September 2005

Magazine Features

CRM's 7 Deadly Warning Bells

Between May 2004 and June 2005 CRM magazine checked in every two to three weeks with Churchill Downs Inc. to gauge the progress of the company's multiyear, multimillion CRM initiative. Vice President of CRM and Technology Solutions Atique Shah's CRM initiative diary shed light on the ups and downs that he and his team encountered during a hectic, and ultimately winning, year one. In the course of these discussions Shah regularly mentioned CRM's warning bells, some of which sounded, some of which remained blessedly silent. We return to the site of the Kentucky Derby's parent company to examine the seven warning bells and to flesh out year-one lessons that will help other CRM project managers improve their odds of success.

12 Tips for Generating Rich Data

Here, a guide to uncovering the bounty buried in your data warehouse.

CRM Gets the Call

Hosting, performance evaluation solutions, and a creative call center layout help telecoms improve their customer relationship efforts.

Front Office

Online Banking: Consumer Trust Versus Loyalty

Identity theft victims' assurance of security reflects comfort levels with online banking, and not their loyalty to a particular bank.

Reality Check

'Information at Your Fingertips'

These five business drivers will propel real-time CRM.

Customer Centricity

Find Out What Employees Are Afraid Of

Fear keeps many workers from reaching their full level of commitment and productivity.

The Tipping Point

Prepaid Profitability

Companies are moving to converged prepaid and postpaid billing systems to support all customer payment preferences.

Pint of View

What Would Genghis Do?

CRM the Mongol way, and we ain't talkin' pencils.

Insight

Nortel's Extreme Makeover

Financial woes behind it, the company is focusing on new products and brand awareness.

Microsoft Says 2.No

Version 3.0 focuses on the SMB market with hosting options, Outlook integration, and marketing automation tools.

Email Response Times Lag Still

Companies are undervaluing the channel as more customers seek support.

Surveys: A Dying Breed?

EFM solutions are replacing the old-school method of customer feedback.

Statistically Speaking

DestinationCRM Dashboard

Required Reading: Life After the 30-Second Spot

The Pulse: What is your company's current prospect pursuit plan?

Blogs Can Boost Sales

Use online journals to eliminate status calls and leverage team resources.

REAL ROI

Nailing Satisfaction and Cost

"Through the call center we are able to be more precise...in the evaluation of a problem."

A Prescription for Ricohvery

Office automation meets SFA with ACT! and WiredContact.

An Employee Scorecard Boosts Productivity

Telus rings in more work with 25 percent fewer people by monitoring individual performance.

Accommodating Customers With Automated Agents

A hotel group selects Voxify to provide callers with a consistent customer experience.

Is It Done Yet?

eSuds eliminates the guesswork around college washing machines' availability.

Lawyers Learn to Share

BranchIT helps a global firm leverage its relationships to better serve clients.

Re:Tooling

Tech Solution: Agent Training Applications

Business Problem: Customer satisfaction levels are too low and agents are not sufficiently cross- and upselling products.