crm - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

  • CRM: When Should Customer Service Run the Show?

    CRM systems tend to have a wider user base across enterprise organizations than most other software applications do. Industry analyst surveys indicate that over 60 percent of CRM systems are used by sales teams, about 40 percent used by marketing, and about a third of the systems are used by customer support. Despite this wide range of users, my guess is that the real driver or "owner" of the CRM system is even more strongly biased towards the Sales VP.

    Written by David Taber27 Nov. 09 06:46
  • Bad Metrics Can Doom Your CRM Project

    With the scope and amount of data in modern CRM systems, it's easy to ask for reports and get nice-looking dashboards, and get them in short order. Unfortunately, you could ask for lots of meaningless data on these dashboards, and subordinates aren't likely to say no to your requests. How do you avoid the trap of reports that practically beg the users to game the system?

    Written by David Taber17 Nov. 09 05:56
  • CRM: How Marriott Broke Down Customer Data Siloes

    Make every interaction meaningful: It's the Marriott philosophy. This is not an easy task given the multitude of Marriott brands and the plethora of campaign management tools used to contact customers. By partnering with brand leaders and marketing leaders, Marriott's IT department built a unified framework for engaging with customers.

    Written by Rick Swanborg16 Nov. 09 09:14
  • CRM Tips: The Fixed Price is Not Right

    Imagine a CRM consulting project with inadequately specified requirements, no clear internal project manager, and ill-defined success criteria. Your consultant bids it on a time and materials (T&M) basis. You're in a rush, no time for a detailed RFP - you know the consultant can do the job, but you need a budgetary number to get approval. We've all been through this drill: somebody brilliant suggests that this has to be fixed price, it'll be easier to get project approval and manage to conclusion that way. You know, just like it would be when buying servers.

    Written by David Taber03 Nov. 09 08:33
  • How to tell when you should dump a CRM system

    I've written endlessly in this column that your CRM data is far more valuable (and expensive to maintain) than the system in which it runs. The Hippocratic Oath for all CRM decision makers must be "above all, do no harm to the data." Even so, CRM systems must be maintained, extended, and integrated to meet competitive realities and business needs that evolve over time. And with each improvement to the CRM system comes implementation cost, changes in maintenance/operational costs, and risks to the data, so you have to consider the alternative of CRM system replacement.

    Written by David Taber01 Sept. 09 02:32
  • How to use Salesforce.com for non-revenue purposes

    As a "horizontal application," Salesforce.com can be used for SFA and CRM across a wide range of companies and use cases. It's also a platform for building business applications in vertical industries such as financial services or real estate. Almost all these classic CRM applications involve customer acquisition, service, and relationship management-all related to revenue.

    Written by David Taber25 July 09 01:40
  • What price CRM data quality?

    In an accounting or ERP system, most of the data must be right, period. If invoices, accounts receivable, inventories, work-in-process numbers, ECAD files are "best guesses," someone will lose their job and the CIO will be on the hot seat.

    Written by David Taber21 July 09 04:13
  • Enterprise software licensing negotiations: tips

    For any business today, purchasing enterprise software -- ERP, CRM, BI and supply chain -- apps is probably unlike any other corporate activity.

    Written by Thomas Wailgum09 July 09 05:03
  • The 9 dirty little secrets of CRM

    CRM products have been around for more than 20 years, The SaaS vendors have been selling their CRM wares for nearly a decade. Despite all that experience, powerful myths and misconceptions about CRM still can catch customers by surprise. While much of this article's advice applies to any CRM system, we've focused on the specifics of SaaS systems such as Salesforce CRM.

    Written by David Taber07 July 09 02:44
  • 3 Mobile's CRM system hit with glitch

    3 Mobile has admitted to an outage in its CRM system yesterday that saw the mobile provider unable to service customer account queries for much of the day.

    Written by Tim Lohman01 July 09 13:07
  • Salesforce rollout: what customer support must know

    Customer support VPs may have to manage a range of customer-facing functions such as order-taking, shipment expediting, installation and field service appointments, as well as technical or warranty support. Each of these functions should have direct access to the CRM system, but the specific information needed (and transactions performed) are quite different across these CS roles.

    Written by David Taber05 June 09 09:11
  • 5 'Zero Cost' CRM Strategies

    It's not shocking that many companies are scaling back, delaying or canceling IT projects. Recent Gartner survey data of 475 IT decision makers in global enterprises with 1,000 or more employees found that more companies are actually <a href="http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=978512">postponing or scaling back computing projects rather than canceling them outright</a>.

    Written by Thomas Wailgum27 May 09 03:10
  • Salesforce.com: Punch List for Sales VPs After Rollout

    You were one of the business-side executives who championed a new CRM system for the company. Now you've won the battle. Your company's new CRM system is turned on. What should your initial priorities be as a sales team?

    Written by David Taber20 May 09 02:08
  • Five Tips on Implementing CRM

    Mission Australia’s CIO Ross Hawkey offers advice on implementing a new CRM system

    Written by CIO Staff14 May 09 10:09
  • Westpac Outlines St George IT Integration Strategy

    Westpac is to derive much of its future IT innovation and costs savings from a cross pollination of best-of-breed IT systems between itself and St George, which was acquired by the bank last year.

    Written by Tim Lohman07 May 09 12:27
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