The Secret Lesson Hiding in Nucleus Research’s ROI Study - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz Yesterday, Nucleus Research issued a paper (read it for yourself here) that made a fairly encouraging claim: for every dollar spent on CRM, companies were seeing a return of $5.60 in benefits. That’s a very interesting number, although it’s a number in an area of research that can be very hard to [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Switching Gears: Transforming Transmission Repair by Building Processes Around the Customer Experience - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz The auto repair industry can’t boast a history of great customer relationships. Part of it is customer-based – no one’s really in a great mood when their car breaks, and it’s hard to deliver a great customer experience when the customer’s in the midst of a bad experience. But a lot of [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, Uncategorized Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
The data helps the relationship, but the relationship drives the sale - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz A few years ago, I did a webinar with some respected thought leaders in the area of sales about the impact data was having on selling. No one was willing to use the term “data-driven selling” – that was too much for sales people’s sensibilities. But the guests were willing and able [...]
Categories: CRM, On-Demand CRM, Social Business, Social CRM, SugarCRM, sales Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
What Sugar 6.3 teaches us about customer co-creation - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz Social media and social CRM are the kinds of things that offer multiple points of value. People who have their throwback CRM hats screwed on too tightly tend to see the formula as data+SCRM=sales dollars as the only metric, which isn’t exactly right. There are other benefits to engaging in SCRM – [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social Business, Social CRM, SugarCRM Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Klout: the Popularity Contest that Misrepresents Itself as a Metric - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz Over the last few weeks, I’ve been seeing a bunch of stuff about Klout come across my desk. For those of you who are unaware of what Klout is, you can visit the website try to figure it out on your own, or you can go with this brief synopsis: It’s a [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, Uncategorized Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Expert Voices: Kathy Herrmann on Determining SCRM ROI - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz Back when people were pooh-poohing social media and social CRM on the grounds that it was too difficult to determine return on investment (ROI), Kathy Herrmann was one of the few coherent voices in the crowd shouting back, “Yes! Yes, you can!” SCRM ROI has become slightly less mysterious and slightly better [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, Uncategorized Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Can you sell with social? Only after building a solid relationship - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz As I keep saying, there are as many ways to use social media for your business as there are businesses. The best way to use it, of course, will be based on the behavior of your business and on the behavior of your customers. It will not be based so much on [...]
Categories: CRM, On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, social media Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Are your people the weak links in the CRM chain? - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By Chris Bucholtz I never get tired of talking about CRM as a discipline, not a technology. Yes, yes, yes – the technology allows you to scale the discipline, but ultimately, the ideas, initiatives and actions that result from CRM and reach customers are not executed by technology – they’re executed by people. (Clint Oram, [...]
Categories: CRM, Customer Experience, On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
The true value of Open - Story From: CRM Outsiders
By John Mertic “Open Source” was the term coined that triggered a revolution in software. Then came terms like Open Data, Open APIs, Open Architecture, and more. What do they all mean? Are they just like Open Source? I spent time recently at the Open Source Thinktank in Paris, where we wrestled with this very [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Open Source, Social CRM, SugarCRM Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
SCRM Basics: Twitter, Why and How - Story From: CRM Outsiders
A few years ago, when I worked over in San Francisco, I would occasionally commute using the “casual car pool” system – in other words, at a designated congregation point, I’d get into a vehicle with a total stranger so that person could save bridge toll and I could save bus money. It was less [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, twitter Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
Lesson From a Spotty Social Media Strategy - Story From: CRM Outsiders
(Editor’s note: chatting around the office can result in outbursts of coherence like this one, from David Bockian, who recapitulates this story and distills it to its essence – and even mentions ferrets in the process – the editor) If you make a business decision that causes your customers to say, “What were you thinking?”— [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Social CRM, SugarCRM, facebook Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
What is the Sugar Community? - Story From: CRM Outsiders
We talk a lot about social CRM, communities and the like. The developer community – and the open source community, to be specific – was really the first to seize on the potential of the new communication technologies enabled by social media. We’re lucky over here at SugarCRM – we have an insider as our [...]
Categories: On-Demand CRM, Open Source, Social CRM, SugarCRM Tags: CRM Reviews, SugarCRM
How Can Your Company Can Start Producing Useful Content? - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
In my last post, I mentioned your email marketing efforts will almost always be more successful when you offer value to your recipients. In the comments, Chris Help backed up this point. He said “On the other hand, if someone sends out emails with USEFUL CONTENT, and eventually tries to sell me a related product, [...] Related posts:
Categories: CRM Technology, Customer Service, Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, Sales Management, Sales Training, SalesNexus CRM, Search Marketing, sales, small business Tags: SalesNexus CRM
How to Increase Profits With Smart Email Marketing - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
Is targeted email marketing profitable? Yes. How profitable? Recent research shows “B2C marketers report an average 256% ROI” from email marketing. No, that’s not a typo. It does say a two hundred and fifty-six percent ROI. How can your business achiieve this level of success? Simple; all you need to do is GOLF. Grab Their [...] Related posts:
Categories: CRM Technology, Customer Service, Email Marketing, Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM Tags: SalesNexus CRM
5 Ways to Sell More by Getting Organized - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
5 Simple and Affordable things any sales person can do today to increase sales results quickly. Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, Email Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, Sales Management, Sales Training, SalesNexus CRM, online crm, prospecting, sales Tags: SalesNexus CRM
Ensure Your Company’s Success by Empowering Your Sales Team - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
Many companies make a big mistake when it comes to the way they handle sales. Although they take the time and energy necessary to hire top notch sales talent, they cripple these people’s ability to do well by not giving them the right tools. What’s good for a company’s sales team is good for the [...] Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM, sales Tags: SalesNexus CRM
SalesNexus CRM Competes in CRM Idol Competition! - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
CRM Idol pits 40 smaller CRM players against each other to choose the IDOL in just a few weeks. Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, Email Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, SMB, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM, crm solution, online crm, small business Tags: SalesNexus CRM
Return on Investment (ROI) for Sales People - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
To be successful, sales people must measure their own return on investment as well as identify ROI for their customers. Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, Email Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, SMB, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM, online crm, prospecting, sales, small business Tags: SalesNexus CRM
Who’s Leads Are They Anyway? - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
Does the business own the sales leads or the sales person? Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, On-Demand CRM, Product News, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM, linkedin, online crm, sales, sales leads Tags: SalesNexus CRM
Are Sales People Email Marketers? - Story From: Sell, Sell, Sell!
Does your sales team have a role in your email marketing plans? Even if you don't have an email marketing strategy, your sales people do. Related posts:
Categories: CRM, CRM Technology, Customer Service, Email Marketing, Marketing, On-Demand CRM, Product News, SMB, Sales Management, SalesNexus CRM, online crm, sales, small business Tags: SalesNexus CRM
