August 2003

Magazine Features

We are the Champions

Here, the winning strategies of five CRM project leaders who successfully championed CRM initiatives within their organizations.

Balancing Act

Is it possible to strike a balance between optimizing productivity and providing top-notch service and profit from it? Yes.

6 Barriers to CRM Success And How to Overcome Them

Take the following advice on how to overcome these six barriers, and keep your organization from being among those that have squandered their CRM investments.

CRM Scores With Sports Fans

The average cost of taking a family of four to an NBA game passed $280 this year, according to Team Marketing Report. When you drop that kind of money for an event, sports is about more than the thrill of victory.

Front Office

A Powerful Mix

Reality Check

Customer Loyalty? Get Over It. Customer Satisfaction? Way To Go.

Customers are rarely loyal. They are willing to jump at the first perceived slight or problem, even if they have been dealing with you for years.

Insight

Quick Wins?

In CRM initiatives, faster may mean better--but not always.

Vertical Market: Education

News in Brief

Heard and Overheard

Market Watch: Midmarket CRM

Everything from phased deployments to optimizing business processes to implementing self-service to the rise in hosted solutions is being spurred by companies' desire to cut costs.

What's Hot in CRM

There is a need for more marketing accountability and precision; companies should look at ROI across the enterprise, for example, CRM and supply chain together; and total customer value should include each customer's current value, their future value, and associated value.

Talk Is Cheap

When it comes to communication devices, people simply prefer using the phone.

No Means No

Companies need to balance the potential of bringing in more revenue with overly aggressive tactics that might send a customer running to a rival.

Help Yourself

REAL ROI

It's Not Brain Surgery

A mobile piece makes it possible for Intuitive sales reps to capture critical data in real time.

Fancy Email-Management Footwork

Skechers cut its email queries in half, to 4,500 each month, and can capture more customer information for marketing purposes--all now done with one tenth the old staff size.

ROI in Progress

HOT PROJECTS: Automotive, Travel, & Transit

Taking a Cautious Approach to CRM

Secret of My Success

Making Discordant Systems Work in Harmony

RTI's CRM suite was written to help software developers support software, so it was right in line with Harris-Baseview's business model.