CRM in Focus

To remain competitive with CRM rivals such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle announced several additions to its marketing strategy at its annual user conference, OpenWorld. The upgrades strive to better tailor messages to customers and prospects and cater to SMBs.

Brent Leary, partner at CRM Essentials LLC, a CRM consultancy, discusses the impact of the new updates on smaller companies and what Oracle users in companies of all sizes can expect from the announcements.

The post Filling out Oracle’s marketing strategy appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Filling out Oracle’s marketing strategy appeared first on CRM in Focus.

At this year’s OpenWorld conference, Oracle executive Larry Ellison noted that the success of cloud computing has brought some companies to the forefront while it has left other, more old-school ones, such as IBM or SAP, behind. Has Ellison overstated his case, given Oracle’s reluctance to commit to the cloud even up until a few years ago?

Brent Leary, partner at CRM Essentials LLC, a CRM consultancy, discusses the impact of the cloud on today’s data center infrastructure players and older companies.

The post Cloud disruption: Are older companies getting left behind? appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Cloud disruption: Are older companies getting left behind? appeared first on CRM in Focus.

Salesforce has typically been a company that has catered to the larger enterprises’ CRM needs. At Dreamforce 2015, its annual user conference, the company unveiled a new version of its Group Edition software, which is aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The new product, SalesforceIQ, incorporates technology acquired from Salesforce’s purchase of RelateIQ and aims to bring “a relationship intelligence platform” to SMBs that use it. But can this product provide a viable pathway for companies to eventually upgrade to a larger version of Salesforce1 and does it offer a better value than other systems out there?

Brent Leary, principal at CRM Essentials, a CRM consultancy, talked more about this latest Salesforce offering and what SMBs can hope to get out of it.

The post SMBs and the new SalesforceIQ appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post SMBs and the new SalesforceIQ appeared first on CRM in Focus.

Salesforce announced its foray into the Internet of Things (IoT) space with its new product, the IoT Cloud, at Dreamforce 2015. The platform aims to deliver product or service data so that companies can glean insight about customers and schedule actions that can improve the customer experience based on that data. But it’s still early days for the platform and its success could be tied to how well its partners implement pilots of the new technology.

Brent Leary, principal at CRM Essentials, a CRM consultancy, discussed how this partnership is significant for the IoT Cloud and the Salesforce ecosystem as a whole.

The post Salesforce IoT Cloud success will depend on partnerships appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Salesforce IoT Cloud success will depend on partnerships appeared first on CRM in Focus.

In an effort to make analytics and application development more user-friendly, Salesforce rolled out two new products, Wave and Lightning, at last year’s Dreamforce conference. Lightning enables users to develop their own applications and Wave is a data visualization tool built into Salesforce1, the cloud CRM company’s suite.

But one year after they were released, users are still skeptical about adopting such tools for different reasons. The learning curves associated with using the new products as well as cost seem to be main barriers preventing large-scale buy-in from business users.

Salesforce expert Geneva Stephens discusses the slow adoption of these products as well as the new Health Cloud, which aims to help integrate patient data but also has to deal with security concerns among users.

The post Challenges hinder Salesforce Lightning, Wave adoption appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Challenges hinder Salesforce Lightning, Wave adoption appeared first on CRM in Focus.

Location-based applications are using mobile technology to drive customers back into stores, giving them benefits such as discounts and other perks. For companies, these apps present opportunities to gain valuable insight into customer behavior, which they then use to improve the customer experience and drive customer loyalty and retention. With the influx of information, companies must be careful not to overstep their bounds when it comes to data privacy and be careful stewards of customer data.

CRM In Focus sat down with Brent Leary, a CRM expert and principal at CRM Essentials, to talk about how companies can benefit from location-based mobile technology and how they can avoid common pitfalls when implementing it.

The post Location-based service apps yield trove of information appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Location-based service apps yield trove of information appeared first on CRM in Focus.

Social media interactions between companies and customers are nowhere near the volume of traditional channels, but the channel is seeing a steady rise in use as a place where customers can go to get support and information on products and services. But for companies to successfully manage this channel, they need to ensure their social strategies are integrated with other aspects of the business so that the insight they gain from social interactions have a chance to augment their service offerings.

 

CRM In Focus sat down with Brent Leary, a CRM expert and principal at CRM Essentials, to talk about the importance of integrating insight gained from social media into other areas of a business.

The post Social customer service needs to be integrated with larger business appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Social customer service needs to be integrated with larger business appeared first on CRM in Focus.

At the 2015 ICMI Contact Center Expo in Orlando, Fla., users were interested in making their centers more efficient while serving customers in whatever channel they choose. Companies were interested in how to communicate with customers across channels, what cloud could do for their centers, investing in analytics and augmenting agent training processes and software.

CRM In Focus spoke with Bob Furniss, customer care practice director at consulting firm Bluewolf, to talk about whether contact centers are warming up to these types of technologies and some of his impressions from the show.

The post Omnichannel, cloud big trends at ICMI Expo appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Omnichannel, cloud big trends at ICMI Expo appeared first on CRM in Focus.

It was once a popular practice to outsource contact center overseas where companies could reap the benefits of cheap labor to cut costs during harsh economic times. Today, with conditions improved and customers pushing back against such practices, companies are taking another look at investing in homegrown labor. Companies are realizing that the cost of losing customers is outweighing the savings of having an offshore contact center.

CRM In Focus sits down with Brandon Knight, vice president of consulting services at Corvisa, to talk about this trend and what it means for the contact center industry as a whole.

The post Is the outsourced contact center dying? appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Is the outsourced contact center dying? appeared first on CRM in Focus.

Cutting operational costs is always on contact center leaders’ minds. Efficiency is the key when dealing with technological investments and staffing concerns. Problems arise when managers are trying to cut costs while still keeping service levels high. In this age of the customer, consumers’ expectations are sky high and it can be tricky for companies to cut costs but also maintain good customer service. Sometimes this entails investing in new technologies and abandoning old ones or updating long-held strategies altogether.

 

CRM In Focus spoke to contact center expert Scott Sachs to talk about virtual contact centers, online self-service and other measures that streamline service, alleviate some costs and keep contact centers’ service offerings high.

The post Cutting contact center costs comes with risks, rewards appeared first on CRM in Focus.

The post Cutting contact center costs comes with risks, rewards appeared first on CRM in Focus.