Non classé

Announcing CRM Idol – Your Company up on the Billboard!

25 Apr , 2011  

Imagine yourself as a rookie baseball player, being called up to bat in the NY Yankees stadium. The crowd is in extasy, all wanting to see whether you can hit that homerun and win the game. Or that you have been selected as a contestant in a television show, to show off your talent to the whole, country, and even the world! This is the aim of Crm Idol, to give you a chance to strut your company’s stuff in the limelight – and with some cool prizes to be won. I am honoured to have been chosen as one of the judges and I want to thank Paul Greenberg for this

I’ll now let him walk you through the contest and the rules, and wish you all the best of luck!

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Non classé

Social CRM in Retail

28 Feb , 2011  

The Edelman Trust Barometer indicated that we trust CEOs and experts more than last year, and that trust in “people like me” slipped down the list. But, when it comes down to it, who do you turn to when you want to know how a dress looks on you – your friends, or the brand’s CEO?

Thomas Wieberneit wrote a post last week with a similar title, and we started a good old-fashioned discussion through email to see how Social CRM thinking could enhance the customer experience. One of the key thoughts is that people will turn to their strong ties for advice and discuss options, and their ‘hire’ the brand (which is basically a weak tie) for service delivery in the for of goods, services,and knowledge. Furthermore, rather than “consuming passively”, people are now participating activily in meeting their own desired outcomes, including shaping the service they want using what I label Customer Enablement Technology.

To give you an idea of what this could all look like, I thought up a scenario, and Thomas added to it and I’d like to share it with you here:

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Non classé

Incentivising Online Community Participation

14 Feb , 2011  

The adage concerning online customer communities has it that you should not give monetary rewards or gifts to members, as this is an impediment to to the ‘health’ of the community and keeping it vibrant. Participants would be motivated only by their gains, and this can discourage members who are there for the ‘social’ aspect of exchanging with likeminded individual, social recognition, and finding peer support.

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Non classé

Customer Insights, Collaboration, and Cloud in 2011

14 Dec , 2010  

It’s that time of the year again, when we look back to the past and try to project what will happen in the future. Although I do not consider myself to be an analyst, I do have some ideas I’d like to share concerning my areas of interest.

Clouds above San Francisco

The year 2010 has seen a rapid adoption of the idea that companies should listen more closely what customers are saying in order to understand their job-to-be-done and work towards meeting their desired outcomes. These outcome can be an ideal customer experience, or adapting a service offering so that it better meets needs and expectations. Customer experience now increasingly includes using social media to find and exchange with like-minded individuals, creating de facto online communities. Customer Engagement strategies which integrate these channels is increasingly being accepted by companies for Voice Of Customer, to source ideas for innovation, and to scale support.

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Collaboration,Enterprise 2.0,Social CRM,Workflow / BPM

Service Agility thru Adaptive Case Management

27 Oct , 2010  

Who hasn’t been there? After waiting 20 minutes on hold with Customer Service, then 15 mins for explaining your problem, the Contact Center Agent says she is really sorry, but can’t do anything about resolving  it because something first has to be done by some other department, or it the system won’t let her do what needs to be done as this isn’t in the process, even though it should be simple and straightforward to do.

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Enterprise 2.0,Social CRM

Enterprise 2.0 And The Different Flavours of Social CRM

20 Oct , 2010  

Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 are a natural fit. In an endorsement for the Enterprise 2.0 book, Leo Apotheker (now heading HP) said that “McAfee clearly understands the role of IT in creating superior customer value…”, and indeed, I very much agree with this statement. However, where I believe software vendors have put too much emphasis in their interpretation of what needs to be done, is that they have focused too much on the pure IT side of the equation. This is where the social CRM approach can bring balance to the discussion by looking at how innovative customer engagement strategies – enabled through employee participation and collaboration – can help deliver the sought-after superior customer value.

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Non classé

Customer Enablement Technology

9 Aug , 2010  

Enterprise Software Vendors have always focused on their enterprise clients’ needs when concocting their products. SFA, SCM, CRM, ERM, [insert your TLA] were all developed with the objective of optimising business from the inside-out, formalising and streamlining processes and connecting systems, and now with Social Software in the Workplace connecting people again. In parallel to that, we have seen companies build platforms that help people connect such as the now-ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter and consorts, bridging time and space to help people interact and reinforce ties with others like them.

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Collaboration,Enterprise 2.0,Social CRM

Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM Converge towards the Collaborative Enterprise

17 Jun , 2010  

At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Milan where Esteban Kolsky and I presented the “The New Era of Customer Engagement with Social CRM“, I spoke with Emanuele Quintarelli of Open Knowledge who organized the event – and he did a very good job I might add!.  During our conversation Emanuele made the remark that Social CRM has now become an accepted part of the agenda in comparison with last year. Participants attending the previous edition found it strange to even mention customers when discussing E2.0 and preferred to focus on the software solutions – but this year this seems to have changed completely.

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Analytics and Data Mining,ROI,Social CRM

Data-Driven Social CRM

15 Apr , 2010  

I have been reading some very interesting books about strategies around becoming a customer-driven organisation and also about the benefits of Customer Engagement Programs (more on that in later posts). In the discussion around Social CRM we agree that it is beneficial to business to engage the Social Customer, but what seems to be more difficult to articulate is the Business Value Proposition – why should a company invest in Customer Engagement Programs in conjunction with CRM? What value is in it for the company and what is in it for the customers? We also talk about the need to move from value-in-exchange thinking to value-in-use. What tangible benefits are there for companies to take a a customer Lifetime Value approach rather than concentrate on the sale? Or simply, how can Social CRM Strategies can provide a significant impact to the bottom line.

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Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 Boston Bait and Switch

31 Mar , 2010  

[tweetmeme source=”MarkTamis” service=”bit.ly”]
Enterprise 2.0 concepts and tools are gaining more and more traction in “mainstream” Business Practices as this is seen as a good way to captialize on the human assets of organisations. To reflect this trend, and to spread awareness and understanding and also to provide a platform for exchange of expriences, a conference is being organised at the Westin Boston Waterfront on June 14-17, 2010.

Apparently it was felt that the base premise of the subject was not enough to attract attention that the organisers had to resort to Switch and Bait practices to generate Buzz and use Command & Control decision making (how very Enterprise 1.0…). I commented on the announcement to draw attention to the dichotomy between their message of “letting the audience decide” and their actions.

Apparently, my opinion did not go in the sense they wanted so I guess they decided against publishing it. Or they’re not monitoring and thus didn’t get round to moderating yet – in that case, why provide a comments area?

Let me elaborate on the dichotomy through the use ofPrem Kumar’s  Context, Content, and Intent -at least  in my opinion… More…