There are a few infallible truths about CRM that do not change regardless of your business, choice of CRM software and mode of availing the technology, i.e. whether hosted or on-premise. Keep in mind the following points and your CRM will deliver an ROI sooner rather than later.

1. Business today is more data-driven than ever before and CRM holds the key to bringing information out of the silos and making it available to everybody.
2. Configure CRM applications such that data access is prioritized and segmented according to need. Try to keep down the number of fields on the screen and clicks required to access data.

A hosted contact center with a third party raises visions of dollar savings for most businesses. However, there are certain factors to keep in mind if you wish to benefit from efficiencies that arise from a hosted contact center.

By: Scott Hornstein, Principal Hornstein Associates.

It may be the big shots in marketing that create your brand character, but it’s the worker bees who make it come to life. Inherent to the concept of brand is the promise of a customer’s satisfaction. That promise comes down to the interaction with the individual customer.

Said differently, the dedication to each customer’s sat¬isfaction must come from the top, and it must be under¬stood by every employee as a strategic product. Else, events will turn around and bite you in the butt, because it’s usually the lowest-paid employees who have the most contact with your customers—and thus have the greatest ability to affect customer satisfaction.

Happy customers tend to stay longer and buy more. Unhappy customers don’t. Here are two illustrations from everyday life (and your customers live in everyday life).

By Art Hall
Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting, LLC

Call center executives often struggle with the difficult challenge of doing less with more. With the right strategy in place, it is absolutely possible to improve operations with minimum resources to deliver maximum impact to the bottom-line.

Author: Bill Price
The Founder and President of Driva Solutions and Co-Founder of the LimeBridge Global Alliance.

Review:

Those of us who have been in the customer service world for the past 15+ years have struggled mightily to apply new technologies such as intelligent call routing or automated speech analytics, identify and hold onto the best possible talent to answer email or handle phone calls, and implement better training, scheduling, and other systems to pull it all together. Unfortunately, for all of our efforts, billions of dollars, and blood, sweat and tears, customer satisfaction is essentially flat while operating, capital, and support budgets are under tremendous stress. Customers have more and more choice and are expressing their frustration by switching companies at the drop of a hat, often sharing their disquiet with thousands of others on Internet blogs.

A good word spoken by a satisfied customer is worth hundreds of dollars of advertising. At the same time, a disgruntled customer can do serious damage to your reputation. Prevention is better than fire-fighting. There is always a reason why a customer acts difficult. Know the reasons and treat each customer accordingly.