January 2004

Magazine Features

The Goldilocks Syndrome

Following are three stories of how perseverance led to CRM success--and that's no fairy tale.

The Hard Sell

Even with commitment-shy executives and change-fearing employees, it is possible to sell CRM into your enterprise successfully.

The Changing Role of the Contact Center Agent

Driven by everything from sophisticated tools to brutal cost pressures, the role of the contact center agent is changing, in large part to create more business value from a smaller, more highly skilled workforce.

The Customer-Centric Enterprise

A customer-centric enterprise uses business strategies throughout the organization to best serve customers.

Front Office

Great Service Is Your Call

There is no CRM success without communication.

Reality Check

Is Government CRM the Next Big Boom?

Government agencies are under increasing pressure to control costs, improve productivity, and deliver better products and services, but government agencies also face their own set of CRM challenges.

Customer Centricity

Don't Burden Customers With Your Costs

Growth does not come from cost cutting, but from customer relationships.

Insight

Making Sense of Too Much Information

A recent study by UC Berkeley reports that since 1999 there has been a 30 percent increase in the amount of data in the world.

CRM and Crisis Management

Technology companies contribute to disaster-relief efforts.

News in Brief

Heard and Overheard

Vertical Focus: How Auto Dealers Drive Relationships

Automakers using CRM are getting savvier about their customers, which are essentially the dealers. Dealers using CRM are also getting a better handle on their customers and prospects.

Market Watch: Guided Selling Tools Boost Sales Results

Guided selling tools can help reduce customer churn and can allow salespeople to adapt to customer lifestyle changes that may affect a sale in real time.

Hot Seat: Tipping the Customer Service Scales

CRM magazine asked, "Is it a good idea to implement a method of online tipping for customers to reward exemplary customer service?"

REAL ROI

Building Relationships Grows Revenues

The company needed a CRM system that could help track customers for life, track sales leads and opportunities, and manage marketing campaigns to attract new customers.

The Right Customer Data Boosts Sales and Marketing Effectiveness

Informatica's analytics solution gives HPshopping.com deep visibility into the effectiveness of promotions and other sales activity, as well as the ability to quickly act on anything that may cause sales to drop.

PRM Puts RIM's Sales in Motion

RIM's goals for its partner relationship management initiative are to support its selling partners and their customers; to simplify how partners work with RIM; to provide an enterprise view of its customers across its 37 business units; and to gauge its sales and marketing effectiveness.

(Automated) Talk Is Cheap

By automating access to specific information Armstrong Floor Products decreased customer hold times, reduced customer call durations by 50 percent, and improved call completion rates by 123 percent.

How to...use training to get buy-in for CRM

Unless CRM project leaders bring to the training table a clear picture of how their teams will accomplish their CRM goals, their projects may be prematurely grounded.