Empathy Social Networkings Secret Sauce: An Insight from the SCRM Summit So I guess that it’s time for me to check in and comment about my experiences at the recent SCRM Summit put on by BPT Partners last week.  I won’t bore you with all the details surrounding my difficulties in getting back home, (it took me 4 days due to all of the airline cancellations from the winter storms in the mid-atlantic and southern part of the country), I’ll focus on my most meaningful insight.

First of all I must say that this Summit was “chock full of heavenly” information; much of which was delivered by an energized Paul Greenberg, author of the CRM/SCRM Bible, CRM at the Speed of Light.  I highly recommend this seminar and encourage any interested Social CRM professionals to attend their next session in Atlanta on May 24-25.

I’ve tried to put together a Twitter List that is made up of the attendees (who have Twitter accounts) and “almost” attendees who weren’t able to make it to Washington DC due to the weather (@Larger and @ekolsky).  It’s available here for anyone interested in following us.

There are already so many great posts about the Summit that it’s difficult to add much to the conversation at this point.  As an FYI, CRM Magazine has done a great job of pulling together all these posts on their blog.

So, as a technology guy, what I’d like to talk about is the humanism of this event.

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How to Make the Most of Your Customer Feedback

by Jim Berkowitz on February 17, 2010

feedback How to Make the Most of Your Customer Feedback Here are several excerpts from an article by Ariel Finkelstein, co-founder and CEO of Kampyle, How to Make the Most of Your Customer Feedback.  Check out the complete source article for much more on this topic:

Building a loyal, satisfied customer base is paramount to any Web site owner or company. Every business owner wants to know what his or her customers are thinking and why they make certain decisions. Most understand that the most effective way to listen to customers is to collect their feedback. But even so, challenges remain: How should they collect the feedback? Where does it all go? What should they do with all the information collected? And most importantly, how do you show your customers that you are acting on their feedback, and in real-time?

Before you implement a customer feedback initiative, your first step should be to evaluate your own goals and understand what it is you want to do with your customers. How will you acquire and act on customer feedback? What feedback will you receive? What will you do with the feedback? Once you establish your feedback goals, you can determine how to integrate customer feedback into your daily processes.

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CRM Customization is a Key Demand for Buyers Pre-Purchase

by Jim Berkowitz on February 16, 2010

crm technology CRM Customization is a Key Demand for Buyers Pre Purchase Here are a couple of excerpts from an article by Barney Beal, News Director for SearchCRM.com, CRM demos, customization key demands for buyers pre-purchase:

Executives at Enpirion, an analog semiconductor company, wanted to know what they were getting before they bought a new CRM system for their rapidly growing business.

They also wanted it to map closely to their own business and sales processes.

“What I was looking for was an actual demonstration tool that mimicked what I was looking for,” said Mark Cieri, director of marketing and business development, with the Hampton, N.J.-based company. “It had to actually run some custom aspects that mimicked internal processes so others, including execs, could look at it from different perspectives. I did a lot of due diligence that the demo I saw had the features I wanted.

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online communities Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to Platforms Here are several excerpts from an excellent article by Garrik Schmitt, VP of experience planning at Razorfish, Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to ‘Platforms’:

Unlike a website, banner, Facebook application or 30-second (Super Bowl) spot, a platform is an always-on digital environment that allows brands to run specific or multiple programs. The goal is to meaningfully engage consumers on multiple levels. For some brands, that means creating an immersive experience with integrated commerce. For others, it means enabling consumers to connect with each other in valuable, unexpected ways.

But for marketers, the real winners this year will be the brands who have built these platforms to engage consumers well after this year’s Super Bowl becomes a distant memory — there are another 364 days to worry about after all. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting platforms in play today…

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It’s Time For Text Analytics

by Jim Berkowitz on January 28, 2010

feedback1 Its Time For Text Analytics Here are several excerpts from an excellent post by Bruce Temkins, It’s Time For Text Analytics:

At the Clarabridge event this week, I got to spend time with many executives from large companies that were thrilled with the results from their text analytics efforts.

While most companies were still in relatively early stages of their deployments, the ROI of their efforts were already compelling. The business results for using text analytics came from areas like:

•    Reducing warranty costs by spotting quality issues much faster
•    Identifying underperforming franchisees that need training
•    Cutting operational costs of manually categorizing customer comments
•    Quickly identifying the impact and severity of service issues
•    Understanding “why” metrics like NPS are going up or down

Vendors like Clarabridge, Attensity and Overtone are making it easier than ever to extract huge value from previously ignored unstructured text. That’s why my #1 trend in Voice Of The Customer (VoC) programs is “Tapping into unstructured and unsolicited feedback” which I show like this…

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Four Reasons for an Information Concierge

January 27, 2010

Here is a synopsis of a post by Steven Woods that discusses a really good idea, Four Reasons for an Information Concierge:
There is a role in modern sales and marketing that is just starting to form. I call it the “Information Concierge”, but I suspect a similar role is called many things in many [...]

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CRM Project Plans – Where Does It All Go Wrong?

January 26, 2010

Here are several excerpts from a post by Richard Boardman, CRM Project Plans – Where Does It All Go Wrong?:
For those of you currently planning a CRM project, I thought it might be helpful to identify some of the areas where things tend to go ‘off-piste’, but before I do perhaps it’s a good [...]

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Lotus Knows Social Media, But Do Customers?

January 25, 2010

Here’s a excellent post by Zeus Kerraval, a Research Manager at The Yankee Group, Lotus Knows Social Media, But Do Customers?:
I attended this year’s Lotusphere and, to no one,s surprise, one of the big themes of the show is social computing and its role in enterprise collaboration. IBM has been pushing the concept of [...]

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Poor Customer Service Costs Companies Billions

January 22, 2010

New research from Oxford Brookes University has revealed that over the past few years, companies have lost millions of customers, costing them an estimated $6.28 billion. The survey of 2000 people found that three out of four switched at least one product or service in the last two years, with more than one in five [...]

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