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Scribe Software Releases Adapter 4.0 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Scribe Software, a provider of configurable data integration and migration software technology for business applications, has announced its release of the Scribe Adapter 4.0 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. This adapter supports a customer’s ability to choose the deployment that best fits their organization by offering the full breadth of migration and integration capabilities for both on-premise and SaaS deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
Lyris Unveils Seat-based Pricing for Online Marketing Suite
Lyris Inc. has announced a new pricing structure that bundles all of the core technologies an online marketer needs for one competitive price. The Lyris pricing model makes it easier for marketers to get point solutions at a great price, while gaining a no-risk, no-cost way to expand and combine other already-integrated solutions. For an initial seat price of $299 per month, marketers get a set volume of 5,000 emails each month, along with unlimited use of Lyris’ best-of-breed Web analytics, Web content management, deliverability monitoring, and PPC campaign management technologies.
RightNow Technologies' Releases Latest Version of On-Demand CRM Offering
RightNow Technologies has introduced RightNow February '08, the latest release of its enterprise-class, on demand CRM solution. With this latest version, RightNow delivers a new contextual workspace for maximum agent productivity, as well as new topic monitoring capabilities that enable companies to quickly understand customer sentiment. RightNow has enhanced the agent desktop with a new workspace that helps organizations immediately engage customers with relevant, personalized service.
LexisNexis Introduces Prospect Portfolio for Sales Professionals
LexisNexis has introduced Prospect Portfolio, a new sales intelligence tool designed to help sales professionals grow their business by building new sales leads and cultivating existing business by using comprehensive information that is easy to use and designed for the way sales professionals work. Prospect Portfolio helps sales find opportunities, get alerts, and create lists to help capture leads, make sales, and build rapport with customers and prospects.
Loyalty Lab Announces Low-Cost Email Package Bundled With CRM Capabilities
Loyalty Lab Inc., a CRM solution, has announced the newest release of its integrated marketing platform, which now features a stand-alone email product that includes integrated targeting, segmentation and customer relationship marketing capabilities at a price point comparable to email-only options. Loyalty Lab’s new low-cost, stand-alone email marketing product features a range of data integration options so marketers can draw from customer and transaction data for more personalized and precise messaging.
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| Direct Marketing: The Unsung Hero in a Digital World
Marketers still rank Direct Marketing (DM) as the number one medium for marketing effectiveness in 2007, despite it capturing less than 25 per cent of all UK marketing and communication spend. The 2007 Global Marketing Effectiveness Report from The Fournaise Marketing Group reveals the following trends in mature markets, such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia:
- DM is considered by both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketers to be the most effective medium -- topping the 2007 marketing Effectiveness Ranking (or EFFER).
- DM ranked ahead despite five online media platforms surging into the EFFER’s top 10 (email, paid search advertising, online referrals, online display advertising and online rich media) alongside traditional stalwarts like public relations, newspapers and TV.
- Cinema, endorsements and online sponsorship ranked last and are in danger of being dropped by marketers if they are not able to deliver better results when it comes to engaging with the target audiences marketers are going after — proof that not all traditional and online media platforms are judged to be effective.
With marketers in mature countries identifying their top objectives for 2008 to be “growing the company’s revenue” and “generating leads for future conversion” (70 per cent combined) and with only 15 per cent claiming “building long-term brand awareness” as their top priority, it is clear that a deep shift is happening within the AIDA marketing model. Marketers are now focusing more on the “Desire” and “Action” part of the model instead of just relying on “Awareness” and “Interest” as in the past.
More...
Consumers in China Pleased to Use Video Streaming when Interacting with Contact Centers
China consumers are generally more open to new technologies when dealing with contact centers compared to other Asian countries and regions, according to a latest research commissioned by Avaya. More than 60 percent of the research respondents are happy to use video streaming when speaking to contact centers. They are also more open to self-services and talking to home agents or agents based in foreign countries. As long as their problems are solved, China consumers do not mind talking to more than one person during a call.
In comparison, only 18 percent of consumers in Singapore and 20 percent in Japan like video streaming. China ranked the highest (89 percent) in regards to using touchtone or speech recognition self service technology for basic queries or transactions, much higher than countries like Japan (45 percent) and Korea (35.7 percent). In addition, China consumers also ranked the highest (70%) for using self service to solve very complex questions.
China consumers are the least concerned about where contact center representatives (CSR) are based, as long as they can solve their problems quickly and professionally. About two out of three consumers in China would be happy to talk to a CSR who is working from home, while 36 percent do not mind talking to a CSR based in a foreign country. In New Zealand, eight percent of consumers are willing to talk to a CSR based in a foreign country and in Australia the percentage is only four.
About half (43.7 percent) of China respondents felt that as long as each person was an expert in their field and helped solve their problem, they did not mind talking to a number of customer service representatives. In comparison, only 23 percent of respondent in Singapore agree with this notion.
China consumers generally have a positive outlook on contact centers. Fifty-six percent of the respondents agree that they enjoy interacting with contact centers and think that they make their life easier, compared to 10.7 percent in Australia, and 18 percent in New Zealand. In addition, 68 percent of China customers do not mind if companies proactively call them with new product offers, and special deals and promotions. Again China ranked the highest in the seven countries, with Japan reaching 38.7 percent and Australia 44.2 percent.
When asked whether they would recommend a company to their family and friends and consider it as their first choice in the future, over sixty percent of China respondents felt that if they had a good experience with the company's call center then they would definitely consider these options.
The report indicates that, in China, professionalism, by 54 percent, ranks as the most important attribute to consumers followed by efficient, friendly and polite customer service representatives. And the top reason why China consumers rated negative on their last calls with contact centers, is that they waited for too long.
More...
Companies Pressured to Deliver CRM Access Anywhere Turn to SaaS Solutions
Companies are increasingly challenged with the task of delivering customer integration to an ever-growing constituency without placing additional burdens on an already stretched IT staff. For this reason, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is an attractive option for organizations because it provides a flexible self-serve platform that can be used practically anywhere by a virtually unlimited number of users. A recent survey conducted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company, revealed that only 7% of respondents will not consider purchasing CRM delivered via SaaS. The move towards SaaS as the preferred delivery method for a CRM system is due in part by the need for organizations to find efficient ways to increase the productivity of a diverse sales force.
The top pressure causing all organizations to focus resources on SaaS as a CRM delivery method is the need to provide access to account information anywhere to an increasingly mobile and global workforce. Best-in-Class companies indicated that they currently blend organizational capabilities, such as the ability to provide remote access to employees (95%) and CRM security processes (57%), with technology deployment to positively affect the productivity of sales reps, while reducing the IT constraints that would accompany an on-premise solution. As a result, leading companies have reduced Time-to-Close 30% more than laggards. Furthermore, 71% of these companies integrate lead management technology with a CRM solution to provide increased visibility into the sales pipeline.
The report demonstrates the value of collectively leveraging organizational practices in process, performance measurement, knowledge management and technology to maximize the productivity and efficiency of an organization’s CRM system and sales force. By utilizing CRM/SFA (90%) and system access restrictions (67%), best-in-class companies are able to provide their employees with a secure repository of account, contact, and customer information.
More...
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| Does High-Tech Get Away with Bad Service?
You've got to hand it to Microsoft, HP, Symantec and the other high-tech companies for how they have trained their customers to beg for service when their products break down. It's a business model that says, "You can stick your customer service right up your anti-virus. We didn't get rich by having to talk to our customers in person. Wait on the phone and someone will get to you when we darned well please." Perhaps computer nerds don't like to deal with people in the real world, but when did American consumers decide they're fine with having virtual customer service when their computers don't work?
Full Article...
The ''Tipping Point'' for Customer Service
During his opening keynote at the destinationCRM 2007 conference, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, explained what's required to move an idea from relative obscurity to ubiquity in a short time. According to Gladwell, the market must be caused to see the idea in a new light; to see it from a different perspective. The idea needs to be "re-framed." Because of its name, you'd think that CRM would have grown up around supporting the entire customer relationship. But in truth, customer support has always been a bit of a third wheel to the more dominant sales and marketing components of CRM.
Full Article...
Brace Yourself For Marketing's Perfect Storm
This year, marketers will see the convergence of three realities that have been building in strength for the last decade. Get ready for the boat to rock, because the 2008 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index shows this could mean a perfect branding storm. Albert Einstein noted that we all dance to a "mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." This year, the "piper" is going to make himself conspicuous in three big ways in the marketing spectrum.
Full Article...
Mobile CRM: Empowering the 24/7 Road Warrior
What technology capabilities do sales organizations most treasure within their mobile CRM deployments? Shared team calendars, bi-directional synchronization of records between field and HQ personnel, and critical event management/notification/action features are among the key solutions deployed.
Full Article...
Kimball University: Three Ways to Capture Customer Satisfaction
For most businesses the most compelling application of business intelligence (BI) is the 360-degree view of the customer — in other words, a comprehensive record of every transaction made through customer-facing processes. The 360-degree view is particularly potent if causal dimensions can be attached to these transactions. In its purest form, a causal dimension explains what the customer was experiencing at the moment of the transaction or as a result of the transaction. Obviously that is difficult to measure. Since we can't peer into the customer's head, we do the next best thing by collecting as many measures of customer satisfaction as we can. A good marketing analyst will be quite satisfied to know what satisfies, or doesn't satisfy, the customer.
Full Article...
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|  Stopwatch Marketing: Take Charge of the Time When Your Customer Decides to Buy
by John Rosen, AnnaMaria Turano
For today’s savvy marketers understanding how much time and energy consumers are willing to spend shopping for their product or service is the single most important (yet overlooked) factor in maximizing sales. Stopwatch Marketing unveils a systematic way to capitalize on four different types of shopping styles — Recreational, Painstaking, Impatient, and Reluctant. Rosen and Turano also share the stories of how America’s top brands put the concept of Stopwatch Marketing to work for them.
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