Cloudforce Seattle Max Effgen, June 18, 2009 Attended Cloudforce Seattle today. Tons of great information and still processing it all. Usual Microsoft jabs by Marc Benioff, but nothing you likely have not muttered yourself. Lots of love for Starbucks and Amazon AWS from the Salesforce CEO. Some highlights: Visual Force, Model–view–controller (MVC) framework for custom user interfaces… Continue Reading
Social Media & Spiceworks Max Effgen, May 22, 2009 For all the talk of Social Media and CRM, it would be wise to take a look at a company that is already “social”. Spiceworks offers free IT management software and the primary users are SMB IT shops. Their model is media advertising around this targeted audience. In effect, they… Continue Reading
Getting the Gist… Max Effgen, May 21, 2009 I have been kicking the tires of Gist and I am very impressed. Gist has recently made some headlines as they scored $6.75M in funding. See here and here. Gist allows you to keep up with your contacts. Twitter, blog postings and even email. Armed with the right information, you… Continue Reading
Is Social Media CRM for everyone? Max Effgen, May 20, 2009 60% of Twitter Users Quit Within the First Month and this should surprise nobody. Social Media takes effort. Your client contacting you for support — and they are unhappy — takes effort. Your sales team takes time and effort to find the right people and relationships in an organization. There… Continue Reading
An offhand conversation… Max Effgen, May 18, 2009 It is interesting how offhand conversations can turn to business. I was asked what I would do first in a CRM service deployment over the weekend. My answer was easy. I would learn what I already know about my customers behind my four walls then I would put it in… Continue Reading
User Adoption Max Effgen, May 14, 2009 User adoption is always a challenge for any CRM related project. I had a conversation last night that turned to a CRM project. A lot of very good work had been done on the metrics to measure a new self-service capability. The problem was that next to nothing was done… Continue Reading
DVR to Service CRM? Max Effgen, May 13, 2009 Xangati Helps Employees Visually Explain Trouble Tickets Through DVR Feature Interesting read over at TechCrunch. Will be interesting to see how this technology evolves. Continue Reading
Your best salespeople Max Effgen, May 7, 2009 I was inspired a recent post on Glassy Eyes about customer service. It is true that, “your customers are your best salespeople — and they PAY you for the privilege!” This holds in every business, not just in the consumer space. Every prospect knows that every salesperson works on commission…. Continue Reading
How many channels? Max Effgen, May 6, 2009 Do you know how many different ways your customers connect with you? Really? How many times have you e-mailed the CEO of an organization to express frustration at the service you are receiving? I have done it many times. The great companies get it resolved fast. The not so great… Continue Reading
One metric that “rules them all” Max Effgen, May 5, 2009 In the service side of CRM, there is one metric that “rules them all”. It is “Cost per call”. I have been fortunate to see how many companies and industries approach this number. In this current economy, it may make sense to take a focused, tactical approach to continually improve… Continue Reading