No Checkmate in this CRM Chess Game - CRMAdvocate: 11/22/2011

Advocate for the customer experience, contact center and CRM - news, trends, technology, best practices, and events.

Follow our Lead: . . . our Blog

Join CRMAdvocate (it's free).
(We never share your information: more, privacy)

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

OUR TAKE - No Checkmate in this CRM Chess Game

My comment yesterday that no one thinks the acquisition of RightNow by Oracle was a smackdown to Salesforce.com woke up some ardent supporters. There are some who are willing to bet on it.

One reader wrote, "First, let me declare I am a huge RightNow fan. I think it is a brilliant acquisition strategy. Of course, execution of the assimilation of RightNow into Oracle is the hard part. I have three reasons why I think the Oracle / Rightnow acquisition is a “smackdown” against Salesforce."

The three reasons offered are: 1. Competitive prevention: RightNow is one of the few hosted / cloud providers and acquiring the company keeps it out of Salesforce's hands. 2. Name brand installed base: RightNow has a large base of established, well recognized multi-channel customers many of whom are Oracle committed but many who are not. 3. Credibility: Oracle is still building credibility in the service cloud space. The RightNow team includes “talent."

I respect the rationale given as to why the acquisition makes sense for Oracle. In my mind, however, the idea of a smackdown is something that happens in an instant. I don't see this as an instant takedown. Rather, it is just one move in a longer game of CRM chess. No checkmate yet.

That's my take. Do you agree? What's your take?

. . . . . Gary Lemke, Chief Customer Advocate

Share CRMAdvocate's Take

Call Center Event: January 23 - 26, 2012. Orlando, FL

Lasting Impressions: Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Action Center

        Free Subscription
        Industry Events
        Webcasts
        Past Editions
        Our Take - Blog
        Your Take

Required Reading - CRM News and Articles

Sword Ciboodle Leverages SAS Analytics
Sword Ciboodle, a provider of customer engagement solutions, introduced the Intelligent Contact Center - a customer engagement suite powered by SAS. The Intelligent Contact Center leverages customer information allowing organizations to deliver a personalized customer experience with intelligent chat, and real-time predictive capabilities.   . . . more >>

iContact Launches Social Media Product
iContact, an email marketing company, launched its new social media marketing product. From this single product, businesses can directly publish, schedule, and track their social media marketing efforts on Facebook and Twitter either as stand alone campaigns or integrated with their email marketing campaigns.    . . . more >>

Evernote Selects Parature for Cloud-based Customer Engagement Solution
Evernote has selected Parature for online customer support to service its worldwide customer base. Evernote supports more than 16 million customers worldwide for its suite of products that allow users to capture anything from their real and digital lives, and access them anytime. To support its rapidly growing user base, Evernote needed to switch from a single dimension customer support software to a multi-dimension, scalable one that would give its agents better reporting tools, a more holistic view of their customers, and automatically support multiple languages, as Evernote quickly expands its overseas reach.   . . . more >>

Infusionsoft Acquires CustomerHub
Infusionsoft has acquired CustomerHub, a web-based application that provides a membership site and customer portal platform to small businesses who market and sell content online. More than 7,500 small businesses use Infusionsoft's software that combines CRM, email marketing and e-commerce with automation to nurture and convert leads, grow sales and save time. Specifically designed to work with Infusionsoft, CustomerHub allows small businesses to easily deliver protected content to paying customers and automate the subscription and collections process, helping them generate recurring revenue, save time and eliminate administrative overhead.    . . . more >>

newBrandAnalytics Raises $26 Million in Funding
newBrandAnalytics, a provider of business intelligence from social media customer feedback, announced it has closed $26 million in Series B financing for growth and customer acquisition. The newBrandAnalytics social intelligence products are being used by thousands of hotels, restaurants, retailers, and leisure companies worldwide. Its flagship product, Social Guest Satisfaction, harvests credible customer feedback from an array of social media sites. Using patent-pending algorithms, it then interprets, qualifies, and categorizes each customer mention in order to generate comprehensive performance metrics and actionable findings.   . . . more >>

Didn't read the last edition of CRMAdvocate? Click here to see what you missed.