2007-03-02
TV viewing solid despite online video growth
Episodes of 24 are viewable on MySpace a day after airing on broadcast TV. SlingBox jockeys use their laptops to watch what's on at home, unbound by geography and often untethered by wires. MediaPCs and AppleTV throw hard drive content into the living room, in files and streams. Amazon Unbox, CinemaNow and Netflix Instant Viewing do the same thing for PCs, letting movie fans get their fix when they can't get to a theater ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2007-03-01
Eight firms honored with CRM wizkids awards
At face value, the companies have little in common, other than the fact that they are providers of point applications - as opposed to suites. However, after taking a closer look, several common themes do emerge, including the fact that many of the firms are leveraging on-demand and platform architecture to deliver new solutions to a specific field or task.
This year, the report highlights eight winners: Cast Iron Systems, Centive, Echopass, Market2Lead, Pragmatech, Sapias, Electronic Arts' customization of Salesforce.com
Latest News about Salesforce.com, and Skytide. "All of these companies are offering users technology or services that are completely new to the market," Beagle Research principal and report author Denis Pombriant told CRM Buyer ... See the Full Story
Source: Technewsworld.com

2007-03-01
What works, and what doesn't, in online marketing
In an end-of-the-year survey, ad:tech and MarketingSherpa asked online marketers what marketing tactics worked for them in 2006 and what they expected to concentrate their time and spending on in the months ahead. Here is what the online marketers said: First off, and keeping in mind that the sample consisted of the early-adopter ad:tech audience - not the whole marketing world - so responses were skewed accordingly, the marketers expect overall online spending to rise slightly from 47% of the budget in 2006 to 49% in 2007. Not much change for a group that has largely already adopted online advertising techniques and strategies ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2007-03-01
Top five headlines
Looking ahead to the Microsoft Convergence conference March 11-14 in San Diego, SearchCRM.com collected our top five most-read headlines on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In recent months the company ramped up CRM offerings, completed acquisitions, and released several new products. Microsoft is challenging traditional top dogs in the CRM market like Oracle and SAP and making moves into Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM territory, the analytics and self-service markets. Catch up on Microsoft headlines and market trends here, then bookmark this page and check back throughout the month as we update it with in-depth, live coverage from Microsoft Convergence  ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM.com

2007-02-27
CRM is top priority for banks
European banks will invest heavily in customer relationship management tech to combat increasing competition in 2007, according to analyst house Financial Insights. Banks will focus on CRM projects more than established cost-cutting IT measures in order to retain existing customers and acquire new ones, it predicts. This would include analytics technology to allow banks to target customers more effectively with services they will be interested in through tailored marketing campaigns. European research manager, Rachel Hunt, who carried out the study, told silicon.com the harmonisation of European banking - with initiatives such as MiFID and Sepa - will mean customers may be tempted elsewhere in the search for better services. Banks will therefore have to respond to remain competitive ... See the Full Story
Source: Silicon.com

2007-02-06
Opportunity for OTAs to leverage CRM to drive business to suppliers
Interview: Recent initiatives taken by Expedia in CRM arena.
Expedia identified through our CRM work a number of challenges. One was the need to differentiate ourselves in the OTA (online travel agency) market - how to hook the booking when price and availability are parity. Our research indicated when this occurred; people followed the loyalty or reward points without necessarily intent to redeem. To address this challenge, Expedia partnered with the ThankYou Rewards Network to create a new kind of travel rewards programme. In your opinion, how can OTAs position themselves as a trusted advisor using education and knowledge as CRM tools? Traditionally, OTAs have been about shopping and booking. However, the reality is that through understanding the whole trip cycle, we can support the customer throughout the travel experience more intelligently by providing the right information at the right time across the most appropriate channel to ensure our customers make informed travel decisions and have the best travel experience ... See the Full Story
Source: eyefortravel.com

2007-02-06
Lean CRM Functionality in Industry 2.0 Features Commence Corporation
Larry Caretsky, President of New Jersey-based Commence, an industrial CRM firm, "CEO's of these companies often share how their new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system provides them all the information they need, but fail to recognize that ERP systems provide information after the sale, not before or during the sales process. ERP systems provide no value for improving the efficiency of how to sell and service customers. This is one reason that forecast reports are always inaccurate ... See the Full Story
Source: Pr-inside.com

2007-02-05
Opportunities for partners in the on-demand CRM market
According to a new report from Tier1 Research, the on-demand CRM market is booming, so there is a lot of room for growth for the established players in the space, while new entrants with CRM software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings are facing several barriers to entry.
New CRM SaaS players not only have to handle the classic start-up risks, but also financial risks and competitive challenges from providers firmly entrenched in the market ... See the Full Story
Source: eChannelLine.com

2007-02-02
What works, and what doesn't, in online marketing
In an end-of-the-year survey, ad:tech and MarketingSherpa asked online marketers what marketing tactics worked for them in 2006 and what they expected to concentrate their time and spending on in the months ahead. Here is what the online marketers said: First off, and keeping in mind that the sample consisted of the early-adopter ad:tech audience - not the whole marketing world - so responses were skewed accordingly, the marketers expect overall online spending to rise slightly from 47% of the budget in 2006 to 49% in 2007. Not much change for a group that has largely already adopted online advertising techniques and strategies ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2007-01-08
True value tackles customer loyalty project, by Don Peppers
When it's time to roll up your sleeves and start a home repair project, it's nice to have a friendly expert around to guide you through the process. That's the driving force behind neighborhood True Value hardware stores. The independently owned cooperative relies on personalized service and expertise to compete against the bigger players. A bit of technology has added to its customer-centric approach by helping to identify and reward most valuable customers.
Very few store owners had actionable intelligence about who shopped in their stores. So in October 2003 True Value centralized its customer data management and created the True Value Rewards loyalty program with database and direct marketing firm Insight Out of Chaos (IOOC). Currently more than 1.5 million customers are enrolled in the program, in which they earn points for purchases and receive discounts, incentives, and special offers in return. And for the participating stores, the customer insight collected is far more than a local mom-and-pop shop could do on it ... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2007-01-08
E-commerce hits all-time high in 2006
Maybe, finally, people will forget all about that little bubble burst around the turn of the century and admit that e-commerce is for real - and it is going to just keep growing. Almost anyone who sells anything should be selling (at least part of what they sell) online. Holiday sales made the point, emphatically. Most researchers who track the retail industry in the US put overall 2006 holiday sales at between 2.5% and 3.5% above last year, the slowest pace of growth in two years, blaming the lackluster season on weather (either too warm or too snowy), falling home prices and rising energy costs. Online sales were the exception to the rule. According to comScore Networks, online sales for 12 days during the November/December holiday season surpassed the $600 million mark - each day ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2007-01-08
Luxury hotelier’s 2007 top ten CRM resolutions
CRM is a relatively simple concept designed to acquire, grow and retain profitable customers better and faster than competition. Implemented properly CRM will create more loyal customers, more repeat business, more referrals through positive word-of-mouth and have a dramatic impact on your hotel’s bottom line. This is especially true for luxury hotels.
Consider this – companies with the strongest customer relationships – possess the most loyal guests - grow at twice the industry average and are significantly more profitable. It’s a fact.
What would you do if management said your 2007 objective is to increase occupancy and profit at twice the rate of your competitors? Certainly not an unrealistic objective – from management’s perspective. Would you increase your sales force? Increase advertising or public relations? You certainly wouldn’t pump inventory into third party online intermediaries ... See the Full Story
Source: Hospitality Net

2007-01-06
Your January issue of digital CRM has arrived
Dear Reader, Here is the January issue of CRM magazine in digital form. If you click on the flipping icon you will be taken to a web page which has the full representation of our January issue, complete with live links and search functionality ... See the Full Story
Source: CRM Magazine

2007-01-05
Turning leads into customers with CRM
In order to turn leads into customers, you need to understand exactly what the customers want and rapidly set the wheels turning to provide what is wanted in the minimum of time. This, of course, is a simplistic view, so let's have a look at more detail and how CRM can help achieve the desired end. A good CRM system will rapidly analyze every lead and quickly and automatically route it to the right person to handle it. The fully customizable rules in Microsoft Analytics CRM 3.0 allows you to so on the basis of area, product, cash volume or any other rule that you want to apply. You can also apply different rules to different products or customers so that every variable is optimized ... See the Full Story
Source: webpronews

2007-01-05
Email marketing resolutions
This month I'm highlighting some email marketing best practices - a.k.a. resolutions - to help you get started. You might be implementing some, but not all of them. I encourage you to pick at least one that you aren't doing and hold steadfastly to it this year. By doing so, you will find that email marketing can make even more of a positive impact on your business or organization than it has so far.
1. I'm going to grow my list at every turn - Everyday there are opportunities to add someone to your email list. Train yourself and those who work with you to take advantage of every opportunity to grow your list. If you haven't added a sign-up box to your website, now is the time! If you have a store front, make sure to keep your email book out on the counter and ask every customer to sign it. How about setting a goal to grow your list by a certain percentage this year? If you put your mind to it, I bet you can do it ... See the Full Story
Source: ConstantContact

2007-01-05
Online customers are good for the music business
At one point not so very long ago, music executives thought that digital downloading would be their death knell, and they were locked in legal battles from coast to coast to stop the practice. But things change. In much the same way as the movie industry learned to love VCRs (and now DVD players), the music industry is adapting to digital music downloading. According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of digital music online continue to climb.
And now a new report from the Digital Media Association (DiMA) asserts that online customers are actually revitalizing the music industry, the whole industry. Not only did the DiMA survey find that 60% of US consumers report that they are listening to more music since they have gone online, the vast majority of online music service users said that enjoying music over the Internet has expanded their musical tastes, allowing them to discover new artists and explore new musical options. Nearly seven in 10 online music consumers said they are enjoying new genres of music since listening to online music services ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

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2006-12-29
More gambling uccess for CRM
A provider of CRM - PacificNet Inc - which seems to be having more fun in the gambling business than CRM these days has reported that its PacificNet Games Limited subsidiary has been selected by Jai Alai Casino, a casino in Macau, to provide multi-player electronic gambling machines. Phase one implementation includes 40 multi-player electronic gambling machines. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed for competitive reasons. Located at Jai Alai Building, Avenida de Amizade, Macau, in Communist China, Jai Alai Casino Macau has 67,075 square feet of gambling with about 250 slot machines, 61 table games and 4 VIP rooms, and is open 24 hours a day. And if jai alai, baccarat, blackjack and roulette aren't your cup of green tea you can lose money on more traditional Chinese gambling such as Fish-Prawn-Crab, Sic-Bo Cussec and Fan Tan. ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet

2006-12-29
2007: The year customer churn reshapes industries
Making sense of 2007 starts with the recognition that the battle to hold onto existing customers will be more intense than ever, and that battling churn in entirely new ways will reshape entire industries. What's being redefined is how companies' stay connected with customers, and at its essence, staying relevant to those served.
The coming year is going to reorder entire industries due to customer churn. With this reordering will be an entirely new set of selling dynamics, as existing ones prove marginally successful into 2007. The old "bundle three" rule for higher customer retention Free Download - Look Who's Driving the Next Generation of e-Commerce Latest News about customer retention will prove no longer as effective as it once was. Pricing and promotional strategies will no longer be as strong as they once were in keeping customers from churning either. While the severity of churn will vary by industry, the fact that many companies going into 2007 have no idea what their true churn rate is, and how to fight it, is already turning into an area of opportunity for software vendors ... See the Full Story
Source: ecommerceTimes

2006-12-29
There is a world market for maybe five hosting providers
In response to my "web hosting can no longer be considered a core competency" (it's true!) post, Santosh Dawara brought up Greg Matter's bold statement that the world needs only five computers. By computer, Greg (who works for Sun) means a "hyperscale, pan-global broadband computing service". The Google grid, for instance. Microsoft's Live platform. Salesforce.com - especially given its plans to build an iTunes like store for third party SaaS apps. They are soon going to start offering hosting! Can you imagine iTunes not hosting the music they sell?? Amazon and eBay are possibilities as well. Greg also thinks we'll see the emergence of a Great Computer of China, and a commenter puts Akamai in the running. (BTW, Akamai disagrees with Mirror Image's claim that it has a lower cache-hit ratio. Stayed tuned for their story in separate post ... See the Full Story
Source: theWHIR

2006-12-29
Loyalty, CRM, e-mail, user experience 2006
It's that time to take stock of all that was 2006, and look towards 2007. Some of the highlights.
Smarter Loyalty - Following last year's 8-part series on loyalty programs, we took a look at more advanced concepts in customer loyalty. We addressed the idea that loyalty is not annual, and a "loyalty slate" shouldn't be wiped clean after every year. Advanced loyalty programs should take into account a more cumulative view of my activity. We also took a look at shop.com's inventive strategy for increasing off season sales, by building loyalty in the off season and providing discounts in Q4 based on purchases in Q2 and Q3. This is in contrast to most companies that do a big Q4 push, then try to capitalize on those first time users during the following year. Finally, we looked at inventive ways non-traditional companies, like those in the shipping industry, could capitalize on loyalty programs to provide better pricing and increase customer retention.
E-mail Marketing - In a series of columns, we looked at various aspects of e-mail marketing. We started by asking, Is e-mail still important?There are so many other ways to reach consumers, including both offline and online methods, that e-mail itself has come under fire, mostly due to overuse and susceptibility to spam. Assuming e-mail still is relevant, we examined how to put more of your brand in e-mail marketing campaigns, beyond just the look and feel ... See the Full Story
Source: Clickz

2006-12-28
Automation with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Sales and marketing personnel are best employed in sales and marketing rather than carrying out repetitive administrative tasks. This is particularly true of small and medium sized businesses with limited personnel resources and the need to focus on customer contact in order to maintain and expand the customer base. Automation with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be invaluable in such cases and provide very rapid return on investment. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 in particular is eminently suited to a high degree of automation and allows employees to more easily and more effectively use existing customer and account data to integrate marketing and sales efforts ... See the Full Story
Source: webpronews

2006-12-27
Protecting customer privacy in on-demand CRM
Many companies have turned to hosted or on-demand CRM for its multiple benefits, including robust support, cost effectiveness, and frequent updates. Having a vendor host the application, rather than trying to control it in-house, can take pressure off an I.T. department and help meet budget goals to boot.
But just because a CRM program isn't being tweaked and managed within a company's walls doesn't mean a company should cede all responsibility for its customer-care system to a vendor. Just as companies need to stay on top of other hosted applications, like storage, they should be aware of how customer data is being handled at an on-demand vendor, particularly in terms of privacy ... See the Full Story
Source: CIO TODAY/

2006-12-27
2006 in Review: Software as a Service
With about $500 million in revenues, Salesforce.com is the leader in the Next Big Thing in its industry: on-demand software. Basically, this uses the Internet to deliver software as a service (SaaS).
Salesforce isn't the only company enjoying success with on-demand. Other companies such as RightNow, NetSuite, and Taleo are also seeing lots of traction. Still, it was no surprise that 2006 was a banner year for Salesforce. Let's take a look at why.
In the fiscal fourth quarter, Salesforce posted a 67% increase in sales to $91.1 million. Net income was $5.9 million, or $0.05 per share, which was up from net income of $3.6 million, or $0.03 per share, in the same period a year ago ... See the Full Story
Source: Fool.com

2006-12-27
Learns the old-fashioned truth about e-commerce
Clarity Amazon.com the week of Dec. 25 announced sales figures that make the 2006 holiday season its best thus far, including one day (Dec. 11, for those who track such trivia) on which it rang up more than 4 million items sold.
The company also boasted of some impressive speed sales, such as selling 1,000 Xbox 360s in 29 seconds and 1,000 Axion DVD players in 34 seconds. (Note to marketers: Add more Xs in your brand names.)
But behind the numbers lies a more interesting tale. Large brick-and-mortar retailers have often survived scalability challenges because they had store managers with lots of discretion. No matter what bizarre stock problems that corporation experienced, managers had the tools of store credit, refunds and sympathetic words to try and hold the ship together.
But an e-commerce retailer of equal size rarely has such luxuries. The attraction of e-commerce is the ability to potentially move tens of millions of SKUs while paying for a miniscule fraction of the personnel that a similarly sized brick-and-mortar player would need. That benefit clearly comes with a reduction in the ability to provide customer service, however, and that customer service shortfall has derailed more than its fair share of online storefronts ... See the Full Story
Source: eWeek.com

2006-12-22
CRM market to hit USD74 Billion in 2007
According to technology market analysts at Forrester, the CRM market is set to hit nearly USD74 billion in sales in 2007. CRM applications represent about USD21 billion of that market, with services making up the rest. With the customer relationship management market for 2007 predicted to grow 11 percent, VendorGuru.com recommends that businesses find a CRM vendor who "recognizes the benefits of an effective CRM strategy to build customer loyalty within their specific industry.
However there will be a shortage of skilled CRM workers. That means finding the right source for CRM expertise is more important than ever as it becomes increasingly difficult to hire CRM-trained professionals ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet

2006-12-20
CRM experts predict 2007
Mobile CRM: Necessity or accessory? - The changing role of the call center - Completing the 'customer satisfaction circle' - SaaS succeeding at home, heads overseas ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2006-12-19
Five things you can do to create a happier workplace
Clarity - Be clear about what your and your employees' expectations are, and check in when they change. Connection - Let everyone know the special part they play in the success of the company and the customers' lives. Positivity - Focus on the positive (people's strengths and what's right) rather than the negative (their weaknesses and what's wrong.) Be positive yourself ... See the Full Story
Source: Customer Care Coach

2006-12-08
Online ad spending to outpace overall ad market growth
ZenithOptimedia forecasts that global Internet advertising spending will grow by 28.2% in 2007, at the same time ad spending in other media will grow by only 3.9% - in other words, online ad spending will grow seven times faster. This disparity speaks volumes about the ongoing seismic shift in the world of advertising. However, the shift to the Internet among US marketers is even more dramatic.
eMarketer's latest ad spending projections were released on Wednesday (see Internet Advertising Will Weather a Sluggish Economy). These put growth in US online ad spending at 18.9% in 2007, within an entire advertising industry set to grow by only 1,4% ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2006-12-07
From CRM to relevance
Are your brands’ marketing messages relevant to your customers and prospects? In reality, how many marketers can describe each of their customers’ affinity to their brand, know their customers’ propensity to buy and understand their customers’ ability to afford a product or service over time? Back in the day, direct marketers relied on RFM – recency, frequency, and monetary value – to gauge the likelihood of a customer’s next purchase. Then, a host of new data sources, advanced analytic techniques and massive data warehousing capacity came along to synthesize more data faster. The result? A series of models to better predict who, when, how much and how often customers and prospects would buy ... See the Full Story
Source: DMnews

2006-12-04
Are you ready for mobile marketing?, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.
Will 2007 be the year for mobile marketing? According to the marketing pundits we hear speaking at conferences, all signs point to "yes." But are consumers and marketers truly ready? Just because mobile marketing is possible doesn't mean it's best for consumers. And so far there is no clear path marketers should take to forge respectful mobile-based relationships with consumers. Mobile marketers are heeding the mistakes made by email marketers as that technology matured. In the beginning, email's low cost and ease of use superseded consumer choice and relevance, generating a backlash that email marketers have only recently begun to overcome. Many still are branded "spammers." Mobile marketers are looking to address potential pitfalls like this ahead of time ... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2006-12-04
Is It the beginning of the end for CRM or the end of the beginning?
Recently, I opened a keynote presentation for a regional customer relationship management group with a slide, repeating this quote: CRM is dead.- Tom Siebel. My second slide, which I delivered almost immediately, deadpanned back: Tom Siebel is dead.- CRM. Good laugh line. But slide 3 went right to the heart of the matter: It was nearly a murder-suicide. Indeed, while Tom Siebel and numerous other CRM software "luminaries" were cutting their own wrists, they were also beating the CRM goose, albeit no longer laying golden eggs, to within an inch of its life. And it remains on life support today.
All of us involved in CRM-planning- and process-type folks, technology folks and CRM adopters alike-need to reflect on this. Not just repeat ad nauseum how software killed CRM. Not just whimp out and flee to "CEM" (customer experience management). Not just write another article about it. But understand at a gut level why CRM, as originally conceived, has been wounded almost beyond flight-and further, be sufficiently motivated to save the patient to sacrifice some short-term interests to protect the longer term ... See the Full Story
Source: CRMguru

2006-12-02
Five questions for evaluating and improving your email marketing
As each year comes to a close, it's always helpful to take some time to slow down, look back, and evaluate. This month's article will help you do a year-end evaluation of your email marketing efforts and uncover ways you can improve upon them in the coming year. To get started, take a moment to review the results of your email campaigns from the past 12 months (this is where the reporting features of an email marketing service really come in handy). Now, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What was I trying to accomplish with email marketing this year, and did I do it? What was your goal for your email marketing efforts? Did you achieve what you set out to do? Did you measure the results? Is your email marketing adding significant value to your organization? Did you uncover other useful purposes for email marketing? Asking these questions can help you set your goals for the upcoming year ... See the Full Story
Source: ConstantContact

2006-12-02
CRM: In-house vs. hosted
As each year comes to a close, it's always helpful to take some time to slow down, look back, and evaluate. This month's article will help you do a year-end evaluation of your email marketing efforts and uncover ways you can improve upon them in the coming year. To get started, take a moment to review the results of your email campaigns from the past 12 months (this is where the reporting features of an email marketing service really come in handy). Now, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What was I trying to accomplish with email marketing this year, and did I do it? What was your goal for your email marketing efforts? Did you achieve what you set out to do? Did you measure the results? Is your email marketing adding significant value to your organization? Did you uncover other useful purposes for email marketing? Asking these questions can help you set your goals for the upcomin ... See the Full Story
Source: eweek

2006-12-01
Making CRM accessible
I talk a lot about building relationships with customers on their terms. Many of my columns focus on the different ways to interact with customers that make sense to them: understanding cultural differences, channel preferences, and language usage.
What I haven't covered yet are ways to make customer interactions easy to understand for people who have visual or aural impairments. In making the changes we'll discuss today, you'll not only be making it easier for those customers to interact with you, but you'll also make your Web site and e-mail campaigns easier to understand for all your customers.
Accessibility Is Actually Good Design
In its simplest terms, "accessibility" means designing and coding your Web site and e-mail to be understandable by people with impairments and technologies that assist them. The National Center for Health Statistics says 7.4 million people in the U.S. use assistive technology devices to aid hearing, which is only a small percentage of the 28 million Americans reported to have some degree of hearing loss (according to the National Association of the Deaf). Lighthouse International says one in six people (17 percent) age 45 or older reports a vision impairment. Approximately 3 million (1.7 percent) people under 45 report having a vision impairment - and those numbers are just in the U.S. ... See the Full Story
Source: Clickz

2006-12-01
CRM to Go
Corporate events are on the upswing. After the post-9/11 era of decline, companies are again spending hefty portions of their budget on face-to-face events that unite them with partners and customers. It's not unusual for a large enterprise to spend tens of millions of dollars on events each year. In fact, market research firm Blackfriars Communications. estimates the 2005 corporate event market at $168 billion and 16 percent of a typical marketing budget.
Organizations have also invested heavily in extensive CRM systems and are under pressure to maximize their investment. Yet, the majority are not seizing on one of their most meaningful resources for CRM data--their face-to-face events ... See the Full Story
Source: DestinationCRM

2006-11-30
Test campaigns before executing en masse
Nikon Europe has extended its relationship with RightNow Technologies and deployed RightNow Marketing as its out-bound customer communication system, according to RightNow officials. Deployment of the system is still in its early stages; however projections suggest that the original specification of 2 million e-mails per year may fall short of actual usage, with Nikon Germany already anticipating that it will send 1.5 million emails to customers in 2007.
Nikon officials said the RightNow product's visibility into click through rates, and the ability to create test campaigns before executing en masse, were attractive features: "It is now possible to discern return on investment for our direct marketing programs and forecast more accurately the result of these ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet.com/

2006-11-28
Europe calls for concerted fight against spam
The European Commission has called on governments, regulators, Internet service providers and businesses to step up the fight against spam, spyware and malicious software. Despite existing EU legislation to outlaw spam, Europe continues to "suffer from illegal online activities from inside the EU and from third countries," the Commission said in an announcement on Tuesday. It wants national authorities to step up their actions to prosecute illegal online activities. "It is time to turn the repeated political concern about spam into concrete actions to fight spam," said Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Information Society and Media ... See the Full Story
Source: News.com

2006-11-27
Customer officers muscle into the boardroom, by Don Peppers
If American companies haven't yet embraced the role of Chief Customer Officer (CCO), there are signs that some have at least acknowledged its potential within the corporate hierarchy. Over the past 12 months, organizations including Home Depot, Pacific Gas and Electric, Activision, and UAL Corp. (United Air Lines' parent company) have created a CCO function and put some muscle behind it.
Still, when Alison Heiser tells people about her new gig as vice president and CCO at printing and supply chain-management provider Banta Corp., she generally receives blank stares in response. "They hear CCO and the next thing out of their mouth is 'what's that?'" she says. "It's an emerging role, but the critical mass isn't there yet. Frankly, I haven't run into too many other CCOs ... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2006-11-22
Pay-per-click not-so-easy
Pay-per-click advertising is not as simple as it might seem. Online marketers have taken to pay-per-click (PPC), and many use it, but apparently not everyone understands it very well. Although online marketers have been investing in PPC search marketing for a number of years, a new survey of marketers - all of whom have been using PPC for at least two years - conducted by the e-tailing group found that managing PPC programs poses a challenge. The fact that marketers use PPC was clear from the survey. In fact, with 44% of e-commerce executives surveyed saying they allocate 20% of their entire advertising budgets to PPC search ads, it constitutes a significant portion of online marketing budgets ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2006-11-22
The ABCs of CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a strategy used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. Good customer relationships are at the heart of business success. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake. The more useful way to think about CRM is as a strategic process that will help you better understand your customers’ needs and how you can meet those needs and enhance your bottom line at the same time. This strategy depends on bringing together lots of pieces of information about customers and market trends so you can sell and market your products and services more effectively ... See the Full Story
Source: CIO.com

2006-11-22
Over 50% of vacations now planned online
According to a survey from morefocus, a majority of travelers now plan their vacations using the Internet, while only a small percentage continue to use travel agents. The survey found the 58% of respondents tend to plan their personal travel online. That compares to only 23% who said they usually use travel agents to plan their vacations. In fact, the survey showed that more people, 30%, actually ask someone in their family or a friend for help planning a vacation than turn to a travel agent.
"As in a number of other industries, people are using the Internet to take control of things they used to have to rely on other people for," said Dr. Regan Carey, morefocus' research director. "Now, you can book your own hotel, plane ticket, rental car - all without leaving your home, and you probably save money, too." He concluded, "It's a trend that will only continue to grow ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2006-11-21
Avis tops loyalty leaders list, by Jason Compton
Avis and Google traded top spots in this year's Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Leaders list, a survey ranking of the top 238 companies in 35 consumer categories. Brand Keys rates brand strength based on loyalty, because in the view of the company's president, it is the leading indicator of potential success. "Loyalty is the bond that exists between the consumer and the product or service, and that bond as it increases strengthens the opportunity that the company has...to withstand the pull of competitive pricing," says Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys Inc. "Every other aspect of the marketing mix - the products themselves, and promotion, advertising, and availability - are basically table stakes, because manipulation of those elements no longer has the kind of effect it used to have ... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2006-11-20
Ramping up the customer experience, by Ginger Conlon
At Ramp Motors in Port Jefferson, NY, more than 70 percent of business comes from return customers and referrals. "It's all about relationship marketing," says Barbara Gasparik, Standards of Excellence leader for the car and truck dealership. The company has a database of about 30,000 customers, which it has recently centralized to share information across the organization. Ramp thinks of customer relationships not based on products, but with a customer-centric point-of-view. "In one family, the wife may have a Chevy Malibu, and the husband may own a dump truck for his business," she says. "There are many ways a customer interacts with us, and we want to understand that ... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2006-09-25
Wal-Mart's big plans to think small, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.
Wal-Mart has never been known to be a one-to-one marketing fan. Its gargantuan success historically has been owed to a single store model backed by extremely sophisticated and brutally efficient supply chain operations. Customers came for products they needed and prices they felt good about paying. Relationships and individual understanding simply did not enter into the picture - until now... See the Full Story
Source: 1to1Weekly

2006-09-25
When technology is an enabler, telesales improves
The old adage is: "Nothing happens until someone sells something." The flip side of this coin, of course, is: "Nobody sells something until someone buys something." Early identification of buyers—lead generation—is a primary and ongoing responsibility of inside sales teams. This activity takes the form of outbound cold calls, lead follow-up from trade shows, direct mail and other targeted marketing campaigns, building and updating the prospect database and qualifying leads. Three-quarters of firms have implemented a CRM system to support and track these and other activities, but, somewhat surprisingly, fully one-quarter have not. Is there a difference... See the Full Story
Source: CRMguru

2006-09-21
The last word on SaaS TCO
Many arguments about the relative business value of hosted and installed applications come down to the question of which costs more in the long run. Forrester Research's latest report provides hard data for medium and enterprise businesses, based on its Total Economic Impact (TEI) model. The findings, presented for businesses with 50, 100, 250, and 500 users, indicate compelling benefits over time for smaller businesses using SaaS, but larger enterprises are likely to do better with installed code.
It's still a split decision, according to "Comparing The ROI Of SaaS Versus On-Premise Using Forrester's TEI Approach." A company of 100 to 249 employees, including 50 users, will provide better TEI over a 10-year period while incurring lower absolute costs: a typical SaaS deployment would cost $1,680,000 and have a value of $882,500, as compared to installed software's $2,008,000 and $429,500, respectively.... See the Full Story
Source: destinationcrm.com

2006-03-13
Can you "own" your customers' inbox , by Martha Rogers Ph.D.
It's hard to find a marketing tactic that resembles a double-edged sword more than email. On one side it's a sharp tool for reaching customers who have already raised their hand and requested information. On the other side it's an application that is so widely used that it clutters customer inboxes with useful communication as well as spam. According to Jupiter Research, the average consumer received 3,253 spam emails in 2005. If you're using email as a marketing and communication tool, that's 3,253 too many. Enter certified email. It's the online version of the postal concept in which the sender ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2006-03-07
Marketing shouldn't always drive customer strategy
Customer strategy lies - or should lie - at the heart of customer relationship management. It defines a company's objective with regard to its customers: acquiring them, serving them and retaining them. It involves understanding the nature of customers, the relationships and the different flavors customers and relationships come in, as well as the factors driving those differences. So what is, or should be, marketing's role in defining and driving customer strategy?
Marketing is uniquely positioned with regard to developing customer strategy. It is often the area linked to all the elements needed to develop customer strategy. These include external market information, such as competitive intelligence, data about trends in customer attitudes and behaviors in the market place (not just with relation to the company and its products). It also includes internal company information about overall corporate strategy (is the focus on revenue growth or profit growth?) as well as, in many instances, detailed customer behavior and transaction information, customer profitability (across multiple products), satisfaction data and retention/attrition/loyalty information ... See the Full Story
Source: CRMguru

2006-03-07
The loyalty connection (Download)
Secrets to Customer Retention and Increased Profits, by Bob Thompson, CEO, CustomerThink Corporation and Founder, CRMGuru.com. 
Download this complimentary white paper to learn: The real drivers of loyalty and defection, from the customers' point of view; How to develop a loyalty strategy focused on the right customers; Why you must systematically deliver what your customers value, and quickly fix problems when you don't; Why measurement and reward systems are crucial to encourage customer-centric behavior within your organization; The role of CRM systems and technology in implementing your loyalty strategy ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2006-03-03
Internet advertising revenues soar to a new record
According to a new report, an estimated 30% increase in 2005 points to an inescapable fact: the surge in online advertising revenues shows no sign of a slowdown ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2006-03-02
Marketing suites miss the mark
Increasingly, marketers are asking for one integrated application suite to help them do their jobs, yet despite advances software vendors have been unable to provide one, according to recent research. Forrester Research Inc.'s latest evaluation of enterprise marketing applications was a response to marketers' demand for that unified technology. "What I think has been most interesting and different is, we're looking much more broadly at an enterprise marketing platform," said Elana Anderson, vice president and research director of the marketing strategy and technology group at Forrester and author of the report.
In December, Forrester surveyed 300 marketers, and 77% said they wanted an integrated suite. With that information, researchers set about finding which vendor could provide a technology that integrates marketing programs across channels and lines of business, optimizes customer contacts, tracks customer data and measures performance across the marketing matrix. Forrester evaluated Unica Corp., Siebel Systems Inc., Oracle Corp., SSA Global Technologies Inc., Aprimo Inc., SAP AG, the SAS Institute Inc. and Teradata against 168 criteria ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2006-03-01
The scientific reason for CRM failure - part 1
Clients often ask us, "Why are CRM failure rates so high and how can we avoid it?" The answer? Resistance. Years of data show that the people part of CRM projects has the most impact on business results. The danger is when leaders don't realize that they need to alter the way they do things.
At the crux of resistance is a tiny, almond-shape part of our brain called the amygdala. It's the part of the brain that translates the boss's statement "We are installing a CRM system-everything is changing" into "We're replacing you with this technology. You won't be able to put your kids through college, much less keep your job."
The science behind resistance is simple. When the amygdala interprets a change as threatening, it kicks in hormones that tell the body "You are in danger," resulting in involuntary reactions of freeze, fight, or flight. The consequence is the dip in the CRM project performance curve, leading to longer time lines, scope creep, missed milestones, higher implementation costs, and fewer realized benefits ... See the Full Story
Source: destinationCRM

2006-03-01
Starting to grow again
According to a new IDC study, the Western European market for CRM applications reached $2,549 million in 2004. The five major countries — France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. — made up 72 per cent of the total market. The UK is the largest single country market, followed by Germany. Hardly surprisingly SAP leads the market in Germany, while Siebel leads in France, Italy, Spain, and the UK. In vertical market terms, there are the occasional exceptions, such as Oracle's lead in the UK public sector. Curiously SAP dominates the utilities sector in every country except the UK.
The largest vertical segment in the Western European CRM applications market is finance, followed by communications and discrete manufacturing. Of the main players, Siebel and SAP each lead five vertical industries."SAP has successfully sold its CRM solution in the industries where it has a strong ERP installed base such as manufacturing, transport, and utilities," said Bo Lykkegaard, program manager, European Enterprise Applications. Siebel leads in communications, retail/wholesale, finance, government, and education and healthcare, while SAP leads in discrete and process manufacturing, transport, and business services ... See the Full Story
Source: InsightExec

2006-03-01
CRM will sustain its uptake
The CRM software license segment is maintaining a stretch of moderate growth, continuing its rebound after suffering a skid in 2003, according to Gartner's "Forecast: CRM Software, Worldwide, 2005-2010."
License revenue grew by 4.8 percent in 2005; this preliminary figure is up from initial forecast quotes of 2.7 percent, and equates to $3.6 billion in 2005. The growth rate, which doubles that of 2004, is backed by higher-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings among many of the market share leaders, strong performances from specialized solution providers, and continued consumption of on-demand solutions provided by vendors like RightNow Technologies and Salesforce.com, according to report author Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner.
Spurred by these factors, along with early forward guidance from vendors, the research firm has boosted its CAGR forecast for 2005 to 2010 from 3 percent to 4.9 percent. "Business confidence in general is improving-decision makers are investing in processes and technologies, which drive revenue generation and enable business accountability," Mertz says ... See the Full Story
Source: destinationCRM

2006-03-01
The winner in SaaS CRM
While new hosted CRM vendors are springing up daily and industry veterans like SAP and Siebel are making their own splash with their respective on-demand offerings, IBM is emerging as a force in the market for CRM Software as a Service (SaaS). Earlier this month, Germany's SAP AG unveiled its much-anticipated SAP Sales On-demand. As part of the announcement, SAP said it was partnering with IBM to provide hosting, consulting services and a joint marketing effort. IBM has 5,600 consultants prepared to offer their services to companies exploring on-demand CRM from SAP.
A similar arrangement was announced two years ago, when Siebel also branched out to include not just on-premise software, but on-demand as well. IBM was selected as Siebel's hosting, marketing and consulting partner. While that relationship may be in jeopardy thanks to Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle Corp.'s recent acquisition of Siebel, IBM maintains a significant foothold in the SaaS CRM marketplace. In fact, between the deals with CRM industry heavyweights SAP and Siebel and its business with smaller firms, IBM just may be the big winner in SaaS CRM. "At least for now they are," said Rob Bois, analyst with Boston-based AMR Research Inc. "The one major CRM vendor they don't have a relationship with is Salesforce.com, and they've been dinged by recent outages ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2006-02-27
Reached $2.55 billion in Europe 2004
Fueled by continued demand for ERP and CRM equipment, small and medium businesses in the United States are on track to spend $2.2 billion on enterprise software this year, up 10 percent from last year, according to a recent report from AMI-Partners.
CRM adoption is higher among MBs than among SBs. Over half of MBs currently use and/or plan to use CRM products in the next 12 months, compared with 23 percent of SBs. Although ACT! and other packaged software offerings are most prevalent, survey data shows salesforce.com gaining traction in both small and medium businesses ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCNet

2006-02-24
Free for home improvement contractors
Renovation Experts.com, today announced the launch of a free CRM website for home improvement contractors called RenexPro.com. The new CRM site is free for any contractor and is not exclusive to those who are already part of the existing RenovationExperts.com network. Renexpro.com allows a home improvement contractor to better manage existing sales leads, suppliers, and customer estimates.
The CRM system is built specifically for the home improvement industry and took over two years of programming to complete. Today, the typical contractor receives leads from a number of different internet sites and print sources and Renexpro.com will allow each of them to gather and manage all leads under one central location ... See the Full Story
Source: Renovation Experts.com

2006-02-24
European market-share
SAP AG leads in the $7.1 billion Western European enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications market, but lags behind its closest rival Siebel in the customer relationship management (CRM) market, according to an IDC report released Friday. As for CRM, snagging Siebel clearly put Oracle in the strongest position in Western Europe. Oracle, which closed the deal on Siebel this year, isn't expected to experience the same pain. Lykkegaard expects Oracle to keep the momentum of new license sales. Pro forma numbers for 2004, Lykkegaard said, show Oracle with 18 percent Western Europe CRM market share, compared with SAP's 11 percent ... See the Full Story
Source: Informationweek

2006-02-23
Record fourth quarter
Salesforce.com leading supplier of on-demand CRM, today announced results for its fiscal fourth quarter ended January 31, 2006. “We were able to accomplish record revenue and subscriber growth while executing some of our most ambitious technology changes ever, including the AppExchange” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. “The on-demand model has never had more appeal, whether you’re a customer ready to reap the benefits, or a legacy enterprise software company struggling to catch up.
Revenue of $91.1M, up 67% year-over-year; record cash flow from operations of $39.3 million, up 86% year-over-year; fully diluted EPS rises to $0.05, up 67% year-over-year; paying subscribers rise a record 48,000 to 399,000, up 76% year-over-year; customers rise a record 1,800 to 20,500, up 47% year-over-year ... See the Full Story
Source: Salesforce.com

2006-01-27
The three Es of CRM
SAP announced this week that it will launch a hosted-CRM application in February, which the company hopes will allow it to compete further with Salesforce.com. CEO Henning Kagermann made the announcement during SAP's 2005 fiscal earnings briefing on Wednesday morning. Bill Wohl, spokesman for SAP, confirmed the news today. "Our view is that existing on-demand products are very niche, and do not really meet customers' CRM requirements," Wohl says. "There has been a move away from best-of-breed CRM software vendors towards companies like SAP that offer companies suites integrating CRM with other enterprise applications ... See the Full Story
Source: destinationCRM

2006-01-27
Turns profitable
Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) got a boost on Thursday when the software company released earnings for fiscal second quarter, which ended Dec. 31.
All interest pointed to reports that total company net income reached $3.65 billion, or 34 cents per share, up from 3.46 billion or 32 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly revenue rose to $11.84 billion compared with $10.82 billion in the year-earlier period. But the enterprise applications division, which some skeptics began to doubt would ever deliver, handed over significantly stronger results than in past years. MBS delivered strong revenue growth for the quarter. The group posted an operating profit of $10 million vs. a loss of $17 million for the same quarter in the prior year. MBS revenue rose 17 percent to $242 million driven by strength in Microsoft Dynamics solutions sales, particularly Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, which launched in December 2005 ... See the Full Story
Source: Informationweek

2006-01-09
A message to IKEA
Shopping at IKEA is a pleasant experience. The location of everything in the store is clearly marked, the space is designed to encourage a logical flow of shoppers, shopping is ample, and the facilities (cafe, restroom, childcare, returns, etc.) are usually in proximity to the entrance. Navigating IKEA.com, however, is another experience entirely ... See the Full Story
Source: destinationkm

2006-01-02
The three Es of CRM
Successful organizations need to deliver experience, execution, and equity to continue evolving strategies and capabilities ... See the Full Story
Source: destinationCRM

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2005-12-31
Happy New Year 2006

2005-12-30
Forrester looks at CRM best practices. Part 3: Pitfalls
William Band, a CRM analyst for Forrester Research has written a highly useful paper titled "Best Practices For CRM Deployment."
"Forrester talked with 22 large organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia to understand their methods for achieving business performance improvement through investment in CRM initiatives," Band writes. "Organizations spend heavily to improve customer-facing processes, but they still struggle to achieve satisfactory returns on their effort ... People challenges are the toughest problems ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet

2005-12-28
Marketing to Teens
Want to get young consumers to pay attention to the product your marketing? Have you tried advergaming? A new study by Forrester Research recommends using gadgets and games to get the attention of 12 to 21 year-olds ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2005-12-27
The IT year in quotes
The words from the IT industry aren't as colorful or as profuse as they once were. High-profile chief executive officers (CEOs) aren't as quick to savage competitors publicly these days given that everyone partners with all of their peers, even bitter rivals, in one way or another. What's that adage about keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer ... See the Full Story
Source: ItWorld

2005-12-24
Forrester looks at CRM best practices. Part 2: What works
Band has identified ten best practices companies use "to address five critical issues: governance, process management, data management, user adoption, and technology." He finds that "as a result, these businesses have captured four types of benefits: increased revenues, lower costs, higher return on investment, and improved competitive strength ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet

2005-12-23
Online customer acquisition: Ten steps to success
Looking for more customers who are interested in your products or services? This white paper, sponsored by Prospectiv, offers a quick but comprehensive roadmap to online customer acquisition. Packed with data from dozens of sources, this eMarketer white paper offers a step-by-step approach, identifying opportunities and warning of potential pitfalls ... See the Full Story
Source: eMarketer

2005-12-22
Forrester looks at CRM best practices. Part 1: Overview
"Enterprises view customer-facing strategies and technologies as critical to gaining competitive advantage," as Band and his research colleagues have found, leading them to "continue to spend a great deal on CRM, though many organizations still struggle to find the right practices to leverage CRM to its greatest benefits."
Enterprises will spend more than $3 billion worldwide on new CRM software licenses in 2005, Band writes: "Total spending on CRM, including maintenance, integration, and related hardware and software, will be more than $12 billion ... See the Full Story
Source: TMCnet

2005-12-22
Be heard above the increasing noise
You need to implement a system that can help you to manage the different channels of communications and the increasing volumes of content, information and data which IT executives say will rise by up to 20-30% over the next two years.
Mobile marketing will become more important than email, although it remains an important personalised marketing communications tool, particularly in the business-to-business (B2B) sector ... See the Full Story
Source: ResponseSource

2005-12-22
EU clears Oracle to buy Siebel
The European Commission on Thursday cleared Oracle Corp.'s proposed US$5.85 billion (euro5 billion) acquisition of rival Siebel Systems Inc., the last regulatory hurdle for the deal ... See the Full Story
Source: yahoo.com

2005-12-19
Retailers learn from the ghosts of holidays past, by Martha Rogers Ph.D.
If holiday online shopping predictions come true this season, retailers will have good reason to pop the corks on New Year's Eve.
That's because most retailers with an online presence are expected to provide solid site performances, satisfactory service, and unique customer experiences this holiday season. Now making the turn into their second decade of hosting online stores, many retailers have accumulated enough holiday shopping season debacles under their belts to learn how to fix the ghosts of Christmases past. Retailers now boast overall improved service levels, better visibility into inventory, stronger fulfillment capabilities, improved customer segmentation, increased data storage, and personalized shopping tools on their sites ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-12-15
Dear Santa, I've been a good data management manager
I've been a good data management manager all year long. I've been nice to my business users, managers and peers. I've provided thorough materials explaining the value of our company's data management efforts to my managers so they could present it to upper management. I've kept up with the latest best practices, technological innovations and industry trends. I've even championed data stewardship and ownership; explained the connection between financial transparency and metadata (which made everyone think I was an alien!); and encouraged the IT staff to document its applications. But sometimes, Santa, I think I am Don Quixote chasing the windmills ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2005-12-13
Eliminating the disaster in disaster planning
This summer, the Mayflower National Life Insurance Co. began devising a concentrated disaster recovery plan. The company's New Orleans-based office got the plan in place just in time. On Aug. 29 Hurricane Katrina hit the city, knocking out power, flooding the streets and leaving thousands fending for their lives. "We hadn't quite finished it," said Terri McCormack, director of operations. "We were close but we hadn't tested it yet. We had a live test ... See the Full Story
Source: SearchCRM

2005-12-12
We're making a list: Top companies for customer value, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers Ph.D.
Now that we're moving toward the end of the year, it's a good time to reveal our choices for hot companies likely to create the most shareholder value over the next few years. These firms are likely to be the ones that focus on earning customer trust and increasing the rate of change in the value of the customer base.
Verizon Wireless is one of the few companies for which numbers speak eloquently. From 2002 to 2004 Verizon Wireless grew its customer base from 29.4 million handsets in use to 43.8 million, reporting a total of $13.7 billion in operating earnings. But the real news is what happened to customer turnover during the same period ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-12-05
Black Friday: Black mark on customer value, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers Ph.D.
It's almost a sport to see the madness of the masses on the day after Thanksgiving in America. Right up there with the tradition of turkey, football and parades, we can see evening news clips of pre-dawn shopping at Wal-Mart, and throngs of eager bargain hunters pushing through the doors at retailers with more serious reputations like Best Buy and even Saks Fifth Avenue. Well, pardon us for throwing cold water on this circus act, but we just don't buy it. (And we'll bet a lot of consumers wished they really had stayed in bed!) ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-11-28
Does loyalty really connect to customer value, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers Ph.D.
Customer loyalty. It's something every brand, service and company seeks. But the debate about whether loyalty actually translates into increased customer value and improved financial performance continues to rage. In a loyalty-as-points program, popular with industries like airlines and supermarkets, customer value can be hard to prove. Consumers may be members of a number of programs, and not particularly loyal to a brand just because they're collecting points from it. "Loyalty shouldn't rely solely on a program," says loyalty consultant Jack Aaronson, CEO of Aaronson Group. "If it does, you've already lost the game ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-11-07
Customer advocacy part II: A matter of trust, by Martha Rogers Ph.D.
The importance of transparency as an element of customer advocacy was previously discussed. We showed how companies and even whole industries such as pharmaceuticals are making more information available to customers. This week, we explore the importance of trustworthiness in the context of customer advocacy.
Operationally, trustworthiness actually has a lot to do with our last topic: transparency. We believe trust can be built into every customer interaction and every corporate action.
For example, TRUSTe and Ponemon Institute recently ranked American Express number one in their annual survey of the most trusted companies. Of course, by its very nature, American Express must work to earn and keep its customers' trust, for the same reason that your bank would have to, or your stock broker. But we believe trust is baked into every aspect of this company's operation ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-11-07
Microsoft exec weighs in on CRM 3.0
Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft's CRM unit, talked to Computerworld's Marc L. Songini about the release of the company's long-awaited CRM 3.0 software, which it said last week will ship in early December, a few months earlier than expected. Wilson also explained why Microsoft jumped from Version 1.2 to 3.0, and he provided some details on the size of the company's CRM business ... See the Full Story
Source: Computerworld

2005-11-05
Takes short-sighted approach to on-demand CRM
Microsoft's views on on-demand line of business software became clearer Friday with its pronouncement that it will not introduce a hosted version of its brand-new CRM 3.0 package. Whatever it may do with on-demand software in the future, offering hosted versions of major business applications isn't in the cards - at least in the near term ... See the Full Story
Source: eWeek

2005-11-03
Named 2005 Gartner CRM innovator award winner
Gartner's 2005 CRM Innovator award was presented at the Gartner CRM Summit in San Diego. New this year, the Innovator award candidates were evaluated on how well they demonstrated a particularly impressive level of creativity and innovation in their CRM initiatives. Key evaluation criteria include: creative use of innovative customer channels, novel methods of achieving the transformation to a customer-centric organization, and innovative use of existing technologies and strategies.
"We are very pleased to receive the Gartner CRM Innovator award," said Joseph Bruno, Director, Online Marketing, Pitney Bowes Direct. "With Talisma's customer interaction management solution we have transformed our customer's online experience and allowed associates to be more engaged in the selling process. As a result we've increased sales and boosted customer satisfaction ... See the Full Story
Source: crm2day

2005-11-03
Beats deadline with revamped CRM package
Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that it is bringing forward the launch date of its much-anticipated CRM 3.0 package, but won't talk about pricing until next month. "We finished our release of Microsoft CRM 3.0 a bit early," said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft's CRM unit, on Thursday. "We reckoned we would have it finished by the end of this quarter and make it generally available in the first quarter of next year. Instead, we finished the release on Monday and will be releasing it in early December." Foreign language versions are slated to ship three to four months later ... See the Full Story
Source: zdnet

2005-10-05
Hosted CRM gains momentum
Frost & Sullivan's most recent study on the North American Hosted CRM market integrates findings based on extensive research and inputs gathered from leading software vendors, systems integrators, and end-users in this market. In a coming analyst briefing, we will discuss functional applications, vendor solutions and future direction for hosted CRM. We will also present market trends, drivers, inhibitors, market size and growth opportunities for Hosted CRM. "Hosted CRM triggered the software-as-a-service wave across the enterprise, and will continue to be a key growth engine for the CRM industry," notes Senior Research Analyst Ashwin Iyer. "In North America, the Hosted CRM market garnered $383 million in revenues in 2004 and projects to exceed $1 billion in revenues by 2009 ... See the Full Story
Source: PRNewswire

2005-10-05
Industry's highest honor
Salesforce.com has been recognized by CRM magazine as an award winning vendor in all three market segments. For the second year in a row, Salesforce.com is the only company to be cited across the three Market Leader awards categories: Enterprise Suite CRM, Midmarket Suite CRM, and Small Business Suite CRM. The CRM Market Leader awards recognize the top five vendors in eight categories based on a combination of weighted criteria, including revenues and revenue growth, market share, reputation for customer satisfaction, reputation for company direction, and depth of functionality. The awards are part of the magazine's 2005 CRM Leader Awards, which recognize superior performance in three areas: ROI excellence in customer companies, individual achievement, and vendor leadership ... See the Full Story
Source: All Headline News

2005-10-04
Thumbs up for paid search
Despite rising costs, increased competition and click fraud complaints, a new poll finds that marketers are happier with paid search advertising results now than they were a year ago. When was the last time you remember hearing that marketers were actually more satisfied with a marketing channel today than in the past ... See the Full Story
Source: emarketer

2005-10-01
It's time to redefine CRM
Times have changed for CRM and its relationship with marketing, the key activity in a company's value chain that can be impacted by a CRM initiative. Emerging new media and channels and dramatic upgrades in technology have all augmented marketing CRM's potential contribution to a company's competitive positioning. Harnessing marketing CRM, however, to improve ongoing customer profitability has become significantly more complex and challenging. B2C executives wishing to pursue ... See the Full Story
Source: Destinationcrm

2005-09-28
Handling a hosted CRM upgrade
Every year, the Briggs Corp., a healthcare product and service provider based in West Des Moines, Iowa, undergoes a couple of dozen significant technology upgrades. It can be a chore for an IT staff of 13. Some transitions, however, are easier than others. When Briggs upgraded its hosted CRM system from RightNow 7.0 to 7.5, it became the 3,000th upgrade under the Bozeman, Mont., vendor's Upgrade-On-Demand feature. Upgrade-On-Demand allows users to test out key functionalities, and switch on the upgrade on their own schedule ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-09-12
Oracle to buy Siebel
Today Oracle announced that it will acquire CRM top dog Siebel Systems Inc. for approximately $5.85 billion, further bolstering its enterprise software business. Oracle had already been a strong player in enterprise CRM, but acquiring Siebel adds 4,000 new customers and 3.4 million CRM users to its portfolio.
- In a single step, Oracle becomes the No. 1 CRM applications company in the world, said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, during a conference call with financial analysts Monday morning. The buyout should also fortify Oracle in its battle against SAP AG, the world's leading provider of business applications. Oracle already significantly added to its software arsenal when it completed its hard-fought takeover of PeopleSoft in January ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-08-29
Do your customers benefit from outsourced marketing
Lately, marketers have been spread thin. Constrained resources and limited operational expertise are taking a toll on companies' marketing initiatives. In some cases, it may drive relationship-building activities into the arms of another. Managed properly, however, that could be a positive arrangement for both a company and its customers, says Don Peppers ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-08-26
Review: Hosted CRM software
Because customer relationship management software is time-consuming and expensive to implement and maintain, more companies, especially small and midsize businesses, are considering outsourcing. In 2002, just 8 percent of SMBs looked to outside providers for their CRM initiatives. This will grow to 33 percent by 2009, according to Gartner, by which time businesses will be spending nearly $1 billion on CRM services. We decided to evaluate CRM service providers to see what advances are driving the growth ... See the Full Story
Source: Informationweek

2005-08-22
CRM software: A customer loyalty problem
The CRM software industry has the lowest percentage of loyal U.S. customers compared to other software segments, including desktop, enterprise, and infrastructure, according to Walker Information's "The Walker Loyalty Report for Software and Hardware." The report is based on 18,089 brand evaluations from 5,475 respondents; it analyzes results from 58 IT brands representing 30 companies ... See the Full Story
Source: Destinationcrm

2005-08-19
Revenue generation
High priority on accelerating the sales cycle and quickly ROI-justifying marketing efforts. Take a look on what LeadGenesys is doing and you will find informative and at the very least give your team some revenue generation ideas for the upcoming quarter ... See the Full Story
Source: Leadgenesys

2005-08-19
Online travel bookings
Expedia is still ahead of the pack when it comes to online travel bookings, but Travelocity is gaining ground, according to Merrill Lynch. Merrill projects that online travel agency revenues will rise 19% in 2005, reaching $27.7 billion. Online travel sales are winning a larger share of the overall travel market, accounting for nearly 30% of the total this year, up from 25% in 2004 and 21% in 2003 ... See the Full Story
Source: emarketer

2005-08-18
Version 3.0 testing
As of August 18th, Microsoft CRM 3.0 is in the "TAP" (Technology Adoption Program) phase of the product release cycle, and a very limited group of Microsoft CRM partners have access to the software. However, all of the TAP2 partners are under strict non-disclosure agreements that prevent us from divulging any Microsoft CRM 3.0 information to anyone...including our existing customers ... See the Full Story
Source: addict3d

2005-08-17
Record quarter results
- From large enterprises to small companies, customers are taking CRM to new levels of success with our customizable on-demand service, said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. - As we head into our third annual Dreamforce user and developer conference in September, our momentum continues to be very strong. It took us four years to reach our first hundred thousand subscribers, a year and a quarter to reach our second hundred thousand subscribers, and now only three quarters to reach our third hundred thousand subscribers ... See the Full Story
Source: zdnet

2005-08-16
CRM buyer's top selection criteria
Analysts and CRM vendors have declared that the feature/function war is now over, and a recent report from Forrester Research Inc. backs that up. After surveying 119 global organizations across a broad array of industries, the research firm found that while functionality is still important, it is by no means the only criteria when selecting CRM technology and not even the most important one.
"The CRM software market has been driven primarily by product innovation, and companies spend a tremendous amount of time comparing features and functionality," said William Band, consulting analyst ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-08-16
Fundamental CRM Benefits
Schiach sees the benefits of CRM as coming in two broad areas, service and support of existing customers and acquisition of new customers. "We're anticipating percentage improvements in our volume of new business over the next 18 months as a result of introducing a full suite of CRM tools," he says. CRM tools like campaign management and direct marketing support will, he says, enable the company to identify new business and close it ... See the Full Story
Source: Line56.com

2005-08-15
Customers know when they're valuable
Treating different customers differently has often been touted as the hallmark of customer strategy. A new survey not only confirms that thinking, it shows that customers expect it. A survey of 1,000 consumers, commissioned by Grizzard Performance Group and conducted by Infosurv in May 2005, states that more than half of consumers (58 percent) are not bothered when some customers receive special treatment "because they provide more value to the company" ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-08-15
Most Valuable Players
Most marketers have come to accept that their interactions with consumers come primarily from behind focus-group mirrors. Ironically, marketing has traditionally been the function that sits the furthest from the customer. Rarely do marketers have direct access to the people who purchase their company's products or services ... See the Full Story
Source: cmomagazine

2005-08-14
Customers say CRM service has room for improvement
A report from consulting firm Accenture claims that UK consumers are still unhappy with customer service levels, despite many companies there having invested heavily in CRM tools in the past five years. A survey of 1,000 UK consumers found that over two thirds, 67%, thought customer service had not improved over the past five years, with half of UK consumers claiming that poor customer service has led them to change service providers in the past 12 months ... See the Full Story
Source: itp.net

2005-08-14
More of business, less of technology
Amol Joshi has just left for work when he receives a call on his mobile phone from an agent selling home loans. Amol is interested in a loan but the bank's interest rate appears to be high- he tells the agent to get back with a better rate. That afternoon he receives another call on his office number from the same bank - it doesn't take long for Amol to figure that there has been no interaction between the former and current agent ... See the Full Story
Source: financialexpress

2005-08-14
Salesforce of the future
Remember the good old days? Back in 1999, everybody in e-business (or B2B as it was often called at the time) used to laugh at the offline brick-and-mortar firms, those once-great companies that were still, now get this, using human beings to generate sales. The way it looked then, sales reps were an endangered species destined for extinction. They had had their day, and it was time to move on. The Web ruled; the traditional brick-and-mortar firms, with all their surplus salespeople, would soon go the way of the dodo ... See the Full Story
Source: Line56.com

2005-08-12
The wrong CRM packages
Clearly, CRM vendors are targeting the small and midsize business space with their offerings. While the options are proliferating, with many being well suited to small businesses, some applications are not. As a result, more and more small businesses are opting for the wrong package ... See the Full Story
Source: cio-today

2005-08-12
CRM applications market reached €7.1bn
The customer relationship management (CRM) market grew eight per cent in 2004, resulting in total market revenues of €7.1bn, according to a report from market advisory firm IDC. The CRM applications market returned to positive growth in 2004 due to the resurgence of demand by user organisations ... See the Full Story
Source: digitalmediaasia

2005-08-10
Get ready for the era of the virtual contact center
For many years, people have been saying that offshore contact centers are the wave of the future. From a cost perspective, this view was hard to argue with. Yet now we see VoIP bringing about a new era of home-based U.S.-CSRs. Because the cost of providing service has come down significantly, American centers can now compete again on a more even playing field ... See the Full Story
Source: tmcnet

2005-08-08
Hosted CRM doesn't rise to the top
A longtime leader in on-premises applications, Siebel Systems has been fighting an uphill battle in the hosted CRM space against powerhouses like Salesforce.com and hot service-centric evangelists like RightNow Technologies. With the latest release of CRM OnDemand, Siebel takes a significant step toward catching up ... See the Full Story
Source: infoworld

2005-07-05
Excellence award
Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has presented salesforce.com with a 2005 CRM Excellence Award for its Summer '05 release. The magazine selected Summer '05 as a leading CRM solution that provides measurable business results for customers ... See the Full Story

2005-06-02
Self-service stakes revenue claim
Self-service applications are well-known for saving companies money, but a few firms are finding out that when done right, it can bring in revenue as well. According to a recent survey from Boston-based AMR Research Inc., Web self-service technology will be the most frequently implemented application in 2005, with 34% of the firms surveyed citing plans for self-service this year. Yet, when asked to rank the importance of implementing business applications, Web self-service came in last. "When business-line executives were asked what was most important to them, the focus was on generating revenue ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-04-28
Loyalty card reaches 60% usage
The UK-based supermarket chain Somerfield says it has signed up some three million members in its Saver Card loyalty programme, and has announced that 60% of its sales are now linked to the card. When Somerfield launched its Saver Card customer loyalty programme in early 2004 we noted that, in the UK supermarket sector, it was a programme with a difference; one in which loyalty points were replaced by instant rewards ...  See the Full Story
Source: thewisemarketer

2005-04-28
E-mail marketing: Alive and well
Despite the assault e-mail marketing endures from spam and phishing, even with the drag on delivery rates imposed by the filters, and regardless of the sheer e-mail overload in most people's inboxes, 71% of US online advertisers used e-mail marketing in 2004, says Mr. Hallerman. That's only six points less than the number of respondents using paid search - the current interactive marketing favorite - and 12% of advertisers plan to start e-mail campaigns in 2005 ... See the Full Story
Source: emarketer

2005-04-25
In a league of its own
Major League Baseball used CRM to succeed with a venture that many thought would strike out ... See the Full Story
Source: cio.com

2005-04-18
2005 Customer champions
Sam Walton once said that a customer can fire everyone in a company, from the CEO on down, simply by spending his money elsewhere. That assertion is perhaps more germane today than it was when Walton first said it - heady competition and the ease of moving from one supplier to another has organizations scrambling to retain and grow customers. Smart companies are meeting this challenge by appointing an executive to be the champion of the customer ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-04-14
Privacy
The insurance industry has shown a qualified improvement in responsiveness to online enquiries, according to The Customer Respect Group's latest study of customer respect on the internet, but these firms continue to share consumer data without permission at a higher rate than many other industries. In the area of privacy, however, there was very little improvement. In general, insurance firms have continued to share user-submitted online data with business partners and other third parties without permission at a worrying rate. While the all-industry 2004 average was 24%, and the insurance industry's 2004 average was 34%, the Q1 2005 study revealed that the rate is climbing slowly, now standing at 35% ...  See the Full Story
Source: thewisemarketer

2005-04-13
Managing all kind of information
Salesforce.com showed its next release in San Francisco yesterday. The hosted CRM pioneer, which has recently been pushing its customization and integration technology, previewed its Sforce Partner Portal and Sforce 6.0. Both are expected to be a part of this summer release due in June. The Partner Portal Toolkit is a Java-based application for creating portals on a Web site, allowing companies to share leads, contacts, opportunities and documents with their partners ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-04-12
The personalized economy
Mass production has hit a dead end. Today's consumers increasingly expect individualized attention. Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff explains how CIOs can help their companies understand this shifting economic landscape ... See the Full Story
Source: cio.com

2005-04-11
A big eye-opener for anyone
What if SalesForce.com, Siebel or Microsoft next big CRM software competitor was a freely licensed Open Source application that any business could download and use from the web? How would SAP fair if the sales battle is no longer against rival Oracle but a highly adaptive, fast growing and free software application whose development is powered by hundreds of communitarian-minded software geeks. If Linux’s introduction in 1994 was a shot across the bow of Microsoft and other enterprise software companies, today’s new breed of Open Source applications built on top of Linux may be the shot that ultimately sinks their ships ... See the Full Story
Source: prweb

2005-04-10
TOP 50 resources
The most popular documents ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.bitpipe

2005-04-06
Merging programmes
Two major European frequent flyer programmes - Frequence Plus and Flying Dutchman - are to merge, and will be called Flying Blue, which will have some ten million members. The result will be a new programme, Flying Blue, which will have some ten million members. Flying Blue will be the basic tool used by both airlines' customer relations management programmes to recognise their loyal customers.
Source: thewisemarketer

2005-04-06
Information quality market to reach $1 billion
Companies have been concerned with dirty data in their organizations for some time, but a recent report makes it abundantly clear that the problem isn't going away. The overall information quality market will pass the $1 billion mark in 2008, according to Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. The information quality market, as defined by Forrester, includes software, professional services and data enhancement ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-04-05
CRM preps for Web services push
While widespread adoption of Web services is still years away, CRM vendors are starting to stand up and take notice of the technology that could fundamentally change their business.
- The biggest thing you're going to see is the days of the monolithic application are going to change in the Web services environment, said Scott Nelson, vice president and distinguished analyst with Gartner Inc ... See the Full Story
Source: searchcrm.techtarget

2005-03-22
Basic CRM common sense
The story goes that when tennis star Jimmy Connors missed a crucial point in a match, he walked back to the sideline muttering something to himself. When asked later what he was saying, he said he was reminding himself “Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball ... See the Full Story
Source: tmcnet

2005-02-28
Retailers leave gift card potential unwrapped
There's an expression in retailing that says: "You don't leave money on the table." Yet with the recent proliferation of gift cards, retailers may be doing just that by missing out on customer data opportunities.
Gift cards come in several versions. In addition to retailers, gift cards can also be offered by credit card companies as well as banks. The most popular are branded cards such as Amazon, The Gap, The Apple Store and Target, sold at retail stores or through the Internet. Barnes and Noble during the past holiday season had a $1,000 gift card available. Sales of gift cards across all retail categories have grown 25 percent for each of the past four years, according to a Bain & Company report. For the 2004 holiday shopping season gift cards made up 10 percent to 13 percent of total volume or about $20 billion, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers ... See the Full Story
Source: Inside 1to1

2005-02-28
A second act for CRM
The 15 sales reps at Intellinet were skeptical - and it was easy to see why. Over the previous four years, executives at the Atlanta consulting firm had introduced four customer relationship management, or CRM, systems. Each time, the execs promised that the new technology would revolutionize the sales cycle by analyzing trends and providing road maps to bigger and better sales results. Yet each initiative failed, costing Intellinet tens of thousands of dollars and the sales reps hours and hours of headaches.
Now it was new vice president Scott Ehmen's turn. He had joined the company in early 2004 with a mandate to find and institute a CRM system that works. Bear with me, he told the sales reps. They did - and they have no regrets for having done so. Almost immediately after the latest system was introduced, new and fascinating data began to appear, data that helped Intellinet make some smart decisions - including scaling back a Florida office and opening a new outpost in New York City. Thanks to the new CRM system, sales are up some 50% ... See the Full Story
Source: inc.com

2005-02-28
CRM for customers and workers
Pitney Bowes nearly 2000 field service technicians often found that they lacked critical customer service information at the times when they needed it most - while servicing their customers. Toward that end, the document management provider spent more than US 20 million on a system that lets its mobile work force access and manage data. The solution involves three main components: a CRM Siebel Field Service system from Siebel Systems Inc. on the back end; nearly 2000 wireless devices in the field, including smart phones from various carriers and BlackBerry devices from Research In Motion and Antenna Software's A3 solution for Siebel, to make the bridge between the CRM system and the wireless devices ... See the Full Story
Source: eweek

2005-02-24
Helped dealers sell 210,000 vehicles
How can you get millions of consumers to fill out an online registration form revealing their interest in buying a specific car or truck? Consider FordDirect's 2004 stats: 3.5 million monthly visitors - 1.5 million new vehicle referrals per year, plus an additional number of used vehicle referrals - 210,000 new and used vehicles sold as a result - 9% of Ford-brand vehicle annual sales from site referrals. We interviewed Steve St. Andre, President & COO, to discover how they did it. Turns out, it's all about relentless testing ... See the Full Story
Source: marketingsherpa

2005-01-16
CRM is no magic bullet
CRM is not, by any means, a new topic. Yet, many of my client engagements begin with reeling in the wildly pervasive notion that CRM is a m