Oracle to Acquire BEA Systems
Oracle Corporation and BEA Systems have announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire all outstanding shares of BEA for $19.375 per share in cash. The offer is valued at approximately $8.5 billion, or $7.2 billion net of BEA's cash on hand of $1.3 billion. The Board of Directors of BEA Systems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close by mid-2008, subject to BEA stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
Autonomy etalk Helps Inovis Boost First Call Resolution
Autonomy Corp., a provider of infrastructure software for the enterprise, has announced that Inovis has used Autonomy’s Intelligent Contact Center solutions to improve support staff training, resulting in a double digit increase of Level One Service request closures within a six-month period. Inovis, a provider of on-demand Business Community Management solutions, has installed Autonomy etalk’s call recording, agent performance evaluation, and speech analytics solutions to enhance the quality of client interactions. In part due to the Autonomy solutions, Inovis has been able to achieve the goal of providing solutions to customers at first touch.
Infor Delivers Real-Time Event Management CRM Software for Retailers
Infor has announced the latest version of its outbound marketing solution, Infor CRM Epiphany Outbound Marketing 7.1, with retail-specific enhancements. This latest version enables retailers to rapidly deploy event-based campaigns that measurably increase sales and customer loyalty. Infor CRM Epiphany Outbound Marketing 7.1 has several new features that increase the effectiveness of outbound marketing campaigns, including the ability to schedule progressive campaigns.
Astute Solutions Answers Demand for Enhanced Knowledge Management in the Contact Center
Astute Solutions has announced the expansion of the RealDialog product family with the launch of RealDialog Agent Assist. The solution enables contact center agents to quickly deliver consistent, accurate, and personalized responses. It is capable of addressing issues and questions of varying degrees of complexity in a conversational manner. RealDialog Agent Assist gives contact centers and agents an easy-to-use tool to overcome these challenges. It integrates with any CRM desktop, to deliver the precise data needed from key information sources within and outside of the enterprise.
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| Online Media Spending in 2008
Business statistics can often reveal a great deal of information about a market or trend. A single number, like a picture, can be worth a thousand words. Take 9.3%. That figure represents eMarketer’s prediction for the share of total US media spending going to the Internet this year (in 2007, the share was only 7.4%).
In absolute terms, 9.3% translates into $27.5 billion being spent on various forms of Internet advertising in 2008, according to eMarketer projections. That number, in turn, reflects a variety of trends and industry developments that are expected to take place. For example, advertising on social networks and online video are both projected to grow at double-digit rates this year.
But while video and social networks are among the hottest new ad formats today, they will account for only $2.9 billion, or about 10% of total online advertising dollars projected for 2008.
These trends, while important, are superseded by three deeper, more fundamental transformations taking place in the media world. These transformations aren’t so easily captured by numbers. The transformations:
- The first of these transformations starts with media fragmentation, which, because of the Long Tail effects of the Internet, is expanding exponentially. However, we are now learning how to harness media fragmentation to serve the needs of advertisers, publishers and, yes, even consumers.
- The second transformation is that the Internet is becoming the central hub of most media and marketing campaigns — and for good reason. Not only is the Internet now used extensively by every major demographic group, and for a variety of purposes including information, communication and entertainment, but it also allows for a two-way interaction between consumers and marketers that is not found in any other medium. Just as important, the Internet can provide a wealth of measurement metrics to help marketers justify and fine-tune their integrated media plans.
- It is the third transformation that will have the greatest effect since it transcends the Internet and affects all media. For decades, the ad industry was built on the interruption-disruption model. Consumers understood that if they wanted to experience free content -- in the form of television shows, music on the radio and magazine articles -- they would have to put up with ads, most of which were perceived as irrelevant, boring, annoying or all three. In this standard construct, ads were seen as a “necessary evil” to support the content consumers really wanted to see. But the interruption-disruption model is dying out, thanks to shifting consumer trends. Consumers are increasingly in control of their media content and can easily eradicate ads they don’t want to see.
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Customer Service Quality Falling Short of Rising Expectations Across the Globes
Companies are not keeping pace with consumers’ rising expectations for service, especially in emerging economies, according to results of a global study released by Accenture.
The findings are outlined in a new report, “Customer Satisfaction in the Multi-Polar World: Accenture 2007 Global Customer Service Satisfaction Survey Report,” the third in a series of annual studies designed to examine consumer attitudes toward customer service. While the studies in 2005 and 2006 focused on the United States and the United Kingdom, the 2007 report expanded the geographic scope to also include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and France.
More than one-half (52 percent) of the more than 3,500 consumer respondents surveyed this year across five continents reported that their expectations for better service have increased over the past five years. Additionally, one-third (33 percent) said they have higher service expectations today than they did just last year.
Expectations increased the most among consumers in emerging economies. More than nine out of 10 consumers in China (93 percent) said their expectations for better service had increased over the past five years, and 75 percent said their expectations are higher than they were a year ago. In Brazil, nearly half (48 percent) of respondents said that their expectations had increased since last year.
The findings indicate that increases in customer service expectations continue to outpace efforts made by companies to improve service. Globally, nearly one-half (47 percent) of survey respondents said their expectations were met only “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never.” The highest level of dissatisfaction was found among Brazilian consumers, with two-thirds (67 percent) of those respondents reporting that their expectations are met only “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never.”
Even in developed economies, where companies have spent billions on customer service capabilities, dissatisfaction with service remains high. For instance, more than half (52 percent) of U.K. consumers said the frequency with which their customer service expectations are met is “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never.”
The gap between service expectations and the services consumers receive translates into lost business. A majority (59 percent) of consumers in developed and emerging economies reported that they quit doing business with a company due to poor service; the figures were significantly higher for consumers in the emerging economies of China and Brazil -- 85 percent and 75 percent, respectively. Additionally, the findings found an increase in the number of U.K. consumers who reported a significant increase in switching service providers due to poor service -- 58 percent, up from 50 percent in 2005.
The study found that customer churn resulting from poor service remained prevalent across industries. Retailers, banks and Internet service providers were the industries most frequently identified by consumers as those where poor service had led them to take business elsewhere -- selected by 21 percent, 21 percent and 20 percent of all respondents, respectively.
To begin to address the service issues identified in the findings, the Accenture report recommends that organizations incorporate the customer’s perspective, values and actions into their business and operations strategy, and into their capability development and execution. For instance, 43 percent of consumers surveyed identified the ability to resolve an issue with a single call rather than speaking with multiple service representatives as one of the most important aspects of a satisfying customer service experience. By contrast, only 22 percent identified the speed of the response.
More than four out of 10 (41 percent) of all respondents reported that the overall quality of service they receive is “poor/terrible” to “fair.” The most severe evaluation of quality was rendered by French consumers, with 60 percent of them saying that the service they receive tends to be “poor/terrible” to “fair.” Although satisfaction with service was highest in the United States, only 7 percent of U.S. respondents rated it “excellent,” and 28 percent said it was “poor/terrible” to “fair.”
Additionally, when asked if they expect better service in exchange for spending or purchasing more frequently from a company, 71 percent of respondents said they expect “much” or “somewhat” better service. The expectation for “much better service” when spending more was particularly strong among Chinese and Brazilian consumers, at 83 percent and 63 percent, respectively. Expectations of consumers in developed countries were a bit lower: 35 percent in the United Kingdom, 38 percent in Canada and 39 percent in the United States.
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Spending on E-Mail Marketing Will Top $2 Billion by 2012
In a new report, JupiterResearch projects that e-mail marketing spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012. Spending on retention e-mail will more than double during that period and account for over half of total e-mail marketing spending in 2012. Acquisition e-mail marketing will grow more somewhat more slowly, with most spending in that category going toward sponsorship (for example, ad-supported newsletters).
As for the future of spam, the report finds that while spam volumes will continue to rise, the volume of spam messages reaching consumers will remain flat over the next few years as a consequence of continued efforts by Internet service providers (ISPs) to battle senders and use progressive tactics to block billions of messages daily.
Embracing targeted e-mail tactics, marketers will increasingly rely on enhanced e-mail application features and strategic services,
benefiting full-service agencies and self-service technology providers alike.
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| Cooperatively Optimized Relationships
Where are you in the Customer Relationship Management Maturity Model (CRM3)? Still at Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? Moved toward Customer Managed Relationships (CMR)? Or are you researching and implementing what it takes to Cooperatively Optimize Relationships (COR)? Using a cliché, the world is changing and becoming more equal. Yet we find an extremely large number of organizations “stuck” in the concepts of the 1980’s when it comes to CRM.
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Look Vs. Feel
Everybody throws around the phrase "look and feel" when referring to the way something operates. That term became famous in the early days of the Mac/Windows rivalry, when there were lawsuits over look and feel. Windows looked and felt too much like the Mac, it was said. Today, that term has been adopted by Web designers to describe a site's visual aspects. What's the difference between look and feel, and how does it relate to interactive marketing?
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Large Firms Weigh SaaS
The run-up to NetSuite's initial public offering late last year was a dizzying spectacle, with strong interest in the stock prompting the Software as a Service (SaaS) provider to boost its estimated stock price not once, but twice in two days. From an IT perspective, however, NetSuite may not be the no-brainer it seems to be for investors. The company's on-demand, integrated business software is targeted for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), with an emphasis on small. Large companies that have invested in licensed software they intend to keep may face challenges when introducing SaaS applications, such as integration issues, potential personnel changes and customization problems. In other words: the dreaded mixed-application environment.
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CRM 2.0?
Clearly Web 2.0 -- in the form of wikis, blogs, and other means of social networking -- is transforming the Internet into a truly interactive medium. What's unclear is how Web 2.0 -- with its ability to empower consumers to collaborate among themselves, and with Corporate America -- will impact CRM as we know it. Will these technologies pave the way to what is being called "CRM 2.0"? The answer is "Yes," but getting there will be evolutionary.
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Customers Raise their Voices
It can take a while to ferret out useful customer feedback from user-generated content in Web 2.0 settings like online forums, blogs and social networks. But it can be worth the time and effort when that feedback can be transformed into strategies that make customers happy.
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