ICMI's Customer Management Insight - December 2007 - (Page 33) TECHNOLOGY sales and service and have eliminated the silos of the various customer-facing functions, though they still purchase their software by the functional area of expertise. For an organization’s CRM strategy to support the corporate strategy of revenue growth, the company must rethink the manner in which it interacts with customers. It is important for the company to differentiate between customers and make every interaction with them count. This means, for example, using the opportunity of turning the call center from a service center into an opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell, or simply to strengthen the relationship with the customer by improving the customer experience. MARK ANGEL M Expand Your Relationships The following companies, some of which we refer to in this article, offer customer relationship management software suites for customer care organizations. AMDOCS AVAYA CDC SOFTWARE CONSONA EPICOR INFOR KANA MICROSOFT NITRO LOGIC ONCONTACT SOFTWARE RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES SALESFORCE.COM SAP VERTICAL SOLUTIONS www.amdocs.com www.avaya.com www.pivotalcrm.com www.consona.com www.epicor.com www.infor.com www.kana.com www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm www.nitrocrm.com www.oncontact.com www.rightnow.com www.salesforce.com www.sap.com www.vertsol.com Senior VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, KANA Good customer relationship management requires delivering accurate and complete customer service across multiple channels. Multichannel integration means that, for the first time, customers can choose from multiple points of contact, and have confidence that they will receive the same consistent, high level of service no matter how they choose to communicate. CRM is no longer just about customer data management, but about the holistic customer experience that includes customer interaction, how you deliver your customer data and, finally, the knowledge source. SANDRA DOROSZ ORACLE www.oracle.com/applications/crm/siebel GREG GIANFORTE Founder and CEO, RightNow Technologies We believe CRM solutions must actually help organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences. Customer experiences are a top priority for every company; a recent Harris Interactive study showed that 80 percent of consumers will never to go back to a company after a negative experience. And, outstanding service remains the number one reason customers continue to do business with a company or recommend it to others. Customers want to be in the driver’s seat — they want companies to listen and respond quickly with the right information. MIKE DE LA CRUZ Vice President, Nitro Logic Customer relationship management is ensuring that you do what you told your customer you would do, providing the service to maintain a positive relationship, and to ensure the product and/or service you offer is meeting their expectation. Included in this service is the assurance of quality within the product you are offering. CRM is much more than sales. The customer service team who handles calls from the customers on a daily basis is instrumental in the role of CRM. They are the front line for the organization. They resolve issues instrumental to the ongoing relationship with the customer, discover new opportunities that are immediately sent to the sales team through the system for pursuing, and even alert the quality assurance team of product defects potentially saving the company thousands in product recall costs and defective product going to market. icmi’s insight Vice President of CRM Product Management, SAP CRM is a business strategy to get closer to one’s customers and drive profitable growth. While the definition of CRM has not changed, the flattening of the world has shifted power to the customer. By the time a salesperson walks in the door, the customer has already researched the company, its products, comwww.icmi.com | DECEMBER 2007 33 http://www.amdocs.com http://www.avaya.com http://www.pivotalcrm.com http://www.consona.com http://www.epicor.com http://www.infor.com http://www.kana.com http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm http://www.nitrocrm.com http://www.oncontact.com http://www.oracle.com/applications/crm/siebel http://www.rightnow.com http://www.salesforce.com http://www.sap.com http://www.vertsol.com http://www.icmi.com
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