| |
 |
 |
KANA Launches Integrated OnDemand Suite
KANA Software Inc., a provider of multi-channel customer service solutions, has announced the availability of a fully integrated suite of OnDemand customer service solutions. Based on KANA’s on-premise applications, the KANA OnDemand suite delivers the enterprise-class security, reliability and performance required for high-volume customer service operations, as well as the traditional benefits of a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, including lower total cost of ownership, more rapid implementation and faster time-to-value. As a result, organizations can deliver consistent, managed service across all channels, including email, chat, call center and Web self-service, more efficiently and cost effectively than ever before.
Ariston Global Acquires The Strata Group
Ariston Global has announced its acquisition of The Strata Group. The Strata Group provides software applications for web-based self-care to both service providers and their customers. The Strata Group’s customer self-service (CSS) solutions are deployed in traditional and next-generation networks serving both commercial and consumer market applications. The acquisition strengthens the Ariston portfolio of revenue management and customer self-service tool sets that offer communication service providers’ greater control over their operational costs, product functionality, customer satisfaction, and revenue streams.
Click to Go Online Ordering Improves QSR
Direct Technology Innovations (DTI) has launched their new Click to Go Online Ordering Program, powered by Kudzu Interactive, to make the Quick Service Restaurant "QSR" industry even faster. By layering convenience, accessibility, and improving order accuracy, Click to Go Online Ordering brings a savvier, consistent, and more satisfied customer to the restaurant industry while generating more profits for restaurant merchants. With over 45 million Americans now using credit cards for purchases under $15 making up 85% of all online purchases, DTI was well-positioned to bring this new ordering technology to market.
iCentera Launches New Portal Software
iCentera, a provider of on-demand CRM portals for sales, partner and customer communications, has announced the immediate availability of iCentera 4.1. iCentera’s “Portals for Mortals” enable anyone in an organization to create customized and branded portals for any internal or external audience in minutes. The latest version of iCentera delivers enhanced Web 2.0 capabilities, allowing enterprises to securely deliver and govern sophisticated, rich-media portals while saving time and money. Designed for marketing and sales “mortals,” companies today leverage iCentera as a vehicle for dynamic content, two-way communication, collaboration and relationship building with multiple audiences through marketing event portals, sales intranets, and partner and key account portals.
Yorkshire Building Society selects eGain
eGain Communications, a provider of customer service and contact center software for in-house or on demand deployment, has announced it has been selected to implement its eGain Knowledge Agent software across all 2,400 customer facing staff within Yorkshire Building Society. Yorkshire Building Society has selected eGain's knowledge management software to support fast and quality customer service delivery across its entire product range. An additional objective of the implementation is to demonstrate the Society's compliance to risk management as part of BASEL II regulations.
Genius.com Announces SalesGenius Winter 2007
Genius.com, an on-demand provider of real-time, 1-to-1 marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, has announced the Winter 2007 release of its flagship product, SalesGenius, which delivers instant customer insight to individual sales professionals. With SalesGenius, sales reps can instantly qualify leads, understand prospect buying preferences, and provide personalized service via the company web site, all without programming or IT involvement. Adding most-requested capabilities, the SalesGenius Winter 2007 Release introduces e-mail templates and wizards, response-based real-time reporting, and an innovative user interface for increased productivity and usability.
|
| |
 |
|
Visit the CRM Solution Center
CRMindustry.com and KnowledgeStorm have joined forces to offer you access to the CRM Solution Center , a fast, intuitive way to locate, research and qualify potential CRM and IT solutions.
The CRM Solution Center provides you unlimited access to white papers, case studies, detailed product information and more. Registration is quick and easy -- in 30 seconds or less, you will be on your way to accessing this valuable resource
Click here to start searching!
|
|
 |
|
 |
| Emotional and Business Impact of Bad Customer Experiences
According to a new Harris Interactive study sponsored by RightNow Technologies, customers swear, shout, get headaches, and even cry as a result of negative experiences with the companies they buy from.
The Customer Experience Impact Report reveals how bad experiences tangibly affect both customers and companies. It also indicates that providing positive customer experiences is a fundamental requirement for market success. In fact, respondents cited "outstanding service” as the number one reason they would give more of their business to one company over another — ahead of "lowest price" and "best quality."
Other study findings included:
- 68 percent of respondents will never go back to a company as the result of a negative experience.
- 71 percent attributed poor customer experiences to inadequate staff training.
- 68 percent see a company’s ability to resolve their issue on the first contact as a primary requirement for their satisfaction.
More...
Customer Service is an IT Priority in 2007
The big news in a new survey released by CIO Insight, says the publication’s executives, is just how important customer service will be for IT executives this year. Most respondents expect the economy and their own company's revenues to continue to grow at the same pace, or better, in 2007. That growth will be a lot harder to achieve if customer service levels keep drooping, as they did in 2006. Strategic applications and technologies that can help boost service and revenues, such as business intelligence, will be especially important this year.
IT executives’ priorities for 2007 include:
- Customer Service Surges as a Top Priority for 2007: Upgrading infrastructure and improving processes remain high priorities. But many companies now appear to be ready to take it to the next level, by harnessing their improved technology platforms to build strategic applications and improve customer service. The move to better customer service is especially important now, since customer satisfaction with service has declined. Improving alignment is also a top priority. Yes, alignment is always important—but it's especially necessary when IT organizations are determining which new applications to build, and what services matter the most to their customers.
- Business Intelligence Tops the Strategic Technology List: Since customer service and growth are important, it makes sense that the most important technology in 2007 is business intelligence. BI is a family of technologies that promises to offer better insight into customer behavior and market opportunities. Business process management technologies should do the same for internal processes. However, while BI gets good grades for meeting expectations, BPM suites and platforms often fall short. The other top technologies on the list are no surprise—they've been critically important for years, not only for pulling data together, but also for helping users make sense of it.
- CIOs Are Optimistic About Growth: Many believe their own company's performance will outpace the economy. True, one in three expects the U.S. economy will grow more slowly or shrink. But most executives expect growth to keep increasing at the same rate, or better. Many who work for companies that operate overseas believe business will improve there, too. Apparently, optimism about their own growth opportunities, and the importance of IT, are so strong that relatively few executives think a mild economic downturn could force them to start reducing IT spending and staffing. That's good news for a nervous IT workforce—at least for 2007.
- The Business Environment in 2012: What lies ahead? A better-connected world, and new IT regulations. IT executives foresee a world in which far more consumers have broadband connections, bringing more opportunities for online business. In particular, CIOs at large companies foresee operating in a global IT environment, working with offshore outsourcers, or supporting facilities in China. The most worrisome problem CIOs predict is a decline in college graduates majoring in IT-related fields. But in many ways, 2012 sounds a lot like 2007. Consider this: Many executives expect to be hit by new IT regulations, and agree that a new business idea or teen fad could change their IT priorities and opportunities.
- Technologies in 2012: It's going to be an SOA world. After testing SOA and Web services for several years, IT executives are confident they have what it takes to be the fundamental IT architecture into the next decade. Between SOA and software as a service, many companies will feel free to step back from traditional enterprise applications and return to a best-of-breed approach. Other big news: Many expect a significant increase in mobile e-business, some foresee a new generation of computers with a Google-like GUI, and only a third believe open source will dominate the software universe. The most intriguing result? About 40 percent think a new "transformative" technology will have an impact akin to the Internet. In short, expect the unexpected.
More...
Cross-Channel Retail Key to Winning and Keeping Customers
As retailers review the success and speed bumps of the 2006 holiday season, Sterling Commerce has released the results of a recent survey showing the importance of cross-channel efficiencies in accommodating increasing customer demands. The survey found that 80 percent of respondents felt it was important to have a choice of shopping online, in a store or by telephone when choosing a retailer. The survey also found that 90 percent of respondents said it was important to be able to return merchandise to a physical store location regardless of how they purchased the item.
While many retailers have an online presence, not all multi-channel retailers have found a way to synchronize their often disparate order and fulfillment processes. Customers have an inconsistent shopping experience and retailers are at risk of damaging their brand image. Many retailers are still struggling to provide a seamless customer experience where a customer can elect to buy, pick-up and return anywhere. In fact, only 22 percent of the survey respondents said it was very easy to return catalog or online purchases to a store.
Providing a cross-channel return option can not only positively influence the initial buy decision, but the store return can easily translate to an exchange or, even better, an incremental sales opportunity. Fifty-five percent of respondents said that when they return an item they are likely to get a replacement for their returned item and would spend time looking around the store to see what other merchandise is available. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they were somewhat likely to purchase additional merchandise during a trip to a store to return an item.
More...
Opportunities Still Exist for Established Players in On-Demand CRM
A new report by Tier1 Research (T1R) finds that the market for on-demand CRM software is booming and creating plenty of room for growth for the established players in this space. On the other hand, new entrants attempting to build a position in the on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) CRM business at this stage of the game face several barriers to entry, including classic startup risks, financial risk and competitive challenges from entrenched players. These findings are contained in a report released by T1R, an independent research firm that analyzes the financial and industry implications of developments affecting public and private companies within the IT, communications and Internet sectors.
Based on T1R's analysis, the estimated market size for the CRM software segment was $9.5bn in 2006, with 6.3% of the total market represented by SaaS deployments. Even with the buzz in the market around SaaS, on-premises deployments rule the roost, and the lower-than-expected penetration is great news for established players, says the company.
With more than 150 on-demand CRM providers across the globe, T1R analysts found that CRM is a starting point for many on-demand vendors, but some barriers to entry exist. These include:
- The challenge of leveraging the ability to be flexible and deliver unique value through software features and functionality that is not always available when working with the larger CRM providers.
- The challenge of getting to cash-flow positive, since the costs associated with building a multi-tenant environment are significant. It is not uncommon to have a long breakeven point in the early stages of the business, given the cost of goods sold and indirect customer acquisition costs.
More...
|
 |
| IT Marketers: Make it Flashy
Attention all IT marketers: There’s no limit to how sexy you can make technology sound, if you put some creativity into it. Case in point, the Fall/Winter issue of Conduit, the glossy computer science alumni magazine from Brown University. The magazine just recently got a makeover. But what really eye-catching about this latest issue was the come-hither, tarted-up nature of its cover story, “CSI: Computer Science Investigations.” Using blurry crime-scene photos and some hand-typed ransom-letter-like teaser copy, the cover resembled a TV-style case-file promo. The point here is that although much of IT is really cool -- and we know that -- you’ve got to splash it up a bit to appeal to a wider audience.
Full Article...
Free CRM
Not every organization can afford the financial investment that enterprise CRM software can entail. This article provides a list of free CRM products that could be of big interest to small companies. One of them just might be appropriate for your small business.
Full Article...
Customer Segmentation Needn’t Create Poor Customer Service
A popular way to segment customers is by revenue or profit generated, with “A-list” customers receiving more perks and personal service than “lower” categories. There are right and wrong ways to do this. Doing it right means cultivating customers so they all feel appreciated, by developing or improving products to meet each customer segments’ needs. Result: pleased customers and higher profit. Doing it wrong creates risk of sub-standard service for “unimportant” customers, making them feel unappreciated and resentful. Result: missed profit opportunities and disgruntled customers.
Full Article...
Alternative Call Center Strategy Unlikely in Service-Driven Industry
Contact center managers who are trying to effectively manage the transition from service to sales consistently face the challenge of managing for service and managing for efficiency. While the ideal scenario would be the facilitation of these two elements working well together, the reality is that they often create conflict between one another. Transition call centers that require emotional labor have the most apparent conflict in managing for service and for efficiency.
Full Article...
Decision Trees Boost Web Site Performance
Is your company having trouble seeing through the "data smog"? That's what some have come to call the massive amount of highly relevant but disconnected and disorganized data confronting them as they try to perform Web analytics. An enterprise may have in its possession all the data it needs to make the right offer to the right customer at the right time. But the company stumbles as it tries to pull data together and mine it to discover how to make targeted offers to Web site visitors — all in the few milliseconds it has to remain competitive.
Full Article...
|
 |
|  Customer Service: Career Success Through Customer Loyalty
by Paul R. Timm
Customer Service: Career Success in the Service Economy provides a systematic process for building service skills that all business people need. Presented in a friendly, conversational manner, the book is filled with examples that demonstrate the link between service skills and career achievement. This edition emphasizes the impact of customer loyalty on business growth and discusses how to measure a company's ration of promoters. Throughout the book, there is an emphasis on exceeding customer expectations and translating customer loyalty into personal and corporate success.
For
more information, or to order your copy...
You can find
more industry sepcific books at our web site:
http://www.crmindustry.com/
|
 |
| Visit
the CRM Solution Center
CRMindustry.com and KnowledgeStorm have joined forces to offer you
access to the CRM Solution Center, a fast, intuitive way to locate,
research and qualify potential CRM and IT solutions.
The
CRM Solution Center provides you unlimited access to white papers,
case studies, detailed product information and more. Registration
is quick and easy -- in 30 seconds or less, you will be on your
way to accessing this valuable resource
Click
here to start searching!
http://knowledgestorm.crmindustry.com
|
 |
| Manage
Your e.Newsletter Subscription!
Log-on
to the member's only
page and you can to change newsletter formats, remove yourself
from the list, or update your member profile.
Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com
Advertising Information:
adinfo@supportindustry.com
Thank you for reading CRMINDUSTRY.COM's
weekly newsletter!
Copyright © 2007, crmindustry.com
|
 |
 |
CRMindustry.com
665 San Ysidro Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
ph. 805.565.3243
|
|
