OUR TAKE -  Who Doesn't Want to be Cool     Recent Editions of CRMAdvocate 10.28.09    Cool CRM Vendors 10.26.09    Make a Customer Connection Via the Senses 10.23.09    Social CRM in a Crisis 10.22.09    Damage Control - Social CRM Style 10.21.09    Brand Sniff 10.19.09    Does Your Brand Smell?     Lasting Impressions: Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. - John F. Kennedy I was a bit surprised by the responses from yesterday's question asking CRMAdvocate readers how to better understand what CRM vendors can do - see Cool CRM Vendors. Actually, what surprised me was that responses from vendors outnumbered all the rest.   Perhaps it was the way the question was framed. Using the "cool" factor might have peaked the interest of those wanting to be on the A-list. But in these more pragmatic times, the word can actually be a turn-off to the buying community.   For instance, I doubt many would try to build a justification for purchase based on the coolness of a CRM solution. It just isn't a word that gets the CFO to sign off on a big purchase these days.   On the other hand, don't we want our customer experiences to be cool . . . at least in the eyes of the customer? That's my take. Do you agree? What's your take?   Gary Lemke, Publisher          Action Center         Free Subscription         Submit Content         Industry Events         Webcasts         Archive   Stock Ticker Rainmaker 1.29      0.01 eLoyalty 8.06      -0.01 ClickSoftware 5.36      -0.02 ICT 15.82      -0.09 Amdocs 24.86      -0.16 Epicor 7.24      -0.05 HP 46.93      -0.37 Sykes 23.64      -0.36 Microsoft 28.02      -0.57 Unica 6.87      -0.16 Salesforce 57.92      -1.44 RightNow 15.75      -0.4 SupportSoft 2.25      -0.06 Oracle 21.3      -0.57 NCR 10.35      -0.28 Convergys 10.69      -0.32 Tekelc 15.51      -0.55 ATG 3.84      -0.14 Selectica 0.27      -0.01 Teletech 16.19      -0.62 APAC 6.55      -0.26 Chordiant 3.39      -0.14 Jacada 1.75      -0.08 NICE 30.92      -1.71 LivePerson 5.2      -0.43 Pegasystems 28.35      -2.35 Interactive 17.06      -1.44 CDC 2.16      -0.21 NetSuite 13.88      -1.36 SAP 46.11      -5.06 Astea 3.15      -0.35 As of 4:00 p.m. on 10/28/09         NEW IN CRM   Article:    When Legal and Social Media Programs Collide At a conference "Social Media Risk and Reward," over 100 legal counsel from mainly big companies, many publicly traded, assembled to delve into a day of discussion and analysis about what to do about social media. The focus of the event was to help Corporate Counsel understand social media's legal risks and limitations to help them protect their companies better. As one speaker said, the goal was to help legal move away from saying "no, because..." and into saying "yes, if...." when it comes to social media policy. In so many ways, this was a ground-breaking event!(CustomerThink )   News:    RightNow Study Reveals Consumers Have Sky-High Expectations The fourth annual Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report, a Harris Interactive study sponsored by RightNow, found that 86 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with an organization after a bad customer experience, up 27 percent from four years ago. The 2009 CEI report also showed that if consumer’s expectations aren’t met, they have multiple avenues to express their dissatisfaction and with social tools at their disposal, the repercussions of this can be enormous. For instance, 82 percent of consumers indicated they would tell others about a bad experience – up from 67 percent in 2006. (RightNow )     News:    Selectica Announces Selectica Contract Lifecycle Management 4.0 Selectica announced the release of Contract Lifecycle Management 4.0, which delivers capabilities for managing contract amendments and more than 100 product enhancements. The Selectica solution enables professionals to quickly gain a complete view of prevailing language and terms across multiple contract amendments. The solution also highlights changes to language and terms with each amendment to allow professionals to quickly gain an understanding of how an amendment affects a business relationship. (Selectica )   News:    Nexidia Introduces ESI—Monitor & Agent Assist Nexidia introduced Nexidia ESI—Monitor, a solution set which integrates into the newly launched ESI—Capture and is part of the Enterprise Speech Intelligence (ESI) software suite. With ESI—Monitor, call centers have access to real-time monitoring of customer/agent interactions and can apply speech analytics during the actual call. Nexidia also announced the first application to be built with ESI—Monitor, Agent Assist, which identifies specific topics spoken during a customer call and automatically serves up related content to the agent to help handle customer issues more effectively. (Nexidia )   Article:    Boost Customer Satisfaction, Now Yes, the economy is in the tank and companies of all sizes are reducing or, in some cases, eliminating "nice to have" activities and expenditures. But customer satisfaction programs and solutions should not be lumped into this category. Now is not the time to dial back on ensuring positive customer experiences. There are several easy steps that all vendors should take in order to cost-effectively enhance customer satisfaction and grow revenues -- especially in a down economy. To grow a business and provide exceptional customer experiences, companies must reorganize their organizational assets, including technology and human resources, to best serve and retain their customers. (DestinationCRM )   Didn't read the last edition of CRMAdvocate? Click here to see what you missed.

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