Sedona Takes Aim at Customer Value Indicators
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The financial services industry has adopted CRM technology with great zeal -- it is known as an early adopter market and continues to innovate in the ways it uses various modules.
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With the introduction of Real-Time Decision Manager from SAS, the expanding use of predictive analytics synchronized to work with a concurrent business process will receive a major boost.The SAS technology taps into the wealth of analytical data gathered from a company?s databases and scores the company's customers for potential up-sell and cross-sell marketing opportunities.For example, during a transaction -- be it a telephone customer service call or a Web purchase -- Real-Time Decision Manager can direct the customer service representative (CSR) to offer the customer an additional service or product or make an online offer.SAS's global marketing manger Larry Mosiman, believes that Decision Manager will increase wallet share for its customers and help to reduce customer attrition, especially in the highly volatile communications industry.The technology creates a decision diagram that can be based on new information that is captured during the course of a transaction, said Mosiman."Real-Time Decision Manager is all about putting the process flow together to take into account the information gained, even during a conversation that might affect the outcome," said Mosiman.The technology typically comes back with a sub-second response and will handle approximately a thousand transactions per minute.?The concept of decision making in real time is not new. Companies as far back as Compaq were designing similar products; one in particular Compaq called ZLE, for Zero Latency Enterprise.The idea behind real-time decision making, according to Gareth Herschel, a Gartner analyst, has a number of major components.First, it makes intelligent decisions part of the business process."Instead of having somebody going off and doing analysis that is not tied into a business process, this is part of the process," said Herschel.The other key component is that this is not just a way of scoring the customer. Rather, it recommends an action to an agent and may even provide a script for the agent to follow for an up-sell opportunity.There are challenges to the idea, however.Mainly, CSRs are not typically salespeople who are comfortable up-selling a customer. In addition, it flies in the face of how call centers work.Keeping service center costs down is typically based on how quickly a CSR can handle a customer's problem and get them off the phone or off-line. By trying to up-sell or cross-sell a customer, more contact time -- not less -- will be required.Nevertheless, Herschel said although SAS is late to the market with this kind of product, because of its clout in the industry, the idea of? putting decision-making at the point of sale will gain wider acceptance in the enterprise.SAS also announced 1-800-Flowers as its first customer for the product, which is shipping now.
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Eighty-five percent of users responding to a recent survey said environmental factors are important in planning IT operations, but only one quarter said they have written "green" initiatives into their company's purchasing processes. Meanwhile, critics of "green IT" say if vendors can sell by making their products appeal to that "feel-good" aspect of the market, then they know they'll get money out of it.
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The oilfield services leader is a quarterly font of impressive results and information.
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At Connect conference, customers will hear about the progress of its Total Cost of Ownership initiative, as well as upgrades to its HR and JD Edwards&#39; manufacturing software.
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By Tracy Harmon, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.  Jan. 30--SALIDA -- The growing business of ecotourism or "wildlife watching," which annually generates more than $1 billion in the state's revenue, will be the focus of a Colorado Division of Wildlife meeting Wednesday.
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Movado keeps moving, to the benefit of shareholders.
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Customers share what's working for them, and analysts weigh in about best practices.
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&quot;CRM is not a product. CRM is not an event,&quot; CEO Mike Lawrie says. &quot;It&#39;s a business strategy to drive companies closer to their customers.
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TechWeb - Rather than bridging gaps between business units and creating a single customer view, CRM has too often created yet another silo with incomplete information. Customer experience management ensures that customer information is consistent across channels and that next steps are guided by segment- or even customer-specific strategies. Here&#39;s how to move toward a more holistic approach.
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The company needs to focus on its core brand rather than launching new products.
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The e-commerce sector continues to outpace most other sectors of the economy in terms of satisfying customers, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index.
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Siebel Systems today unveiled a series of initiatives to help companies roll out software implementations more successfully and consolidate customer views in real time.
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The best way to communicate the value of IT security investments is to focus on business and customer benefits, said IT managers at this week's Security Standard conference in Boston.
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Sometimes metrics are employed to create an impression that may be inaccurate or incomplete.  Typical marketing favorites include horsepower in automobiles, watts per channel of stereo equipment, and, more recently, megapixels for digital cameras.
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With 8 million customers around the globe ordering business cards, letterhead and other printed materials from its online venue, VistaPrint executives understand the power of Web analytics for uncovering customer trends. Getting the most of out their data was a matter of measuring -- and acting on -- the right metrics.
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Rating the consumer-products giants on key financial metrics.