Archive

While January 1 is a great mile-marker in any business timeline, the urgency for change needs to be dictated by honest assessments rather than by the flip of calendar pages. We all have enough to do already, and no one wants another action item list. That's why resolutions can turn out to be counte...

Just as many companies that adopted CRM applications years ago often failed to use the data they collected, call centers that tape inbound calls for regulatory compliance and quality assurance often lack the time and the staff to listen to the calls and learn from them. Enter speech analytics softwa...

Traditionally, e-mail program measurement focuses on overt consumer responses: We know that a customer has opened, clicked, perhaps even transacted -- but unless a coupon redemption is involved, our knowledge of why a response has occurred is often limited. With the focus in measuring e-mail progra...

Canadian outsourcing vendors tend to attract sophisticated work and projects closely tied to American culture and the English language. As such, despite the stronger numbers of outsourcing firms and employees in offshore locations such as India and the Far East, Canada is holding its own against ove...

Think of this scenario: You're shopping for a new home and instead of guiding you into a single-digit fixed-rate mortgage, lenders try to persuade you that an adjustable mortgage indexed to your income makes more sense. Structuring mortgages like that makes no sense, and it's making less and less se...

American businesses are struggling with retaining experienced customer service agents as demands and contacts increase along with higher expectations in the customer-driven economy. At the same time, the marching orders to the contact centers are to keep costs down, reduce call time, increase satisf...

Many companies question if the dollars spent with research and advisory firms are delivering unbiased, accurate guidance. This is particularly true in the CRM industry, where analysts influence short lists, sales cycles, and media coverage extensively. Analysts, in short, can make or break a start-u...

Many retailers already use automation in their supply chain and inventory management. Vendor-managed inventory (VMI), for example, has made its way into many retailers. It optimizes supply-chain performance by keeping the responsibility for restocking with the manufacturer, not the distributor. The ...

Hoping to expand its customer base while also enhancing the so-called front office services it already provides, Siebel Systems said it will buy e-billing service provider eDocs in a deal worth US$115 million. Siebel will take control of Natick, Massachusetts-based eDoc's 180 employees and gain acce...

Oracle's OpenWorld conference last week in San Francisco combined the company's traditional shows Oracle AppsWorld and OracleWorld in the company's largest conference ever. More than 25,000 customers, vendor partners, Oracle employees and analysts took part. Even Microsoft made its first appearance....

It's time for a reality check: When it comes to managing e-commerce strategies in your company, how do results line up with expectations? Too many companies hold on to incredibly inefficient Web sites chock full of order capture systems that lead nowhere except to someone's Outlook folders, or catal...

Now that e-commerce is no longer a novelty, most corporations recognize some basic realities about online sales: Building and maintaining a Web site is no walk in the park; not all browsers are equally interested in buying; and when it comes to sales, slick Web copy can't replace the human touch. T...

We live in a data-rich world. Data is everywhere you look, and used in so many ways -- to build e-mails, generate lists, create target groups, form reports, even to construct the foundation of a valid strategy. Yet data remains an elusive and stubborn beast, and it can become a point of contention b...

The CRM systems of many companies fail because they don't properly manage the expectations of prospects and customers. What's been missing is the ability to capture the moment of truth with every prospect or customer and then bring these insights into a broader mosaic of what the many segments of ...

Loyalty card programs operated by grocery and drug retailers have been focused on rewarding shoppers for isolated activities. Typically, retailers dole out extra points for buying Brand A today or discount the price of Brand B during a given week and not much more. But now these loyalty programs are...