Sales Enablement Max Effgen, July 30, 2009 Recently I was asked about Sales Enablement providers. I knew of a couple but had mainly thought that the whole area was lipstick for sales/marketing content management systems (CMS). What I have since learned while doing some research for a project is that the capabilities of sales enablement have evolved… Continue Reading
The hidden support process Max Effgen, July 30, 2009 Many companies take great lengths to document and implement support processes. This is good. A documented process can provide metrics. When coupled with cost, it can provide cost per call help determine ROI. There is one support process that almost always goes overlooked and costs companies plenty. Email to the… Continue Reading
Know your customer… Max Effgen, July 29, 2009 Maybe it is the record setting heat in Seattle today, but my mind is wandering over various experiences of my career. “Know your customer” is the mantra. When you know the customer, good things happen. – Example, Client A increased user adoption to 70% of total call volume. ROI increase… Continue Reading
Know your customer… Max Effgen, July 27, 2009 This great example of “Know your customer” was just sent to me. Check Most expensive javascript ever? at Hallvord R. M. Steen’s blog. Hallvord is on the Opera Core Quality Assurance team. It is pretty hard to make a simple mistake as big as this. Millions in lost revenue. Happy… Continue Reading
Commercial Apps on Force.com Max Effgen, July 24, 2009 A lot of recent conversations on CRM have revolved around using cloud based platforms for xRM and other CRM extensions. It is a smart way to go. Check Architecting a Commercial Application on Force.com for a solid read on the topic. Continue Reading
Do you know Knouen? Max Effgen, July 15, 2009 So I know that one of my two readers uses Siebel for CRM. I had a very interesting and refreshing conversation today with Meetul Shah, CEO of Knouen (pronounced know-n’). You shold check Knouen OfficeSync for Siebel, an interesting sales productivity application for Siebel shops. If this is you (ahem),… Continue Reading
Bantam vs Gist Max Effgen, July 10, 2009 Came across Bantam Live: The Ultimate Social, Real-Time CRM @ TechCrunch this morning and have been thinking on it all day. My take is that it offers watered down features of Gist with the workflow features of most CRM tools. Is Social CRM important to the enterprise? Depends. If the… Continue Reading
Force.com Sites Deep Dive Max Effgen, June 22, 2009 Salesforce.com has been unleashing a full-court press on the Force.com Sites platform with a Deep Dive webinar today. Sites was pushed heavily at the Cloudforce Seattle event last week and today offered a further look under the covers. The idea is fairly simple. Provide a platform to host websites that… Continue Reading
Highlights from Cloudforce Seattle Max Effgen, June 22, 2009 Finally getting back to Cloudforce Seattle and the tons of info learned last week. The message was clearly that Salesforce.com is not just applications. Cloudforce Seattle was all about the platform moving to the cloud. I have a notion that there will be several “clouds” in the future. Clearly, Salesforce.com… Continue Reading
Best explanation for social media CRM to date Max Effgen, June 19, 2009 At Cloudforce Seattle yesterday, Salesforce.com gave the best explanation of why you need to monitor social media for CRM, especially in Support/Services. Your customers have already moved there. Do they go to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn first to find answers? If so, how do you monitor and answer those questions?… Continue Reading