Free Industry Report -- The Mobility Revolution Redux

HDI is the leading professional technical service and support certification team, producing cutting-edge publications and research throughout the year.

As an introduction to our services,  we’d like to offer you a free copy of an HDI white paper, “The Mobility Revolution Redux: Continued Change and Challenge,” written by HDI’s very own expert, Roy Atkinson.

And by downloading this white paper, you can win a Kindle Fire and a $25 Amazon gift card!

Get Your Copy Today!

Noble Systems Enhances its Speech Analytics Suite with Agent Performance Measurement Tools
Noble Systems Corporation, a provider of unified contact center technology solutions, announced significant enhancements to Noble Speech Analytics that provide insight into contact center activities and show performance on key initiatives between sites, between teams within a site and even between agents on the same team. Available as an on-premise or hosted solution, Noble Speech Analytics can automatically organize calls by user-defined skills and categories, providing agents a score based on how well they met the criteria. By displaying results in this manner, supervisors no longer have to guess which teams or agents need help, or which calls they should listen to for a more complete performance review.

Interactive Intelligence Introduces New Mobile Customer Service Solution
Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. , a provider of unified IP business communications solutions, is releasing a new software platform that enables organizations to rapidly deploy customer service applications on multiple mobile operating systems, devices and social media websites, while bridging the gap between mobile self-service and live assistance. Interaction Mobilizer™ enables organizations to brand their own mobile applications then publish them on the appropriate app store (e.g. Android, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.), or offer them from their corporate website for users to download. Customers can log on using their Facebook ID, or using company-supplied credentials, as desired.

ASP Announces "Best Web Support" Winners for 2012
The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) has announced the winners of its fifteenth annual "Ten Best Web Support Sites" competition, a prestigious award that showcases excellence in online service and support. The 2012 winners include (in alphabetical order) seven Open Division entries­-Cisco Systems, Infor, Informatica, Quest Software, Red Hat, SAS Institute, and Yahoo. In addition, three companies -­Blackbaud, TiVo, andTricentis --­ were named winners in the Small Company Division. The ten winning sites will be profiled in a book called "The Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2012", to be published by the ASP in July.

Only 50% of Fortune 1000 Organizations Will Get a Worthwhile Return From Their Social CRM Initiatives by the End of 2012
Although the adoption of social applications by sales, marketing and customer service departments continues to grow rapidly, Gartner, Inc. said that, by the end of 2012, only 50 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will receive a worthwhile return on investment (ROI) from their social customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives.

During the next two years, the success of social CRM will depend on how well companies and social CRM technology providers can make social CRM projects more than just social objectives by tying them to clear and measurable business objectives. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012 three-quarters of new social CRM initiatives that receive funding will have a business case incorporating measurable ROI.

Many organizations have established a form of social presence. However, many also lack a clear business performance objective for social CRM, being at early stage in their measurement of its business outcomes.

Gartner analysts said they expect the worldwide market for social CRM software licenses and subscriptions to total $2.1 billion in 2012, up from 850 million in 2011, and that social CRM revenue will represent 10% of the overall CRM market.

Initially, social CRM was mostly a concern of marketing, but it now affects every discipline, from marketing and sales to customer service and support. Social CRM is increasingly important to lead generation and cross-selling and up-selling capabilities, and to other functions that are key to successful sales organizations. Gartner said that business-to-business applications for sales use will have the fastest growth and will account for 30 percent of social CRM spending by 2015, up from 5 percent in 2011.

Today, social CRM vendors differentiate themselves on the basis of functions, analytics, ease of use and superior experience delivered through professional services. Over time, however, they will find it harder to gain an advantage by providing unique core functions. They will need to show quantified business cases and, more importantly, deliver repeatable social CRM processes that are not yet broadly available.

More...

Consumers Crave Simplicity Not Engagement
According to Corporate Executive Board, a research and advisory services firm, the rise of new technology has fundamentally changed the way consumers buy, providing greater access to information and choice than ever before.  Feeling overwhelmed, consumers want support -- not increased marketing messages or "engagement" -- to more quickly and easily navigate the purchase process. Brands that help consumers simplify the purchase journey have customers who are 86 percent more likely to purchase their products and 115 percent more likely to recommend their brand to others.

In a study of 7,000 consumers and marketing executives representing 125 consumer brands across 12 industries, CEB identified a significant disconnect between current marketing strategies, including customer engagement, and preferred consumer buying behavior. While most marketers are behaving as if the majority of consumers are open to having a relationship with their brand, CEB found only 20 percent of consumers report being open to such relationships. As a result, today's marketing tactics are making customers less loyal and resulting in lost revenue for companies.

To capture customers' attention and build loyalty, companies should invest in making the purchasing process so simple that customers' decision-making actually becomes easier. CEB's insights show a 20 percent increase in simplifying the decision-making process results in a 96 percent increase in a customer's likelihood to purchase, re-purchase or recommend a particular brand. Companies can simplify the buying process in three important ways by helping consumers:

• Trust Information: provide recommendations by consumer advisors, ratings and reviews

• Navigate the Purchase Process: simplify the research process by offering clear and streamlined brand-specific product information targeted to each decision stage

• Weigh Comparison Options: make transparent buying guides and brand differentiated information easily available

More...

Customer Experience Enters Top 10 CIO Technology Priorities for 2012
CIOs ranked customer relationship management (CRM) as their No. 8 technology priority for 2012, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.'s Executive Programs. CRM moved up from the No. 18-ranked technology in 2011.

Additionally, Gartner's 2012 CEO Survey found that CEOs cited CRM as their most important area of investment to improve their business over the next five years. Gartner predicts that by 2014, refusing to communicate with customers via social channels will be as harmful to the relationship as ignoring their emails or phone calls is today.

Gartner said worldwide CRM software revenue reached $12 billion in 2011, a 13.5 percent increase from 2010, and it is forecast to grow 7 percent in 2012. Gartner analysts added that a growing percentage of this revenue is accrued through software as a service (SaaS) and cloud computing. In 2011, SaaS accounted for 32 percent of the CRM software market and is expected to grow 16 percent in 2012.

As competition intensifies, service providers will either have to grow their own CRM practice to incorporate cloud computing, social CRM, digital media and mobility -- or they will have to form partnerships with specialist vendors. Service providers that are still focusing on traditional on-premises CRM solutions today will gradually lose out to the competition during the next one to two years.

More...

6 Tips to Managing Client Expectations
So much work goes into winning new business - there is the initial prospecting, early conversations, strategic program development, budget consideration, and creation of a deliverables timeline. Unfortunately, all of that work can come to a screeching halt before the ink is dry on the contract when the same amount of time, energy and commitment isn't placed on managing the client's expectations after the business is won. To ensure this is never overlooked, we developed the Super Six: keys to developing excellent client expectations and building longstanding relationships that can withstand good times as well as bumps in the road.
Full Article...

Making Customers the Object of Devotion
Companies would be well-advised to prioritize according to such factors as the lifetime value of the customer relationship. If a high-value customer just sent an email, perhaps the next available agent should respond to the request rather than engage with a lower-value customer who has been waiting on hold for a couple of minutes.
Full Article...

Top Five Legal Issues For The Cloud
Enterprises are moving their assets to the cloud to capture its many business benefits, including ease of deployment and reducing, if not eliminating, the need for IT infrastructure. However, cloud computing offers an array of pitfalls for the unwary. The unique legal risks and considerations presented by the cloud are especially important and often overlooked by non-lawyers. Here are the top five legal considerations on the way to the cloud.
Full Article...

Building Customer Loyalty Is Better than Renting It
Those familiar with incentive-based loyalty programs know that scaling back or -- gasp -- discontinuing a popular program amounts to a betrayal in the eyes of your “loyal” customers. Many executives are savvy enough to understand they are buying loyalty, but few realize until it is too late that their transaction was merely a rental. Genuinely loyal customers are the opposite of bought-off customers, forgiving the occasional misstep and providing a valuable source of ideas and insight for building better businesses. They form an emotional bond binding them to your company and increasing switching costs, but in a non-transactional way. To understand the drivers of loyalty, it’s helpful to consider how fostering loyalty serves the self-interest of your company and its customers.
Full Article...

What's a New Customer Really Worth?
It's strange, but many small-business people have no idea what a good regular customer is worth to their business. By calculating that figure, you should gain a better idea of what you’re willing to invest or risk to attract a good, regular customer. The calculation will also tell you how important it is to keep your existing customers happy. The cost of retaining a customer and even expanding a customer’s value is much less then getting a new customer. To determine what you’re willing to invest in marketing, first discover what an average new customer is worth to you. To determine their value, answer the following questions.
Full Article...

Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World's Sales Leaders
by Jon Vander Ark, Homayoun Hatami, Thomas Baumgartner

Broken down into five overarching strategies, this book focuses on the valuable lessons that power growth, including how to get ahead of the competition by taking advantage of trends and turning complex analysis into simple guidelines that sales reps on your front line need to sell better. Page by page, you'll learn how successful sales executives find untapped pockets of growth, act like locals to make the most of emerging markets opportunities, and power growth through digital sales. You'll also discover what it takes to find big growth in big data, develop the right "sales DNA" in your organization, and improve channel performance.

For more information, click here.

Follow CRMindustry.com on Twitter
Check us out and follow us for regular updates on the service and support industry!
http://www.twitter.com/crmindustry

Free Research on the Service and Support Industry
Are you looking for the latest research available (for free!) on the service and support industry? Then check out the research section of SupportIndustry.com. Some of the current offerings available to members are:

• 2011 State of the Industry: Six Trends Every Support Organization Should Know
• 2011 Survey Results: How Support Behaviors are Changing for Mobile and Social Media Environments
• 2010 Service and Support Metrics Survey
• Research Insight: Self-Service Support
• Research Insight: Average Speed to Answer, Wait Time and Handle Time
• 2010 Service and Leadership Trends in Customer Support
• Research Insight: Effectively Measuring Customer Loyalty
• Research Insight: Cost Per Contact (Phone & E-Mail)
• Research Insight: First Contact Resolution

All of these reports can be accessed by clicking here:
http://www.supportindustry.com/research.htm

Manage Your e.Newsletter Subscription!
Log-on to the member's only page and you can to change newsletter formats, remove yourself from the list, or update your member profile.

Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com

Advertising Information:
adinfo@supportindustry.com

Thank you for reading CRMINDUSTRY.COM's weekly newsletter!
Copyright © 2012, crmindustry.com

CRMindustry.com
3056 Calle Rosales
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
ph. 805.569.5761