Putting the Business First -- A Service Approach to Delivering Value

Thursday, June 12, 2008 --11:00am PT/2:00pm ET

Join Pete McGarahan and FrontRange as they frame the foundation for becoming a high performance IT service delivery organization. It starts with a business aligned strategy and transitions to cultural organizational change, new roles and responsibilities and tools that have the ITIL processes built in, avoiding costly customizations.

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Kapow Technologies Rolls Out OnDemand Enterprise Mashup and Web Harvesting Service
Kapow Technologies has introduced Kapow OnDemand, giving companies the ability to create powerful enterprise mashup applications that provide structured "web intelligence" in a matter of minutes. The company's new hosted service delivers realtime data from the web into Excel spreadsheets. Kapow OnDemand provides access to the underlying data sources and services to be mashed up. In addition to Excel spreadsheets, companies can also import web data into existing applications and IT infrastructure via XML.

Ryma Technology Solutions Announces CRM and Product Management Link
Ryma Technology Solutions and Satuit Technologies, Inc., a provider of Client Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for the professional investment market, announced the release of a software interface joining client relationship management with product management. During the product marketing and planning activities of product management, this interface enables the coordinated, synchronized use of insight gained from client relationships. The interface further helps companies to increase the value of strategic and tactical product direction decisions and sustain competitive advantage with larger cost margins.

Convergys Announces New Solutions for In-house Customer Service Operations
Convergys Corp., a provider of relationship management solutions, announced the general availability of its new Multichannel Automation Solutions portfolio. The portfolio leverages the latest advanced technologies in channel automation enhanced with real-time decisioning, personalization, and analytics to help companies with in-house customer service operations improve the quality and value of their customer interactions, lower associated costs, and better understand customer service expectations to retain customers.

SugarCRM Introduces Sugar Data Center Edition for Partners and Enterprises
SugarCRM Inc., a provider of commercial open source CRM software, has introduced Sugar Data Center Edition (DCE), a new product line for SugarCRM partners and enterprise customers. Sugar Data Center Edition is a complete set of systems management, provisioning and monitoring tools enabling service providers and large organizations to deploy and manage multiple instances -- distinct versions of SugarCRM -- from a centralized management console.

Companies Fail To Define and Deliver Complete Customer Experience
The pursuit of customer loyalty through customer experience is high on the corporate agenda, yet companies still fail to understand the totality of customer expectations and therefore deliver commodity products and services, Strativity Group's new Global Benchmark study discovers. The 379 executive participants study examined organizations' complete customer experience cycle from customer experience definition to customer-centric organizational alignment as well as their mechanism to respond to customer feedback.

Although the study indicates that 80% of the executives strongly agree that customer strategies are more important to companies' success than ever before, companies fail to design and deliver those strategies and, as such, lose customer commitment and loyalty. Study results highlights include:

• Only 43.9% (up from 40.0% in 2006) believed that their companies deserve their customers' loyalty.

• 42.6% responded that their companies' products and services are NOT worth the price they charge (down from 44.0% in 2006).

• 56% responded that their companies have differentiated and beneficial products and services (up from 49.5% in 2006).

• 43.7% said their companies will take any customer that is willing to pay (up from 38.3% in 2006).

• Only 34.8% indicated that their company has a dedicated customer experience management role.

• Only 27.2% of the respondents said that the definition of the customer experience is well-defined and communicated in their companies.

• Only 28.8% responded that employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems (down from 34.0% in 2006).

• Only 23.9% agreed that their employees are well-versed in how to delight customers.

More...

Communication Breakdown, Long Hold Times Top Customer Service Complaints
In the latest Ouch Point study from Opinion Research Corporation, one in five U.S. respondents (20%) cited hard to understand representatives with accents as their biggest frustration in dealing with customer service departments. Running a close second was the length of time it takes to get through to a representative (17%).

A list of top customer service Ouch Points ranked as follows:

• Reps that are hard to understand because of an accent/language barriers: 20%.
• Length of time to reach a representative: 17%.
• Reps that are not knowledgeable about their organizations products/ services/ process: 14%.
• Being transferred to the wrong person or the wrong department: 13%.
• Reps who promise to follow through and don’t: 9%.
• Reps that are not empowered to handle a situation: 8%.
• Reps who don’t understand your situation: 7%.
• Reps who want to debate your situation: 3%.

More...

Small Businesses Say 'Following Up With Leads' Biggest Failure in Marketing Efforts
Surveying the landscape of small businesses across the U.S., and amid concerns over the need to grow sales while reducing expenses, small business owners say the number one frustration they face daily when it comes to sales and marketing is the inability to consistently follow-up with prospects. In a survey of entrepreneurs across the U.S. conducted by small business marketing automation software provider Infusionsoft, 65 percent of small business owners cite an inability to consistently and efficiently follow-up with leads as the top concern.

The survey indicates a growing frustration among small business owners and marketers with closing an immediate sale, saying that they forget the nurturing process and instead let leads simmer. Small businesses increasingly seek a way to automatically capture and court leads until they are ready to buy, thus allowing the business owner to work on strategically growing the business.

The following is a list of the top 10 marketing-related frustrations as cited by small business owners in the 2008 U.S. Small Business Marketing Frustration Survey (ranked in order of importance):

• Too difficult to follow-up with cold, warm and lukewarm leads consistently and efficiently.
• Can't properly track and manage prospects and customers.
• Need to integrate online and offline marketing efforts.
• Poor email deliverability.
• Too much manual grunt work in the sales and marketing process; no automation.
• Can't track sales activity.
• Lack of centralization, too many different programs and systems.
• Too costly to maintain servers and IT staff.
• Too difficult to manually manage multichannel campaigns.
• One-dimensional marketing.

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Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Ignore
With the increased consumer traffic that social networks are generating on the Internet, retailers must have a position on social networks, according to Gartner Inc. Although social networks have tended to center on younger demographic groups, they are expanding into wider groups that matter to a broader base of retailers such as career-based social networks, shopping-based social networks, and employee groups.

Until recently, retailers considered social networks relevant only for the youth market, meaning that many have largely ignored them. However, says Gartner, as social networks expand to embrace ever-wider demographic groups, retailers need to ensure that they have a position on them.

These positions can range from creating their own social community to gather feedback, to creating a marketing presence on large social networks, or to simply observing how brands are discussed and perceived. Gartner has created a list of the top things retailers should know about social networks and what action to take. Here are a few:

• There are Social Sites, and Then There are Social Platforms: Social sites can include features such as discussion forums and consumer reviews. A social platform is a large public site that enables users to do the same things as on a social site, but also creates a platform that encourages and eases the development of applications, widgets and mashups. What a retailer is capable of doing on a social network will be determined by the platform's capabilities. Whether a retailer requires a social site, platform or both depends on where the target market resides and which social vehicles are required.

• Social Networks Are Rich in Word-of-Mouth Discussions About Retailers and Products: Retailers should view social networks as a lead-generation channel just as they would search engines, review sites, and price comparison sites. Lead-generation vehicles range from banners, to search term bidding, to application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable social networks to access the retailers’ consumers.

• Social Graphs Make Word-of-Mouth Relationships Known and Usable: Social graphs describe how friends are formally linked to each other on a social network. Word of mouth is effectively amplified by making social graphs usable by friends and business entities on a social network. To benefit from social graphs, Gartner says that retailers must first understand how each of the major social networks will allow them to leverage their graphs. then decide what to do with that access. For example, analysis of social graphs can be useful in discovering how consumer groups are linked together.

• Viral Propagation is Boosted in Social Networking: Viral marketing is the most obvious route to take with viral propagation but must be closely monitored and managed. Communication between friends about something as simple as a pricing or promotion mistake on a Web site can propagate very quickly in social networks. Similarly a strong criticism of a product or retailer can quickly attract a large critical mass. Negative press that is virally spread is difficult to capture and public relations teams need to be well-versed in social network channels.

• Social Networks Are a Huge Source of Consumer Data, but Retailers Cannot Easily Access It: Already some people are regretting having made available so much information available on social networks and access to this information will decrease further over time. However, access to some of this data can be gained by building applications that require members to agree to share some of their data in exchange for using the application. As with store loyalty cards, consumers may be willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for a valued service or discount. Expect privacy issues to make access to consumer data even tighter during the next 24 months.

• Communities, Groups and Networks Can Be Created By Anyone and Are Impossible to Control: If a social network provides corporations too many capabilities in interacting with members (for example, advertising and selling), there is a risk that members will leave the network. Gartner advises retailers to build their social network presence on content produced by members and create applications that engage members in providing feedback in areas such as product design. The aim is to create a forum or application that will create value for other members while promoting the organization’s brand.

More...

Dissed Online? How To Fix Your Brand's Rep
Once the negative reviews of your company have been posted to a consumer site or blog, you have a choice: Rebut them publicly and/or try to contact the reviewers privately to resolve the problem, or ignore the dings and work harder in the future on customer satisfaction. It's a touch choice to make.
Full Article...

Why Change Management is Critical to Web 2.0 Success
Since Web 2.0 poked its way into the corporate province, firms have been gearing up to implement social software in internets, intranets and extranets. And whether it’s being used to communicate with customers or enable collaboration between employees, this year will see more businesses than ever embrace the possibilities of Web 2.0. But rolling out social software in an organization isn’t akin to buying another version of Oracle.
Full Article...

Getting the Most Out of Mobile CRM
Mobile CRM is a whole different ball game from conventional CRM solutions. While CRM applications on mobile devices like smartphones and PDAs are designed to support the same goals and strategies as CRM on desktop or laptop systems, the way you apply mobile CRM is very different.
Full Article...

Why Pre-Purchase Behavior Matters
Marketers have come a long way in partnering with IT organizations to collect, analyze, and use information across many important applications. Much of this is driven by optimization aspirations, and indeed, much improvement has been achieved. We know what customers are buying, and what they are not buying. But we don't know much about their pre-purchase browsing, product comparison, and ultimate selection process.
Full Article...

FCR Unraveled: Getting to the Heart of First-Contact Resolution
Few performance metrics are as critical to contact center success as first-contact resolution (FCR); unfortunately, few performance metrics are also as misunderstood. Contact centers have been grasping for FCR gold in hopes of reaping the many potential and well-publicized benefits associated with this key metric. The trouble is, many centers have implemented FCR initiatives too hastily, without taking time to fully understand the intricacies of the metric — i.e., what it actually means and how best to measure it, as well as what processes and tools the center should have in place to achieve a high FCR rate.
Full Article...

The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies
by Chet Holmes

Chet Holmes’s book can help readers turn their business into a high-performing and profitable force in whatever field or market they compete in. It helps mangers learn how to attract top producers and how to get the most out of them.

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

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