CRM

Customer behaviors and expectations have been rapidly evolving in recent years. As we look ahead to next few years, several major trends will drastically transform how companies build relationships and interact with their customer base.

I have been quite sceptical from the start about customer service through social media channels. Before you start: I do read tens of them success stories and how companies can become your friend and confidante through social media (that is my day job - I am a CRM guy).

I pride myself in keeping touch with the CRM technologies, I hit a road block in some aspects since no one tracks CRM market share on a day to day basis.

PCWorld reports that Dell’s Tech support will act proactively to correct the problems with your PC or device – before the problem occurs. In summary, Dell gets to know about potential problems in your PC and calls you to resolve those problems without any action required on your part.

Age old question, this - “should I use a off-the-shelf product, or should I develop my own CRM system instead”. It is easy to dismiss this question as irrelevant in this day and age, when everyone and their dog is jumping on the cloud CRM solutions with neatly packaged features.

Intercom has a post about how notification windows, and cards are changing what an app means, and how it will change in the near future . This is interesting in many ways.

A weekly, or monthly visit to grocery store is part of life’s routine. It is also a routine to see how Coke, Lays, Colgate and other interesting stuff neatly arranged to catch your eye?

You have the latest in sales tools, you already are tracking your customer’s social activities, you have a well-defined service process, and you are super focused on marketing your brand/product/service on every channel you can find.

The state of Oregon has sued Oracle for breach of contract. Read the complaint - at least the first 7 pages. It looks a scene taken from a suspense movie unravelling itself.

Velocify conducted a secret study of how select (presumably popular) companies respond to sales leads from their websites . What Velocify did was quite simple - they just went to the company websites, navigated to the forms that clearly spelled out that the visitor is interested in company products/services, and waited for a return call, or email.