like more than I would. But VF carries an interesting blend of current events and politics, as well as the glossy pictures and stories of pop-culture icons that seem to be necessary to sell a magazine these days.
Zoho Offers CRM Users an Easy Way In
December 16, 2011
Zoho has rolled out a major update to its CRM app, completely redesigning the user interface and adding new social and productivity features. It is a massive overhaul, Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna told CRM Buyer -- one the company plans to extend to other applications throughout its business suite of products.

Social CRM and the Speed of Change
December 15, 2011
Social media is often held up as the wind sock to gauge how fast the winds of change are blowing. When Google+ gained 25 million users in just six weeks, it was used as evidence that people had become willing to shift the channels and methods they used to communicate at the drop of a hat in our new, technologically accelerated age.
Radian6: It's All About Listening to the Customer
December 09, 2011
Radian6 Social Marketing Cloud has been released -- it's the first Radian6 product to come to market after the company's acquisition by Salesforce.com earlier this year. It is also the first product in which Salesforce.com's functionality has been tightly embedded in the Radian6 feature set, although the two companies worked closely together even before the acquisition, said Rob Begg, VP of marketing for Radian6.

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