Practices

OPINION

The Business Power of Empathy

In our high-powered, win-at-all-costs business environment, the word "empathy" often evokes derision and scorn. Who has time to be a squishy, touchy-feely wimp overflowing with empathy? We're all busy closing deals and kicking butt! Kicking, closing, etc., is great -- but empathy has genuine busines...

We all know customers have changed. They can voice their dissatisfaction with you, complete most of the buyer's journey without you, and even seek out support and service without you. If you're a business, you have two questions to ask yourself: 1) Do you really want to become unnecessary to your cu...

EXPERT ADVICE

5 Crafty Customer-Retention Strategies

Remember all those hours you spent at the mall just hanging out, not buying a thing? Well, a lot of us just never grew up. We just moved our hangout from the local mall to the Internet. We meet our friends online, we order food online, and we window-shop online. It's a good life. That is, it's good ...

The majority of Americans rely on online reviews, with some 78 percent checking them out before making a purchase, according to a recent YouGov survey. Forty-four percent of those polled said they had written reviews themselves, at least occasionally. At the same time, many customers doubt the ratin...

When DiGiorno tweeted, "You had pizza. #WhyIStayed," Twitter lit up with criticism of the brand. The hashtag "WhyIStayed" is associated with domestic violence. In response to the firestorm, DiGiorno peppered its Twitter feed with apology after apology, all of them essentially like this: "A million a...

Salesforce.com on Tuesday unveiled two new products: Sales Cloud1 and Service Cloud1. These new iterations have been designed to address the radical changes in the sales and service space -- namely, the emergence of social and mobile. They also are primed for action when the Internet of Things goes ...

EXPERT ADVICE

Give the Gift of Social Customer Service

Snow flurries and the smell of pine needles. Eggnog and hot apple cider. Gingerbread men and latkes. Stockings and dreidels. Ornaments and menorahs. Trips to see family, and... visits to the customer service department? Oh yes, the holiday season is upon us, and it isn't complete without a customer ...

One of the CRM secrets to success is executive buy-in. That typically means the support of a high-level executive for the deployment and use of CRM technology. That executive often is an SVP of sales, or maybe a chief revenue officer or a CMO. The support of multiple executive roles is critical to i...

Salesforce.com on Wednesday announced the debut of the Salesforce1 Community Cloud. The product is launching as a new division for Salesforce.com, on par with its Sales, Service and Marketing Cloud offerings, said Lisa Hammitt, VP of business operations. Built on the Salesforce1 Platform, Community ...

After writing a positive review of Roy's Hawaiian Grill on Yelp, Matt Siltala received a "thank you" from the company. It's that kind of active involvement with Yelp that Avalaunch Media President Siltala recommends to his clients. "I love Roy's Hawaiian Grill because it's done that for me," Siltala...

Online reviews are a modern-day fact of life for any company operating in the hospitality industry, but an Internet maelstrom erupted on Monday when one hotel's surprising response to that reality was brought to light. Namely, the Union Street Guest House in upstate New York threatened to charge tho...

Target's customers jumped en masse onto social media Sunday night after technical malfunctions at its stores around the country resulted in long checkout lines and, in some cases, inability to make purchases with store-branded credit cards. The episode struck a nerve with customers, not only because...

Microsoft on Monday announced global availability of the latest feature set in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which was introduced earlier this year. It offers new marketing functionality, enhanced customer service features, a Unified Service Desk for call centers, and additional social listening features....

The concept of social CRM has been around so long now that, if you listen to the pundits, we should stop saying it and just include it as part of CRM. That assumes most companies have fully digested what "social" means and have made plans to use it effectively -- which is assuming a lot. That said, ...

I had an exciting moment while grocery shopping last week. After 10 years of going to the same market and seeing the same checkers, one of them actually pronounced my name right as I was leaving. I know my last name's a bit hard to pronounce, and clerks have spent the better part of the 21st century...

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