Risk is a relative concept.
When it comes to innovation, the insurance industry often gets a bum rap: slow to change, reactionary. One Dreamforce 2011 session, “The Next Generation of Insurance,” was even subtitled “Rethinking a Laggard Industry.”
Now, the insurance industry may be slow, but I’d never label it as lagging. Relatively speaking, the industry has been fairly aggressive in introducing new products and...
Can you hear your customers' cries for help?
With people spending more time than ever Facebooking, tweeting, and relying on online communities for products, services, and authoritative information, organizations naturally have begun asking: How do we turn social networks to our business advantage, especially when it comes to customer service?
Cue the emerging concept of social service — customer service, with a...
Is your IT department leading the social CRM charge?
Flash back to high school: Remember the categorical imperative? You’re the only person standing next to a fire extinguisher when a roaring blaze breaks out. Ethnically speaking, you have an obligation to extinguish the flames.
Similar imperatives operate in the business world — minus the split-second reaction time requirements —...
Sometimes you just need to push the envelope.
For years, excelling at customer relationship management (CRM) practices has meant learning how to master these three customer-facing capabilities: marketing, sales, and service. Then social networks came along.
Today, consumers are spending more time than ever not just online, but on social networks. Accordingly, businesses have a new CRM mandate: learn how to overlay social capabilities, to ensure that they’re...
What's in store for CRM in 2012?
As 2012 takes off, it’s time for that fun annual event: predicting how customer relationship management (CRM) — and related disciplines — will evolve over the year. Here are my top eight predictions for what’s in store for CRM in 2012:
Barring the collapse of the euro,...
Who doesn't want to be the big gorilla?
Truly, it’s a fine time to be a high-tech business. As organizations search for new ways to increase productivity while employing fewer people, vendors of enterprise software and hardware have seen their profits surge.
Productivity-wise, the high-tech industry likewise practices what it preaches. It’s long been one of the most enthusiastic — and successful — adopters of the latest CRM...
What are your customers saying about you?
With customers spending more of their online time on social networks, your next step should be obvious: market accordingly. That means courting customers on Facebook, Google+, Twitter or anyplace online where customers or potential aficionados of your products and services gather.
Of course, most organizations already have CRM practices and programs in place. So the question is: What’s the best way to overlay social marketing awareness?
The...
Chatter is changing. Now, you can use the collaboration application from Salesforce.com not just for microblogging — per Facebook and Twitter — but to actively break down barriers between different groups of employees, as well as with customers.
That’s thanks to new capabilities being built into Chatter, including advanced groups, which went live last week, to be followed soon by real-time IM — dubbed...
Help consumers get the message.
Welcome to the final few days of calm before that annual U.S. shopping frenzy known as Black Friday, followed swiftly by the smorgasbord of one-day deals, discounts, and free-shipping on Cyber Monday.
Market watchers are predicting record sales this year, and consumer electronics will feature heavily: who doesn’t want an Android smartphone, Apple iPhone 4S (and Siri), Amazon Kindle Fire, iPad, LCD...
Living longer offers many upsides.
Good news: We’ve living longer lives, and with a better quality of life.
Researchers expect the number of people who are 65 years of age or older to increase — as a proportion of the population — in the United States from 12.9% in 2009 to 19% by 2030, and in the...
