In most enterprise IT systems, record ownership is about as controversial as a ham sandwich. Not so in CRM. In fact, it can become quite the political topic. Fortunately, good governance can solve most CRM data ownership problems.
A user interface can be too easy. Just ask any cloud administrator who learned the hard way that there's no undo feature. Here's our wish list for 10 things that would make a cloud admin's life much easier. Most are a few years in the making, though.
Putting the 'social' in your social CRM strategy means aggregating more information about your customers and prospects. A new generation of tools is being developed to make this happen.
Best-practices articles are as dull to read as they are to write, columnist David Taber says. So here are 10 customer support system worst practices that are certain to derail customer satisfaction.
With most enterprise systems, it's immediately clear who should be users and what they should be able to do on the system. Not so with CRM -- and, over time, more and more employees and departments will need to be on the system.
A tradeshow is a tradeshow is a tradeshow. But developer conferences can tell you a lot more, providing key indicators for the future. At DreamForce 2012, Salesforce.com.com is showing roughly 90,000 attendees what its high-profile customers are able to do.
Like most enterprise applications, CRM systems mean tighter business processes. Unlike most enterprise apps, however, CRM users typically aren't ready this for this. Here's a look at what needs to be fixed before you should really start a CRM project.
People are the starting point for managing relationships. In your CRM, they're stored as leads and contacts. In your email client, it's the address book. It takes a lot more than fate to bring them together.
The old joke about management consultants as "people you hire to tell you the time that's on your watch" still rings true. When it comes to CRM consultants, though, the overwhelming impression is that they know even less about your business. Here's what you can do about it.
Smart car buyers don't get a Ferrari when a Fiat will do. The same philosophy is true of CRM systems, which can be as utilitarian or as luxurious as you want them to be. The key is determining whether the extra features will improve profitability and business outcomes enough to justify their cost.
Making the business case for an accounting or HR system is clear-cut: Avoid unnecessary costs, manage cash better, reduce risk and you're done. If you were to invest twice as much in one of those systems, you might increase business payoff by 20 percent, so you can find the optimization point for ROI in a single spreadsheet.
If CRM systems are just IT systems, why are the projects so political? It's the people, processes and policies that are affected. Here are five warning signs that mudslinging may begin, as well as some tips for reaching across the aisles.
CRM systems have always held addresses for the contacts and companies you're selling to. Sure, each vendor handles addresses in its own way--and vendors will have endless arguments about how its approach is better--but that's the layer of the problem that doesn't really matter.
Toy CRM systems might make you think the software is just cases, escalations and SLA management, but serious CRM is changing the world of service and support by leveraging social networking functionality.
CRM is just overblown contact lists and pipeline spreadsheets, right? Toy CRM systems might look that way, but serious CRM is changing the world of sales and marketing by leveraging social networking functionality.