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9/6/06 - Talking to a Reference
Often a vendor will provide the name of a person that can be contacted for a reference. It is a logical assumption that this person speaks for the company they represent. But that might not always be the case, or at least the whole story.
The point of contact may indeed be the primary point of contact for the vendor. In many cases, it may actually be the decision maker. A decision maker has a vested interest in the reference and may not be motivated to tell all. For instance, the decision maker's career might be tied to his vendor selection. So talking candidly about what doesn't work may not be in the decision maker's best interest.
Therefore, one piece of advice is to get input from multiple people from a particular implementation. I suggest you talk to people that have first hand experience including users and IT folks involved in the implementation.
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
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TODAY'S NEWS (more)
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Rainmaker Systems said it would acquire assets of privately held ViewCentral Inc. for about $4.3 million in stock. Rainmaker, which provides business-to-business sales and marketing services, said the acquisition would help enhance its solutions. ViewCentral provides modules for training and marketing event management.
Intervoice announced that it has purchased the assets of Nuasis, a leading provider of Internet-enabled, customer contact software. As part of the agreement, Intervoice has purchased Nuasis' products, intellectual property, customer and channel contracts and other assets, and will assume certain obligations. Also, Intervoice hired many of Nuasis' employees who joined the company effective September 1, 2006. Based on the transaction, Intervoice will continue to serve Nuasis' customers and will now have an opportunity to distribute the IP contact center suite to existing and new Intervoice customers.
Jacada announced that Embratel has selected Jacada to help unify its customer service desktop to reduce call times and improve the customer experience.
LiveTime Software announced immediate availability of LiveTime Help Desk 4.0 and LiveTime Support Desk 4.0. Both products now incorporate the same core technology platform that powers LiveTime's flagship ITIL product, LiveTime Service Manager.
Cisco Systems announced that they have entered into a joint marketing agreement for the United States and Canada that will address governance, risk and compliance (GRC) business processes and IT control issues across the entire IT infrastructure -- from the network layer all the way through the application layer.
Verint announced that Answer Financial has selected ULTRA and its Analytics suite to optimize its sales processes and enhance customer service. ULTRA will provide Answer Financial with the insight required to increase sales conversion rates and enhance the effectiveness of its customer support programs.
Epicor introduced new features and functionality to address specific requirements of aerospace and defense manufacturers in its latest release of Epicor Vantage, the company's 100-percent service-oriented architecture (SOA) end-to-end global manufacturing solution.
ViewCade Solutions and salesforce.com announced the availability of the ViewCade Notification Manager for salesforce.com's AppExchange.
Sig-Tec and HealthCast announce enterprise single sign-on combined with advanced strong authentication biometric technologies designed specifically for clinical access to patient information at healthcare facilities.
Craig Wireless is launching "Internet Everywhere" services such as VoIP, videoconferencing and interactive gaming in Greece using a Nortel solution.
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| CRMAdvocate Stock Index |
| CRMSI | 51.32 |  | -0.22% |
| Dow Jones | 11,433.90 | | -0.30% |
| Nasdaq | 2,189.07 | | -0.64% |
| S&P 500 | 1,306.99 | | -0.48% |
| Top Gainers |
| Interv Brite | 7.61 |  | 0.31 |
| Verint | 32.55 | | 0.30 |
| Sykes | 20.16 | | 0.14 |
| Top Losers |
| NCR | 33.96 | | -1.05 |
| SAP | 47.26 | | -0.85 |
| RightNow | 14.57 | | -0.41 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 09/05/06 | |
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The Lack of Loyalty - When we talk about the customer experience, we aren't trying to replicate Disneyland -- though those folks have done a great job of understanding the customer to the point that they've turned CRM on its ear, preferring to call it "CMR," for the "customer managed experience."(CRMBuyer)
|  | | Implemented the best CRM software? Now train the best workforce - As well as the typical barriers to successful CRM implementations, such as customisation or integration of new systems, IT directors need to address change in overall workforce behaviour, says Mike Cotton, Head of EMEA Alliances at OnDemand Software.(CRM2day)
| | | Banks Underestimating and Underutilizing Customer Account Statements - The long-touted "paperless society" is still a long way off when it comes to consumer banking statements. Financial institutions continue to spend millions of dollars annually on the printing and postage of periodic, paper-based account statements. Today less than 10% of deposit and 20% of loan accounts in the United States have been migrated to an electronic format.(CRM2day)
| | | Make marketing measurement count: Easier said than done - A very large company formed a task force to identify the value gained from the obscene amounts of money it spent on customer information, marketing analytics and reporting. No marketing representative was on the task force, even though marketing knew about the initiative and was consulted during deliberations. The person running the task force? An IT executive.(CMO Magazine)
| | | Google-UC Contract Unnerves Publishing Giants - The book-scanning contract between Google Inc. and the University of California has made the Association of American Publishers (AAP) even more distressed over Google's project to digitize millions of volumes from libraries.(ComputerWorld)
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"OUR TAKE"
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