Archive

If you like speaking with live customer service reps about service issues without having to first endure a long and frustrating wait on the phone, then shop at Sierra Trading Post. That is one conclusion that can be drawn from a study of online retailers released by StellaService, which found that...

For more than a decade, B2B firms have used the Internet to publicize their product catalogs. As a result of the rise in consumer sales on the Web and the rapid maturation and adoption of Internet technologies like RIAs and Web 2.0, B2B firms are now rethinking their e-business strategies. At the sa...

Marketo upgrades or somehow tweaks its revenue performance management application roughly every other month, but its latest release is special. Specifically, many of the features included in this release have been more than a year in the making, said Gaurav Kotak, senior director of product marketin...

I have a friend who's a musician, author and former radio personality, and he likes Facebook. A lot. My newsfeed is clogged with his posts -- news from his life, comments about music and movies, photos of his travels, videos of songs, links to other people's articles. I don't think there's any possi...

A couple of weeks ago, Marketo announced its research-based belief that its form of revenue performance management could help grow global GDP by $2.5 trillion by 2015. I love it when emerging companies talk about big plans this way. It reminds me of the young plumber who upon seeing Niagara Falls ...

Do you know how much money you will lose if your e-commerce site fails for just one hour? What if your site slows down? The more tags and pixels you have on your site, the more likely you are to find out. Tags, or pixels, are pieces of code that are put on your website every time you implement a new...

A legal dispute between Oracle and erstwhile client Montclair State University illustrates that despite the steady evolution of ERP technology and implementation methodologies, these projects can still turn ugly. The two have filed suits against each other over a failed project, called the "Bell Tow...

Business Process Management provider AuraPortal has added a new module to its product lineup -- Marketing Campaigns, or MC. It is based on template-oriented pattern processes -- as all of AuraPortal's applications are -- which means it can be easily tailored by end-users. MC is able to follow up on ...

The idea of taking CRM into the field has been around for a decade -- long enough to lull many people into ignoring it in favor of newer, flashier and more social ideas. But this isn't the time to take your eye off mobile CRM. The technology is about to emerge as a force that will boost adoption, in...

It has been a wild ride for retailers these past few years. But when we look back, we won't be talking about the economy, the drive for lean inventory, or deep discounting. Rather, we will recognize the fundamental change that occurred was in the shopping process itself. Shoppers are often interac...

One of the goals often cited for implementing CRM is an improvement in customer loyalty. That sounds like a logical objective, and knowing more about your customers and the history of your interactions with them certainly helps you understand how to keep them coming back. Still, there's a long way f...

DemandResults is getting set to release version 2.0 of its SEO for Salesforce.com app. This iteration builds on the premise of the first app, founder and CEO Howard Brown said, which was essentially a basic insertion of Google Analytics into the Salesforce.com platform. In this upcoming version, set...

I've written several CRM Buyer Guides in the last four years, and the buying process I recommend hasn't really changed much. Unlike people who leap into the technology right at the outset, I always advocate a period of self-assessment for the company -- in other words, a thorough internal examinatio...

Most of the people I talk to think of a business model as the way a company makes money. We certainly agree on that. One's business model can encompass numerous things, like product mix, marketing and sales plan, how you sell -- direct, channel, retail -- and lots more. One thing that usually mis...

Salesforce.com is participating in a social media project with Toyota Motor, in what could launch the CRM company into an entirely new industry -- telematics. Or not. The agreement between Salesforce.com and Toyota to collaborate on this offering, called "Toyota Friend," is still very much in its ...