By Chris Bucholtz (Here’s number four in our five-part series on features in CRM that can expand your ROI – but which frequently go forgotten or ignored. Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found here, here and here.) When many first-time users envision CRM, many of them see this: a system that allows them … Continue reading »
Posted in October 2012 …
Curing Pain Points in CRM Requires a Diagnosis First, then Treatment
By Chris Bucholtz I learned long ago that, for businesses to make significant changes or significant investments, it requires significant pain. I learned this while covering the telecommunications industry, a collection of enormous corporations that saw change as an opponent of revenue. Back in the 1990s – around 1996, and the signing of the Telecommunications … Continue reading »
ServiceSource: Understanding the Nuances of Coaxing Customer Renewals
By Chris Bucholtz We’re increasingly moving toward a subscription economy. Technology’s making it possible, pressures on cash flow within businesses make it critical, and the need to make each customer just a little more profitable make it ever more viable. But this economy puts a lot of businesses of all sizes into a new business: … Continue reading »
The Cost of Forgetting the Customer Experience
By Chris Bucholtz Last week, I wrote an article for CRM Buyer that said, essentially, this: you can’t control what your customer does, what he says, where he says it or who he says it to, but you can control the experiences he has with your company. If you do that right, everything else ought … Continue reading »
CRM’s Forgotten Features: Security
Since customer data is often cited as the most valuable asset businesses have, nailing down the security aspects of CRM comes almost as a reflex – if you have customer data, you make sure it’s secure. Right? Sadly, no – getting the security features of CRM set up properly often escapes the attention of many … Continue reading »
Success vs. Change: Why Thriving Companies May Need an Extra Nudge Toward SCRM
By Chris Bucholtz It maybe apocryphal, but I’ve always sensed there was a grain of truth in the story of a group of Silicon Valley engineers who were taken on a tour of the launch facilities at Cape Kennedy in the mid-1970s. These engineers, who were working on powerful digital computers that would eventually evolve … Continue reading »
Guest blogger Greg Ciotti: Fix Service by Making it Personal, Surprising and Slow
(Editor’s note: The saying goes, everyone talks about the weather, but but no one ever does anything about it. Customer service is a lot like that: it’s been discussed to death as a key to customer retention and customer experience, and yet it never really seems to change all that much. Why is that? I’ll … Continue reading »
