SearchCRM: News on CRM trends and technology

An interview with Jeff Kaplan at Dreamforce 2009

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Jeff Kaplan of Think Strategies discussed the goals of Salesforce.com's new collaboration technology service known as Chatter and whether it could live up its billing as 'Facebook for the enterprise.'

BT taps open source BI, homegrown DW for customer data

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Telecommunications giant British Telecom built its own data warehouse from the ground up, then added open source software from JasperSoft to unlock customer data.

Contact center benchmarking study finds emphasis on profits, processes

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Despite the economic downturn, contact centers are working toward providing profit and streamlining their business processes, an annual call center benchmarking study has found.

Customer privacy's not as big as trust -- trust me

Paul Greenberg, Contributor(editor@searchcrm.com — Tue, 3 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

As the recent Facebook snafus have shown, keeping customer information private is not a given. What's key, columnist Paul Greenberg says, is mutual value -- and trust.

Data analytics software helps transit authorities meet rider demand

Jeff Kelly, News Editor(editor@searchcrm.com — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Transit authorities like the MBTA in Boston and SEPTA in Philadelphia have turned to data analytics software from SPSS to adapt to changes in ridership patterns.

Five low-cost contact infrastructure projects recommended by Gartner

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Contact center budgets have been tight, but there are some low-cost infrastructure projects, according to Gartner. The key is to be prepared when money is available.

Microsoft targets Salesforce.com, Oracle with free CRM promotion

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Microsoft has updated its SaaS CRM application and is offering six months free for Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM On Demand customers.

Oracle demands documents from Rimini Street in SAP lawsuit

Courtney Bjorlin, News Editor(editor@searchcrm.com — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:00:00 EDT

What's the latest in the Oracle vs. SAP lawsuit? Oracle is demanding that third-party support provider Rimini Street produce information on its business model.

Oracle's CRM roadmap includes running Siebel in Outlook, social CRM

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Oracle executives outlined the company's plans for CRM in the coming year, including a REST API, running Siebel in Outlook out of the box and social data mining.

Oriental Trading Co. launches customer reviews

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Tue, 6 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Sam Taylor, CEO of the Oriental Trading Co., sought to make the company customer-centric by re-launching customer reviews, which earned it a customer service excellence award from Gartner and Peppers&Rogers.

Paul Greenberg compares social CRM products

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

The author of CRM at the Speed of Light compares Oracle's social CRM offerings with those of Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce.com at OpenWorld and dishes on Marc Benioff's appearance.

Paul Greenberg on Oracle's CRM roadmap

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Paul Greenberg, president of the 56 Group LLC and author of CRM at the Speed of Light, discussed Oracle's plans for its CRM roadmap, including a RESTful architecture, from the OpenWorld conference.

RightNow buys HiveLive to deliver customer communities integrated with CRM

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Mon, 7 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

RightNow became the latest CRM vendor to offer a social CRM component, this time buying HiveLive to help organizations build their own customer communities integrated with CRM.

SaaS CRM or CRM in the cloud: Sage and Consona add to the dilemma

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Sage and Consona are both offering cloud-based CRM software "in the cloud" running on Amazon's infrastructure, but there are differences between this and the SaaS model.

SaaS CRM vendors get serious about Web self-service features

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Tue, 8 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Oracle, Salesforce.com and RightNow all took significant steps toward beefing up their customer service capabilities with customer communities and self-service features.

Salesforce jumps into collaboration technology software market with Chatter

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Salesforce.com is building the "Facebook for the enterprise," a collaboration tool that sits within its application and integrates people, content and applications.

Salesforce.com and Cisco offer fully cloud-based call center

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Sun, 4 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Salesforce.com is combining its on-demand call center software with on-demand IP telephony. It will allow companies to launch a call center without hardware, software or data centers.

Salesforce.com joins ACT! in contact management market

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Tue, 1 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Salesforce.com jumped into the market for contact management software today with a lightweight, low-cost option to compete with Sage's recently updated ACT!

Siemens? long journey to CRM: Custom to SAP to Oracle and more

Barney Beal, News Director(editor@searchcrm.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EDT

At one point, Siemens had 500 CRM systems across the company. It has tried custom development, SAP and now Oracle CRM in an attempt to standardize.

Social media and CRM -- The marketing perspective

Allen Bonde(allen@allenbondegroup.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In his first article evaluating the marketing side of social CRM, Allen Bonde offers up some definitions and a framework for discussion.

The back end matters too: Social CRM and the customer-centric supply chain

Paul Greenberg, President, The 56 Group (paul-greenberg3@comcast.net — Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Think Social CRM is purely a sales, service and marketing phenomenon? Think again. Columnist Paul Greenberg explains how it can impact the supply chain.

The benefits of being a Salesforce.com customer

SearchCRM.com(editor@searchcrm.com) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Jack Miller, the CTO of a real estate brokerage in Austin, Texas, discusses the benefits of working with Salesforce.com.