Ten Service Myths Max Effgen, April 1, 2009 Another useful post from Destination CRM Blog. 10 Service Myths 1. Always exceed customer expectations. 2. If you answer the phone the quickest, that alone is the key to success. 3. People always prefer talking to people. 4. The customer is always right. 5. If complaints are down, customer service… Continue Reading
Keep It Simple… Max Effgen, March 29, 2009 Sales usage and/ or compliance of a CRM system can vary widely for many reasons. Some sales talent believe that they personally own the account contacts and are a conduit to the relationship. Some posture and pontificate on compliance and then do not lead by example. Some just don’t like… Continue Reading
SLA in the Cloud Max Effgen, March 24, 2009 Service Level Agreements (SLA) are nothing new and have existed in information technology for many, many years. Now that the cloud has opened the information utility to everyone, SLAs are out in the open. But what does it really mean? It is not like you have a meter or a… Continue Reading
Sales Pipeline process changes… Max Effgen, March 22, 2009 In my experience, pipeline/forecast is one area of a CRM system that seems to change frequently. I have seen this both from the consulting side and as a user. Not going to comment on whether it is right or wrong, just that it happens, often, as a matter of fact… Continue Reading
It is not about the technology… Max Effgen, March 20, 2009 Customers Want Productivity, Not Products Solid article by Jessica Tsai detailing the recent Microsoft Convergence conference. I have always has success tying productivity solutions to technology, so that customers are now vocalizing this need does not come as a surprise. Continue Reading
A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing Max Effgen, March 18, 2009 Above the Clouds Worth reading this engrossing whitepaper from the UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory on Cloud Computing. Continue Reading
Integration requirements for CRM, CTI Max Effgen, March 16, 2009 CTI integration with CRM systems is typically limited to Sales and Support offerings. Since phone systems change less often than other pieces of technology, these integrations have been “set and forget” when properly scoped. I have clients that have not touched the CTI integrations of deployments ever. These integrations are… Continue Reading
Interesting read on competing clouds Max Effgen, March 13, 2009 Amazon, Microsoft improve their cloud computing game Interesting read on AWS and Azure offerings. No surprise that Microsoft is offering SQL Server. One thought though is how many less sophisticated organizations run much of their business on Excel or Access. Is this really going to attract those customers? The AWS… Continue Reading
Amazon AWS getting serious about the enterprise? Max Effgen, March 12, 2009 Amazon EC2 Introduces Reserved Instances This is a great pricing model for budgets that have the “use it or lose it” money. It might entice enterprises to try the service without the recurring payments and unexpected fees that many “As A Service” providers use. Full disclosure: The wife works at… Continue Reading
Doing more with less Max Effgen, March 12, 2009 Increases in customers means increases in customer support. An effective tactic when starting a self-service initiative is to reassure Customer Support that the organization has to do more with less. Not less people, more support with the same number of people. During the bubble, it was because businesses would not… Continue Reading