CRM

It's important to keep the story of eService in mind when thinking about social media's role over the past few years in reshaping the ways customers interact with brands. Undoubtedly, the influence of social channels has been at least as profound -- and perhaps even more profound -- than that of eSe...

Every year-end I write two columns. One looks back on the prior year's forecast; the other looks ahead. This is the first of the two, and it's time to compare my projections for the year with what actually happened. Last year I took an optimistic approach by saying that it was a great time for inn...

CRM systems are on a steep evolutionary slope, but marketing automation is evolving even more rapidly, spurred by a rash of innovative thinking and the SaaS delivery model. With the technology offering so much potential, integrating a crackerjack CRM system and an effective marketing automation solu...

From early origins of cold-calling into purchased contact lists, to contemporary methodologies incorporating Web 2.0 enablers, companies seeking to steer highly qualified leads to their "closers" are faced today with a combination of competitive threats, information overload and hesitant buyer behav...

Finally, Paul Greenberg's new edition of CRM at the Speed of Light hit the streets last week, and with it, my description of him as our Walt Whitman remains intact. To promote the continuing franchise, the fourth edition's cover has the same design as the third edition but with a different color sc...

As anyone familiar with CRM knows, adoption is the key to whether you live or die by your CRM solution. You can make detailed plans, do arduous research, negotiate great deals, execute a deployment plan flawlessly -- and then see it all go for naught when your users fail to use the system. The reaso...

Most marketers will accept that some portion of marketing will always be an art that is tricky to measure. However, it's difficult to deny the overwhelming need for marketers who can "crunch the numbers." Aberdeen research from the past five years suggest marketers are getting more savvy, more tech...

This just in: Females outnumber males on social networking sites. The site Pingdom did a survey and concluded that 16 out of 19 of the most popular social sites have more women populating them than men. The super geek sites Digg, Reddit and Slashdot have more men on them, but the more popular site...

I am still thinking about the George Soros quote from a recent posting. The billionaire financier and philanthropist was quoted in Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money saying that "Every bubble consists of a trend and a misconception that interact in a reflexive manner." What he meant was that tren...

Let's say you're a CRM vendor. Your constant mission is to provide users with what they need, and your biggest fear is that your competitors will be better at that than you are. How do you stay in front? If you come from a traditional software background, your default answer is likely to be "new fea...

Companies considering CRM systems often view them as a way to improve customer satisfaction and retention, boost sales and accelerate employee productivity. However, as with many technology-enabled business process, success is a complicated and interdependent proposition. When companies are winning...

Salesforce.com is marrying its cloud computing bona fides with its growing expertise in collaboration in Salesforce Chatter, a new application and development platform. The company introduced the product at its Dreamforce tradeshow and conference under way in San Francisco. Salesforce Chatter, which...

I was re-reading Eric von Hippel's excellent book Democratizing Innovation and found something in it that might help explain the popularity of cloud computing and Platform as a Service. I am on the way to Dreamforce and have little visibility into what Salesforce.com might announce in the next day ...

Those of us immersed in CRM take it for granted that people understand what the acronym stands for and what it really means -- the technology, people and processes that go into building stronger relationships with customers. Quite naturally, the people who sell, support and comment on CRM understand...

The market for CRM programs will expand in financial services, although the pace of spending will likely slow down in the near term. Still, the rate of CRM spending by financial firms is not the only element that could change in the future. Whether a financial firm already has implemented a program ...