aheadCRM

Customer Service is changing fast, but is it all for the better? Which changes did the pandemic drive? Does messaging have a value, and if so which? How about the role of agents? What changed for them? Will they see an improvement in their jobs? The CRMKonvos team had the pleasure of a good discussion with Ian Jacobs, principle analyst at Forrester Research who covers customer service and is one of the most knowledgeable persons around this huge topic. Shortly before our broadcast Ian and some more of us were involved into an interesting and fiercely led discussion on LinkedIn around the role of emotions in customer service. Opinions clashed, strong arguments were exchanged. Naturally, this discussion made it into our CRMKonvo - and Ian made a couple of good points about the role (or not - no need for a spoiler here) of emotions and data, and how data can be used. In addition, we of course looked into drivers of the customer service functions, how different industries are able to engag

In my recent article on how to improve collaboration with Fastcall CTI I summarized a number of requirements that need to be fulfilled by a solution. A good vendor needs to fulfil at least this set of requirements. ·   First and foremost: The software needs to do the job of making life for the employees easier ·   It needs to be embedded into the host software, and not run side by side ·   Ideally, the vendor is specialized on the software stack that your employees use and the software uses the same UI as the host software ·   The software needs to share information and data with the host software and write into the same database ·   The vendor needs to offer good support and regular, frequent updates to the software The article was deliberately abstract and not dealing with any platform, as I wanted to make a general point. The way to do this is to keep it independent of any major (or minor) platform. But what does it mean, specifically, to work with these criteria? Let’s

There is one scary fact in the CRM world. Out of roughly 25 million businesses, only 1 percent has a CRM system. Imagine this! It is a huge waste on one side and a tremendous opportunity on the other side. If vendors find the way into the future of CRM. Nimble seems to have found a way. The CRMKonvos team discussed these and other challenges of CRM systems with Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of Nimble. We are following his path for quite some time now, how he built Nimble from very small beginnings and always with the thought of enriching an ecosystem with his solution that is formed around simplicity and making life easier not only for the salesreps but for other employees, too. Learn how a philosophy of giving and sharing enables own growth by helping others to grow - from someone who achieved this repeatedly. And yes, Jon also knows why social selling and social CRM are not things anymore - if they have ever been. Jon is a true role model. Learn from him how to scale

This time, the CRMKonvos gang had a long and good chat with Jon Reed , co-founder of diginomica , one of the premier media outlets that serve the information needs of enterprise leaders in a digital era. Together, we have attended a good number of virtual events, which led to different experiences. Jon has written about virtual and hybrid events, we have our opinions. So what is better than having a frank discussion on what to do, what not, how to measure, what to measure. Of course, this easily touches the hot topic of personalization, and then AI driven personalization and AI in general. A long and very good conversation with one of the most influential thought leaders. Enjoy, as it is highly informative!

It's that time of year again. And although I'm not really into trend articles, I think it's time this year to start thinking about what's going on in the worlds of customer experience and customer relationship management – and how it's affecting businesses and customers. Especially since I was also asked ... So here's my list of developments that I think will be relevant in the next few years, in quite random order, and admittedly not entirely without overlap. Digitization - not Digital Transformation If there is one theme that has and continues to permeate through the Covid pandemic, it is that of digitalization. The pandemic has painfully brought to light the failure to make necessary investments in consistent processes and technologies in the past. As a result, many companies continue to have processes that are characterized by media disruptions. The need to improve here is also the overarching theme for some of the other developments and trends currently evi

The CRMKonvos team started into the new year talking with Daniel Renggli, Director Field Marketing North at Oracle. As we all know, Oracle has a vast range of solutions across the whole value chain and is one of the few that can (almost) support a whole enterprise with its solution. Oracle was also known as a cloud laggard - a notion that got vastly changed in the last few years. And Oracle governs the complete hardware and software stack to support businesses, which again is rare in the enterprise applications world. The company's IaaS infrastructure even can extend into the customer data center, which is a very interesting offering. Last, but not least, Oracle has a strong set of CRM- and CX applications, on premise and in the cloud, with the cloud software being established in the market in the past years. Oracle is one of the contenders in the #ClashOfTitans. All the more reason to talk with an Oracle representative about what is great CX and how to get there.