The idea of using incentives to drive business behaviors is not a new one. It happens in all areas of business, but it's most obvious in sales, where compensation is tied to performance. This is the most basic type of incentive, and it's used to get people who sell for a living to sell. However, oth...
Sage and Salesforce put on a lovefest on Tuesday to announce their partnership, in which Sage has developed Sage Life, a product to enable small companies to connect their customer, accounting, payroll and finance data into one system, accessible from any device, anywhere. It's unclear whether the c...
I was doing a little reading about the concept of the customer journey. I have distinct opinions about it, and I was looking for things that might challenge or validate those ideas when I stumbled across a blog post from a major CRM vendor that got my goat. The post proclaimed that 2015 was "the Yea...
The blogosphere lit up last week after rumors surfaced that Salesforce was working with unnamed bankers on a possible merger. It seemed Salesforce was in play, and my colleagues and I went into overdrive speculating about who the suitor might be, what the striking price would be, and whether it was ...
Company executives -- especially customer service leaders -- will tell you that the customer is the most important person on the planet and that the company is focused on making the customer happy with a laser-like intensity. Take a look at a typical mission statement -- it's all about the customer...
Rumors about Salesforce.com being courted by Microsoft, Oracle and, possibly, Amazon.com have been swirling about Wall Street and Silicon Valley for about a week. However, it's not clear how much substance there is to the speculation. The buzz began with a report last Wednesday, and analysts ran wit...
Bill Clinton won the presidency with the mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," and I think CRM could borrow heavily from that pithy bit of logic. If you can check your preconceptions at the door and actually perceive the information in front of you, there's no telling what you can figure out. Such is ...
I recently praised Salesforce for having the smarts to not get into enterprise resource planning several years ago. It was a good decision, I thought, because there was no upside for them to invade such a well-established market -- better for them to focus on a blue ocean strategy in which they went...
Customers are changing the rules of business. They are well informed and well connected, and they have high expectations. Whether making a purchase, booking a restaurant, or searching for information, they demand intelligent digital interactions
Marketing continues to heat up as the next big thing in CRM. It's so big, in fact, that I can see it splintering in multiple ways to accommodate all the permutations that are suddenly possible, thanks to big data, analytics, and a determination to get beyond using marketing technology as a glorified...
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...
You can tell when the economy is doing well, because instead of worrying about how you're going to make the next mortgage payment, you worry about the next disruption in business. The big worry on the horizon now is the digital disruption, a nice piece of alliteration designed to make you question y...
In an earlier chapter in my career, I had the seemingly lofty title of "software and intelligence editor" at a telecommunications industry trade magazine. Even back in 1996, telecom was experiencing a "big data" problem. It wasn't a problem of collection -- no, telephone companies collect more data ...
It came as a surprise when Keith Block, vice chairman of Salesforce, made an off-the-cuff remark about a Sage-Salesforce alliance at the Salesforce World Tour event held last week in Boston. Sage and Salesforce in February had announced they would work together, with Sage moving some of its undisclo...
Oracle did some smart things at last week's Oracle Modern CX Conference and user meeting in Las Vegas. The company has been making strides in organizing its messaging and products around customer experience in the wake of its RightNow Technologies acquisition a few years ago. It's been taking on the...
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/enterprises-are-trading-press-one-for-crm-native-ai-agents-177614.html
Enterprises Are Trading 'Press One' for CRM-Native AI Agents
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/ai-in-customer-service-efficiency-gains-workflows-still-fractured-177618.html
AI in Customer Service: Efficiency Gains, Workflows Still Fractured
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/silent-churn-is-the-biggest-customer-support-risk-177596.html
Silent Churn Is the Biggest Customer Support Risk
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/why-googles-universal-cart-means-brands-must-sell-to-ai-not-humans-178630.html
Why Google’s Universal Cart Means Brands Must Sell to AI, Not Humans
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/adobe-positions-itself-as-the-ai-control-layer-for-cx-180293.html
Adobe Positions Itself as the AI Control Layer for CX
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/revenue-tech-stack-sprawl-slows-ai-adoption-177637.html
Revenue Tech Stack Sprawl Slows AI Adoption
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/ai-can-grow-smb-revenue-if-it-moves-beyond-the-back-office-178623.html
AI Can Grow SMB Revenue — If It Moves Beyond the Back Office
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/workbooks-takes-on-crm-giants-with-plain-english-ai-177589.html
Workbooks Takes On CRM Giants With Plain-English AI
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