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Blog entries related to customer experience management (CXM) and customer relationship management (CRM)
Looking for a partner to help you work through a customer or employee engagement digital transformation project? Supporting your transformation requires far more than technical skills. Here are 9 tips for selecting the right partner. Transforming into a digital workplace is no small task. A partnership to support your transformation requires far more than technical acumen. There are many components in a digital workplace support partnership, but here are 9 of the most important (and often missing) that I've found.
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Does this series of images look familiar? Do you frequently hear, "that's not what we asked for" or "it doesn't work the way we expected it to"? You're not alone! Research over the last decade demonstrates that between 30% and 60% of customer relationship management and enterprise collaboration initiatives fail. But why? Some would blame the technology, others might focus on the business process or lack thereof. But, let's stop for a moment and take a look at people.
Data is the fuel that powers decisions in almost every type of business. When it doesn't flow smoothly, the entire business suffers. In this article we look at what master data management (MDM) is, how poor MDM can create traffic jams, and the basics of keeping your data flowing smoothly.
Customer Service is often an afterthought. And that’s a pity. Because once you’ve attracted all of those new customers by implementing the superpowers of your Sales and Marketing engines, how can you possibly expect to retain them without providing superior Customer Service?
In today's world, every business is at risk of being disrupted. What's your plan for disruption-proofing your company?
Big data makes it possible to serve more people than ever before. New privacy laws and regulations are regularly being passed to protect us from potential abuses. How can organizations balance the benefits of big data with the need for privacy?
Getting people to adopt new processes is almost always a challenge in business. Why is that? Maybe it's because we so often forget the role people play in defining and re-defining processes. In this article we look at why processes should be people-first.
“I’m not sure our CRM project has anything to do with customers at all. But, if it does, it is something we are doing to our customers, not for our customers.”
That’s what a new client told us in a workshop we delivered to their leadership team. It’s ironic that the most often overlooked stakeholder in CRM projects is the customer!
Read on for one simple starting point for putting the "Customer" back into CRM.
Corporate culture. We know that great ones produce great products, great places to work, and great customer experiences. But what causes cultural problems, and what are some practical steps to take to turn the corner? In this article, we look at what business culture can learn from ... acupuncture!
When it comes to CRM and user adoption, there seems to be a false sense of "if we build it, they will come". Not. True. Sure, customer facing employees want and almost always need tools to make the job of serving the customer easier. However, there are so many reasons why CRM doesn't end up either meeting those needs or just causing more work on these already overtaxed resources. So where are we going wrong and how do we begin to turn it around?
Digital Transformation. It's a long journey. And, for many companies, the journey doesn't end well. Here's a simple exercise to help you make your digital journey more engaging ,and better adopted, for the entire team.
Today’s customers want more control over their destinies. And successful companies are giving it to them. As a result, the old paradigm of CRM is rapidly giving way to customer engagement management (CEM). In this article we look at practical steps for making the transition.
When most organizations talk about "customer experience," they limit their thinking to the buying experience. In this article, we take a look at the broader customer journey, and the steps for transitioning your thinking from "sales process" to "customer experience" before, during, and after the buying decision is made.
Digital transformation is like the timeless question: what came first, the chicken or the egg?
As a Call Center Manager turned consultant, I'm frustrated to see Customer Care teams using outdated processes and technology. New solutions that have become available in the last 4-8 years can truly revolutionize how we care for customers.
So here I offer up an open letter to many of the Customer Care Managers that I have met over the years in hopes that it may inspire a few to consider the new options available to them.
Wondering how much impact your digital workplace project will have? Will it truly be a transformation of what you do, or just an adaptation of what you’re already doing? Those two words sound similar, but they lead to entirely different destinations. Bear with me while I draw a couple of analogies to make my point.
Customer Service teams are scrambling to work with IT to implement omni-channel communication strategies. But the challenge is bigger than just technology - it requires a rethinking of the entire customer care role in delivering a state-of-the-art customer experience.
Most goals are doomed to fail. Here’s why - and how you transform struggles into successes.
Large businesses pump billions of dollars into technology to become more customer and employee centric. But smaller businesses are using these same technologies to run circles around their larger competitors.
Here's how they're doing it, and some lessons that businesses of all sizes can learn:
We get that question a lot. "Hey C5, it's great that we can track emails in our CRM solution with just the click of a button instead of the old copy/paste method that our legacy CRM software required. But I get a ton of email. Which emails should I track in CRM?" It's a simple question that isn't as easy to answer as you may think. Most people think, "if in doubt ... track it." PLEASE. DO. NOT. DO. THAT.
Read on for some simple rules and examples to help you decide which emails you should and (perhaps more importantly) should not, track.
This 3 minute video demo shows how customer care teams can use the power of business intelligence to constantly improve the customer experience. The demo uses Microsoft's solutions for business intelligence (Power BI) and customer relationship management (Dynamics CRM).
What would it look like to watch a sports game with no score? No one would watch! But that's exactly how most businesses are run today. This series of infographics takes a look at how the best organizations share the score with their employees in order to create the best customer experience.
Is all the talk about better customer experiences and employee engagement just hype, or is there an ROI for these investments?
Follow these 3 steps to create your first sales process - or to simplify an over-engineered sales process.
I'm always surprised at how few sales teams have adopted a sales process yet; and I'm even more surprised at the number of myths that still exist about sales processes. So, in the interest of helping everyone to take a few steps forward with their sales process, let's dispel a few of the more common myths now.
The complementary paper includes over 12 years of research, recent survey results, and CRM turnaround success stories.
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Whether you are upgrading to SharePoint Online, 2010, 2013 or the latest 2016, this checklist contains everything you need to know for a successful transition.