Archive

CRM vendors -- the champions of customer service best practices -- received dismal ratings for their own treatment of online customers in a new survey. The Customer Respect Group has rated customer service in such industries as banking, airline and travel, telecom, consumer goods, manufacturing, foo...

Unica has introduced a new Web analytics application that is based partly on technology it acquired from Sane Solutions and then rebranded. Affinium NetInsight offers flexible reporting and viewing capabilities that are adaptable to most business scenarios, Unica SVP Carol Meyers told CRM Buyer. "We...

Business intelligence vendor SAS has added five new software-as-a-service applications to join its original on-demand offering, SAS Solutions OnDemand: Web Analytics. The SaaS product line, first introduced in 2001 as an ASP service, is growing steadily, Richard Roach, senior director of SAS Soluti...

When the phone stops ringing, we all know what we need to do: Open up our overpriced CRM databases and start making calls. My CRM makes it very easy for me. It prioritizes calls based upon their probability of success. Now, it isn't rocket science, and I could really do the same thing with an Excel ...

SAP announced the implementation of the second phase of its software-as-a-service strategy, first introduced in February, as a prelude to its annual customer conference, SAPPHIRE '06, which is set to begin next week. SAP has also upgraded its initial SaaS sales application -- as it promised it would...

I am a bit of an economics junkie. My interest in the dismal science carries over from my interest in evolution and can be summarized as, why things are the way they are and how they got that way. I am currently finishing up a book that gets me where I live, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinc...

Chordiant has introduced a new set of collaborative tools it calls "Chordiant Mesh" that are designed to help users co-create new products or customize existing applications on the Chordiant Enterprise Platform. A handful of customers have already used the tool set to design new applications around ...

U.S. companies that have not globalized their production or service operations are prime acquisition candidates for Western and overseas investors. Following an acquisition, the new owners can gradually shift some or all of an acquired firm's work offshore to competitive locations, making the entir...

Lest any doubt remains that U.S. customers do not appreciate hearing heavy accents when they're on the phone with contact center agents, a new survey reveals that this is, in fact, one of the top sources of frustration among those who call for assistance. Difficult-to-understand accents was the top ...

Genesys has released two products aimed at easing deployment of the Genesys Voice Platform by two of its user constituencies: managed service providers of Genesys applications and companies that have implemented both SAP and Genesys. The Genesys Customer Interaction Portal for Self-Service signals a...

When the sales team operates with urgency, the soul of a company is alive, thriving and growing. The sales department is the company's heartbeat and is absolutely necessary to create a sense of purpose and maintain a constant focus on delivering value to customers. Great salespeople are constantly t...

Avaya has rolled out two products aimed at expanding its footprint in the mid-market segment, as well as a completely new venture for the on-demand space. The new applications include a single-server product called Avaya MultiVantage Express, which offers IP telephony, messaging, contact center and ...

ACT has launched its first vertical-focused product. Called ACT by Sage Premium for Real Estate 2006, the application is aimed at the 6 percent or so of the overall ACT user base that works directly in the real estate industry. A higher proportion of users work in related fields, according to the c...

I wish every software marketing statement -- especially in CRM -- was as good as what they used for toothpaste when I was a kid. Thanks to Madison Avenue and having only three networks on broadcast TV, I can almost repeat verbatim the tag line about Crest from memory. "Crest has been shown to be a...

A new start-up called Genius has introduced an on-demand application that combines Web analytics, marketing and sales functionality to help reps improve their tracking of prospect leads and respond to queries with tailored marketing pitches. Called SalesGenius, the software empowers users to capture...