Quick thought on Enterprise Collarboration Max Effgen, April 19, 2009 MindTouch is worth checking out in the enterprise collaboration space. Interesting approach and an open-source business model. Continue Reading
Many Hands, Light Work Max Effgen, April 17, 2009 This recent article in Forbes, Eclipse: Many Hands, Light Work by Lee Gomes, argues that competitive advantage is not in the code, but in the data. I find myself often agreeing with Gomes and enjoy his writting. Unfortunately this time, Gomes misses the point. Competitive advantage is in the process… Continue Reading
XRM, a no-brainer… Max Effgen, April 14, 2009December 2, 2013 Interesting read: Microsoft Convergence 2009: Hybrid Technology Salesforce has seen success with the Force.com platform, as recently noted in this post, My Starbucks Idea. A competing Microsoft stack solution will generate similar success. It will be interesting to see how XRM develops into reality. Continue Reading
Customer Loyalty Max Effgen, April 10, 2009 Time after time in discussing potential CRM technologies with clients, the issue of customer loyalty is brought forth. Clients want to make sure that their customers keep coming back. Depending on the type of relationship, one bad transaction can lose a customer. When the process of sales and service is… Continue Reading
More service myths… Max Effgen, April 9, 2009 Price and cost cutting are the keys to success. These “myths” are seemingly ridiculous and this will be the final post on the subject. (Huzzah!) It is not about price and cost cutting, it is about efficiency. In a past life with a software provider in the CRM space, our… Continue Reading
If complaints are down, customer service is better. Max Effgen, April 8, 2009 How do you measure the effectiveness of customer service? In a traditional enterprise software model, customer maintenance revenue was a great measure of the effectiveness of customer service. In the Cloud subscription-based world, maintenance revenue does not exist. So how do you measure? It is certainly not by measuring complaints. Continue Reading
The customer is always right. Max Effgen, April 7, 2009 It is not whether the customer is right or wrong. It is that every contact with a customer is an opportunity to improve business results and the relationship. To borrow from Steve Yastrow: Is it a slap or a kiss? Are the contacts with the client and customer relationship-building or… Continue Reading
People always prefer talking to people… Max Effgen, April 7, 2009 This is another “myth” that I find puzzling and is just not sound business. Phone calls are more costly than other methods of incident resolution. Plain and simple fact. Most serivce centers have to find ways to scale without increasing headout (i.e. Productivity gains). There are many companies that are… Continue Reading
If you answer the phone the quickest… Max Effgen, April 6, 2009 …that alone is the key to success. I am not sure how this is a service myth for success. Everyone likes a prompt phone answer, but in this day and age that is not always practical. It can even be turned on its head. A client had an issue with… Continue Reading
Always exceed customer expectations Max Effgen, April 1, 2009 One of the biggest challenges for sales and service is customer expectations. The needs, wants, and preconceived ideas that a customer has for your product can skew the service experience. These days a disappointed customer can put a poor service experience out to the world instantaneously. Customer expectations start with… Continue Reading