Social CRM

By now, common sense, the business media and practical experience have taught the lessons of multi-channel engagement for service. Businesses have come to realize that they need to provide service in whatever way their customers wish to receive it, whether it's through the phone, via chat or text, o...

Last summer, open source CRM provider Zurmo threw its hat into the CRM ring with a beta version of its particular take on the hot new gamification software category. The theory is simple: CRM, especially sales force automation, has notoriously poor user adoption figures. Why not use some of the fu...

Everyone has a year-end synopsis these days, and it's fun to see what each person deems important. Sometimes you wonder if you lived through the same experiences, but it's a good thing to recall everything one more time and maybe reconsider how you'll remember each. Here's my synopsis -- which is no...

Salesforce.com rolled out an integration between Sales Cloud and Work.com this week. The integration is currently available in pilot and will be made generally available to all Salesforce.com customers in the first half of 2013. To understand the value-add the integration offers, one first has to b...

Enterprise CRM of the future is all about social and mobile. In fact, Blackbaud, which specializes in providing CRM products and services to the nonprofit sector, even has an acronym for it: SOMO. "We're looking at how we can extend our technology into social and mobile spheres," said Tiffany Crumpt...

Microsoft next month will roll out a service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that will have a new user interface, integration with Yammer, Skype and Office 2013, and cross-browser support. In general, the theme of tight integration with other Microsoft technologies runs through the release, said S...

Benbria has launched Blazeloop, a customer engagement platform that revolves around one pointed question aimed at the consumer: How did we do? The theory behind the Web-based app is that most customers do not take the trouble to complain about little things -- but it is those very little things that...

Have you voted yet? Not in the presidential election -- this is more important! I am talking about voting in the CRM Idol competition. It's time! OK, I know what you are thinking: What is CRM Idol? It's the brainchild of Paul Greenberg, and its purpose is to find the hottest emerging company in the ...

Customers are increasingly turning to company Facebook pages and Twitter accounts when they have questions or problems, rather than emailing or phoning their inquiries. A recent report from independent analysis firm thinkJar shows that 86 percent of organizations are using Facebook or Twitter for cu...

I tried to wait a bit before commenting on the election and the Social CRM implications partly out of respect and in part to give everyone a chance to rev down. Besides, these observations have much more to do with social media than with any political party or policy initiative, so please believe me...

Mobile CRM and its related technologies have intrigued developers and users alike for years. However, it wasn't until Facebook announced it would acquire Instagram for an eye-popping $1 billion that the money began to pour into this space. "That was the transaction that crystallized for us and a lot...

I spent a day last week in Boston attending a conference called the "Inbound Marketing Summit" organized by my friend and former analyst Allen Bonde. Inbound marketing IMHO is taking off in some important dimensions. Inbound marketing is a cool idea that's been pushed by multiple companies recently....

Forty-seven percent of all social media users have used their networks to get customer service from a company, with usage as high as 59 percent among 18-24 year olds, according to a new study from NM Incite. Almost one in three social media users said they preferred to contact a company that way, an...

It used to be that your business could provide a basic level of service and your customers would be perfectly happy. Some form of help, delivered at the speed of the business and within the parameters of your company's policies, was usually OK -- and if it wasn't, you could probably get away with...

Lithium Technologies acquired Social Dynamx this week and moved immediately to bring a combined product to market: Lithium Social Web is available now. The two companies offer complementary functionality, which made the acquisition a natural fit, said Rob Tarkoff, CEO of Lithium. "We build communiti...