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Oracle Acquires Hyperion
Oracle has announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corp., a global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion. Hyperion's EPM software coupled with Oracle's Business Intelligence (BI) tools and analytic applications form an end-to-end performance management system that includes planning, budgeting, consolidation, operational analytics and compliance reporting, according to Oracle executives.

Passenger Launches Customer Collaboration Platform
Passenger, a provider of solutions that create collaborative relationships between brands and their most valued customers, has announced the availability of the Passenger platform. Passenger leverages consumer interest in closed communities, social networking and user-generated marketing to allow brands to connect with their most valued customers in a private brand community as a way to harness actionable insights, while empowering consumers through ownership of ideas. Leading brands such as Coca-Cola, ABC Television and Sara Lee are leveraging Passenger to easily deploy private brand communities designed to facilitate meaningful discussions with customers and better understand how to respond to changes in consumer behavior, attitudes, tastes and market trends.

Accept 360° Integrates with Oracle’s Siebel CRM Suite
Accept Software Corp,, a provider of collaborative enterprise-class product planning systems, has announced Accept 360 integration with Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand suite to help companies better incorporate direct customer feedback and create better products. The integration extracts customer-facing data from the CRM system and helps companies incorporate requirements directly from customers and partners into their product portfolio strategies.

Fonality Announces V.3.5 of PBXtra Call Center
Fonality, an open-source IP telephony solutions provider, has announced Version 3.5 of PBXtra Call Center Edition, a full-featured call center for small-to-medium size businesses that supports agents working on premise, at home or from any remote location. Designed for companies with two to 200 agents, PBXtra Call Center includes feature-rich call center capabilities such as branch-office agent sharing, on-the-fly recording, barging, monitoring, text whisper/coach, web and phone agent log-in, real-time and historical graphical queues and agent presence management.

American Airlines Chooses Key Survey
American Airlines has incorporated Key Survey Enterprise Data Management Solution to compete in its heavily service-oriented industry. American Airlines leverages Key Survey’s main strengths such as ease of use and enterprise-wide scalability, to provide data collection throughout the entire company. Beyond deploying the Enterprise Data Management solution to collect customer feedback, American Airlines -- with about 82,000 employees -- has significant HR needs. With Key Survey, they can efficiently conduct employee performance management processes.

Majority of Ad Execs Find Innovations Inspire Creativity
The AAF Media Investment Survey 2007, released by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), reveals an increasing confidence in navigating the new media ecosystem in 2007. The survey confirms a strong commitment among executives to complementing traditional media by allocating a portion of their budgets to new media properties and experimentation.

The survey also revealed executives’ belief that traditionally staid media categories are in need of innovation if they are to remain competitive. Newspapers (51.4 percent), network television (34.5 percent) and radio (33.8 percent) were ranked the top three media categories other than magazines most in need of a novel approach. Within the magazine category, business magazines (at 46 percent) are most in need of a unique approach to shake things up. Women’s Service (25 percent), Fashion and Beauty (18.8 percent), Men’s (17 percent) and Shelter (12.5 percent) rounded out the top five.

The survey yielded additional findings of interest:

• An overwhelming majority of respondents (87.4 percent) believe that the pace and scope of innovation in the media landscape inspires creativity.

• Seventy-three percent of respondents said that one to 20 percent of their budget is reserved for experimentation and new media properties. Significant, however, is the finding that 12.37 percent of respondents list 21 to 40 percent of their budget as reserved for these items.

• In 2006, the most expected innovations in the media landscape were the availability of TV programs on the Internet; the mass adoption of text messaging in the United States; and the importance of social media/networking as part of the communications plan.

• In 2006, the most surprising innovations in the media landscape were the rush to Second Life virtual community space; the rise of YouTube; and the popularization of mash-ups or Web applications that have more than one source.

• When asked about approaches to media planning in the coming year, respondents ranked “I am always open to new ways to use traditional media” highest (at 78 percent), with “the right media mix almost always includes a balance of traditional and nontraditional media” (at 75.5 percent), and “the search for new media properties to grow my brand never stops” (at 57.7 percent) second and third highest.

More...

SaaS and MS Office Integration Becoming New Battleground for Western European CRM
According to recent IDC research, the CRM market is clearly heating up again in Western Europe with small companies expected to increasingly demand CRM. Meanwhile, the market for large enterprises is by no means dead, and early adopters, especially in the financial services and telecommunications sectors, are once again investing in CRM.

Western European CRM application license and maintenance revenues reached $2.5 billion in 2005, growing 6.0% compared to 2004, while IDC expects the CRM applications market to grow at approximately 5.5% annually until 2010.

Salesforce.com is now clearly paving the way for software as a service in Western Europe. Its revenue grew almost 45% in the region in 2005, and the 2006 numbers are also looking impressive. However, IDC believes that this is not the only trend that vendors should take into account in the SMB space. Eventually, small companies will increasingly demand fully-fledged CRM, which is easy to implement, use, and maintain, and IDC believes that Microsoft Office integration will become particularly important.
More...

Leading Revenue Agencies Employ Customer-Centric Philosophy
Innovative revenue agencies have learned to organize around managing risk and to adopt a customer-centric view as a means to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, according to a report by Accenture.

In the report, Revenue Innovation: Driving High Performance, Accenture presents leading-edge practices identified through research conducted with leading revenue agencies around the world.

The report identifies the distinguishing characteristics of innovative revenue agencies around the world and highlights five findings that can help agencies chart a course toward high performance.

These characteristics include the operational strategies, organization structures, business processes, channel strategies, business applications and technologies that set the innovators apart from other revenue agencies.

According to the report, revenue agencies looking to achieve high performance will do so by delivering the optimum balance of better outcomes with greater cost-effectiveness, a measurement that Accenture calls “public service value.”

The report found that high-performing revenue agencies are:

• Using marketing campaigns and other activities to improve public understanding of tax requirements and perceptions of fairness to encourage voluntary compliance. Through this outreach they are creating their revenue “brand.”

• Taking an increasingly targeted and proactive approach to collections and compliance. These agencies are using risk models and management strategies to help detect non-compliance and mitigate undesirable outcomes.

• Putting a customer-centric philosophy into practice by providing greater convenience to taxpayers, streamlining the filing and payment processes, and integrating service delivery around taxpayer needs.

• Harnessing advanced CRM processes to dramatically improve both the quality and responsiveness of their service. Leading agencies are implementing sophisticated customer contact centers designed to provide proactive assistance to taxpayers.

• Using rigorous performance metrics and tapping into shared services and outsourcing to continuously refine their operations and redeploy resources for a greater return. High performing agencies are improving both processes and technology to support a new services-oriented attitude.

Just as financial services firms in the private sector push the envelope regarding technology-based innovation compared to other vertical industries, revenue agencies are clearly leading the way for other government organizations to follow, say Accenture executives.
More...

Virtual Queuing for Contact Centers Makes Sense
Contact centers should try a virtual queuing tool, according to the recent “Call Center Management Review: 2006 Contact Center Customer-Facing Technologies Survey Report” from the International Customer Management Institute. When well-implemented, virtual queuing solutions, can decrease operational expenses as well as increase customer loyalty and employee job satisfaction.

Virtual queuing allows customers who are presented with hold time to choose a callback instead of waiting on the line. The virtual queuing system inserts a virtual place holder into the queue and saves the caller’s place, allowing the caller to hang up and go about his or her life. When the virtual placeholder approaches the front of the queue, the automated system calls the customer back and then transfers him or her to the next available agent.

ICMI performed this survey to highlight best practices regarding customer-facing technologies. According to the report, “More centers may want to test a virtual queuing tool to see if it is right for their company and customers. When well implemented -- and when accepted by callers -- such systems can have a hefty impact on operational costs (due to vast decreases in actual hold times). These apps can also dramatically enhance customer and employee satisfaction. Since callers are given a choice to either hold or wait for a prompt callback, they are less likely to be frustrated when they do reach an agent, thus less likely to open the call by venting to that agent.”
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Engage With Customers, Don't Just Humor Them
In case you missed the memo, your customers want into your inner circle. Whether they're buyers of your company's manufactured goods, consumers of its services, channel and retail partners, or even internal end users of the hardware, software, and services your IT organization deploys, they're no longer resigned to taking what's most efficient and expedient for you to deliver. Instead, your customers want -- and increasingly demand -- to be treated like collaborators.
Full Article...

Customer-Controlled Innovation
Collaboration with customers is transforming product-development strategies and unlocking new ways for companies to innovate. Find customers who view themselves as connoisseurs or experts in your field, and you'll tap into an almost endless source of ideas for new offerings and processes that will differentiate you from your competition for years to come.
Full Article...

Six Degrees of Irritation
Business executives are increasingly turning to social-networking sites to pitch potential partners, customers, make introductions, or pry away employees. Scores of commerce-aimed virtual communities have sprung up, including Ryze, Xing (formerly OpenBc), Ecademy, Hoover's Connect, Spoke, and Vshake. While the sites are dwarfed by the largest social nets (MySpace claims 38 million unique users), these commercial sites are getting bigger. LinkedIn boasts 8.5 million registered members. And therein lies one of the problems with social networks: in some cases, it's hard to know if the person on the other end of the e-mail is who he says he is.
Full Article...

Managing Home-Based Contact Center Agents
High-technology and competitive-staffing strategies have made at-home contact centers a reality. Now agents are able to log on and handle customer calls, emails, and chats in the convenience of their own home. Nonetheless, application of best practices is necessary for your contact center to enjoy ongoing success.
Full Article...

Making Things Simple
Americans worship freedom of choice. But by giving consumers so many product choices and features and options, marketers are producing dazed and confused customers. This abundance of riches, it's argued, has reached a tipping point and customers are being turned off.
Full Article...

Why CRM is Like Love: Only Fools Rush In
Businesses need to understand that good customer service does not begin or end with the purchase of a CRM solution, It may seem obvious but too many companies are failing to understand the complexity of the good customer service jigsaw in which technology is just one -- albeit important -- piece.
Full Article...

The Mind of the Customer
by Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter

The Mind of the Customer offers an in-depth analysis of today’s customers’ wants, needs, and problems, and reveals insights into the new expectations of today’s top sales executives. Drawing from their interviews with 96 high-level executives at corporations such as Lexus, Nokia, and UPS, The Real Learning Company’s Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter uncover what the new generation of salespeople needs to know to succeed -- what clinches the deal, what loses it.

For more information, or to order your copy...

You can find more industry sepcific books at our web site:
http://www.crmindustry.com/

Multichannel Service & Support Survey of Executives: Report of Findings
Supportindustry.com recently conducted a survey of contact center, helpdesk and customer service managers and executives, focusing on multichannel customer service and support -- its importance, the current state of their multichannel capabilities and challenges in implementing and managing it.
The survey, sponsored by eGain Communications Corp., contains key findings and analysis in the following areas:

• Strategic importance of customer service
• Metrics and measurement
• Multichannel customer service
• Web self-service
• Knowledge management
• and more!

To get a complimentary copy of the report, click here..

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