by Shyamalee Pramod Samvatsar
In this era of product commoditization and soaring customer expectations, manufacturing companies are transforming their business model to reduce their dependence on product revenues and cash in on the demand for Services. Based on my experience and reading, I have noted the following trends in customer service:
Here is what Mark Killens had to say on my last blog post on functionality coverage in CRM products for Marketing Automation: “CRM systems and marketing are very important sales enablement resources. They both must include tools to manage and report on how marketing is helping and enabling sales and how to keep track of the customer after a sale closes”. Please find the post, the comment and my response here.
I perceive Mark’s comment as referring to one of the long standing challenges for Marketers – how do you attribute the end Sales revenues to the original Marketing efforts? This ability to tie the eventual revenues back to the campaigns, thereby closing the loop, has largely been either impossible or a difficult task to accomplish for Marketers - thus making it a Holy Grail.
Continue reading "Closing the loop on Marketers’ Holy Grail" »
by Vinod Nag
A “dispute” in the context of credit cards pertains to questioning the validity of a card transaction. Most dispute complaints begin in a similar fashion - the card holder communicates with the card issuer bank through one of the channels – telephone, e-mails, direct mail (posts) etc. The customer service representative will then collect the necessary details and determines how this enquiry has to be dealt with.
We have seen the tremendous rise in internet usage in the recent past. Even with such fast growth, internet penetration is only about 25% of the world population with a large scope for further growth. Also, commerce over the internet is growing due to increased transaction security and ease of operation. Companies should take advantage of this online channel for trade to increase customer satisfaction and reduce cost of operations through a self service facility. But in order to take the full advantage of online channel, companies should conduct a detailed study of the various factors involved before embarking on their online strategy.
Continue reading "Improve Customer Experience through a well planned Online Self Service Strategy" »
Some of you might have read the recent blog entry titled “How CRM products can aid Marketing” by fellow Infosys CRM blogger Vamsi Krishna. He ended his entry with the question “are marketers really using these CRM product capabilities to the maximum extent?”
While that certainly is a relevant question to ponder for small scale and stand alone marketing implementations, a deeper look at the needs of large scale Enterprise Marketing departments seems to indicate that functionality coverage in today’s CRM products is not sufficient.
The SAP CRM 2010 Insider conference is being held this year at Orlando from Feb 23 to Feb 26. This is by far the most important event for people following SAP in the CRM space. Customers, Partners, Solution vendors all demonstrate equal excitement to be a part of this annual event. With slight hope of economic recovery I am hoping this year the participation would be even better than what was witnessed last year.
In Facing Re-Implementation vs. Upgrade dilemma for your CRM systems?, I tried to set the context on the typical dilemma an enterprise is confronted with when it has to choose between Upgrading vs. Re-Implementing it’s CRM Application and I have taken Siebel as the CRM package for elucidating my thoughts on the same.
Continue reading "Facing Re-Implementation vs. Upgrade dilemma for your CRM systems? - Part 2" »
The success of a CRM implementation lies in its acceptance for use by the various stakeholders. The stakeholders vary depending on the industry and application in question. Some of the stakeholders commonly involved in CRM are top management, marketing managers, retail sales agents / call center agents / field sales agents, customers using self care applications, dealers and product managers. Each stakeholder has their own set of expectations from the CRM system. Based on my experience in working with some of these stakeholders, I have listed below some of their expectations:
Continue reading "Stakeholder Expectations from a CRM Application" »
I am sure a lot of us are already aware; few months ago Oracle released Process Integration Packs (PIP) based on Oracle Fusion Application Integration Architecture (AIA) framework. These PIPs establish pre-built integration between applications via AIA layer and are modeled on the SOA best practices. Through this article I have attempted to analyze the key features of the PIPs as well as the challenges that might surface while implementing.
Continue reading "Oracle PIPs: Redefining Real Time Integration" »
Having worked on CRM system implementations for quite some time, I have been listening to one common statement from business / product managers - I am not satisfied with the CRM system that is being deployed/was recently deployed. It is a common complaint across the spectrum, right from small businesses to the larger enterprises. Why this does happen again and again, that too across the world? Is it that technology cannot meet business requirements and expectations all the time? In this post I would like to discuss one of my observations and find some ways to address this issue.
Ever heard of Arena X-Glide, polyurethane swimsuits? Or of the 16 world records broken in the recently concluded swimming World Cup? They share an uncanny resemblance to our own superstar, Social CRM!
Allow me to explain…
Continue reading "Back to CRM Basics: Why Social Media-CRM can wait!" »
