Well, it's been a fun couple of weeks on Wall Street, no? Was it really just a week ago that I blogged about the AIG fiasco?

There's plenty of blame to go around now for what could turn out to be, to borrow a phrase of Tom Brokaw's, the Greatest Depression. (What was so Great about the 1929 Depression, anyhow?) Depending on who's doing the talking, the fault for yesterday's failure to pass that $700 billion bailout can be attributed to the president's ongoing inability to convince anyone he's doing the right thing in any circumstance; to Nancy Pelosi's promise that new leadership in 2009 will solve these problems (yeesh, what a crackpot); or to the fact that the American public doesn't understand that the "bailout" is not, in fact, a bailout, but is an infusion of liquidity. (There; feel better?)

Personally, I don't think it helped when some Treasury Department spokeswoman told Forbes.com that the computing of the $700 billion sum was "not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number." What was that about new leadership again, Nancy?

Anyway, with all this sturm und drang going on, it's reasonable -- if not downright expected -- for companies to start panicking and burying their heads in the sand. But there's a glimmer of hope on the other side of the world, and it's the home of some 1.3 billion people.

Continue reading "Looking to the East" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With all sorts of data being collected and people sharing more and more information about themselves online, privacy issues become more important. So which companies stand out when it comes to developing innovative privacy programs? The International Association of Privacy Professionals recently awarded three companies honors at its annual Privacy Academy.

Continue reading "It's Not Just About Firewalls and Passwords Anymore" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As much as we believe in customer centricity and applying the Golden Rule in business, truth be told, not all customers return the favor. From unrealistic expectations to outright rudeness, customers can sometimes challenge even our most patient service experts.

Continue reading "We Love Customers, But…" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Web users have short attention spans. Frustrate them with an awkward interface and they'll be gone in seconds.

This is common knowledge, however, according to Tealeaf’s 2008 Online Transactions Survey of more than 2,000 adults, the proportion who experience problems during e-transactions remains high—at nearly 87 percent. And 41 percent of people who experience problems said they would abandon the site or switch to the competitor.

Continue reading "Online Issues Still Pervade " »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There’s been a fair amount of comedic hay made lately out of AIG’s series of “The Strength To Be There” TV commercials. Still running last week as the insurance giant was imploding, the ads feature precocious kids worrying aloud about such topics as “risk management,” with their parents invoking AIG as a “nuff said” riposte. Each commercial ends with AIG’s tagline: “The strength to be there.”

Of course, AIG as we (and its shareholders) knew it is no longer there. Which got me to wondering: When should a company stop whistling past its own graveyard when problems arise, and address its customers’ concerns?

Continue reading "The Strength to Be ... Where?" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, we all know that customers want a consistent experience across channels. And we know that the online channel is growing as a key customer touchpoint. But intuition and common sense don't always have a place in the financial statements. So how do you know if your multichannel strategy is affecting the bottom line?

Continue reading "How Do You Measure Multichannel Success?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The next competitive battleground is customer experience. So say 95 percent of business leaders, according to Ed Thompson, a Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst. Additionally, he said during his keynote at the Gartner CRM Summit, 80 percent of executives think customer strategy is more important than it was three years ago.

Continue reading "There’s More Than One Way to Customer Experience Success (In Fact, Here’s 7)" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

In the early days of the United States, you had a choice. You could live in the same town all your life, and everything about you was known by your neighbors, or you could wander from town to town, making you anonymous to everyone you met.

Continue reading " Is "privacy" real?" »

Posted by Martha Rogers at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

No, this is not a post about a drunken night in Vegas that involved a little white chapel. I’ve never been to the city, and as far as I know I’m still enjoying all the “perks” of single life (read: ordering take-out and playing video games every weekend). So imagine my surprise when my car insurance company congratulated me for getting married.

Continue reading "I Don’t Remember Getting Married…" »

Posted by Jeremy Nedelka at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A new global shopper study, “Shopper Decisions Made In-Store” (SDMIS,) takes a closer look at what’s happening in the world’s retail shopping aisles.

Continue reading "Market Smarter in the Store" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's face it: Contact centers have always been comedy gold. English majors of a certain age will fondly remember studying Aristophanes' seminal play What Was That Account Number Again?, while Baby Boomers still trade battered VHS copies of The Honeymooners episode "Let Me Route You to the Moon, Alice." And of course we all enjoyed the recent box-office smash Burn After Listening to An Endless Loop of "The Girl From Ipanema" While Being Regularly Reminded, "Your Call Is Very Important to Us."

Okay, so maybe your own call center experiences have been less Groucho than grouchy. Not Some Like It Hot so much as Some Like It Not. More Drears than Cheers. (Thanks, I'm here all week. Enjoy the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress.)

But that's not to say there's no laughs to be had in this area, as Genesys has recently demonstrated.

Continue reading "Contact Center Yuks, With a Point" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How many loyalty programs are you a part of? How many compete with each other? I know that I join simply for the perks, not to build actual loyalty. However, the good programs end up strengthening my relationship.

Continue reading "Are You Loyal to Your Loyalty Program?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

We might seem to harp on this topic, but there really is no way to over emphasize the importance of trust – not just in terms of creating the most possible value from customers, but in “lubricating” the interactions and transactions of commerce. Indeed, our entire economic system would come to a crashing halt overnight, if it weren’t for the trust that people have for each other.

Continue reading "Trust Makes the World Go ‘Round" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve attended two CRM conferences in the past two weeks with session after session on everything customer strategy—social media, CRM technology, capturing customer insight, boosting retention, and more. The one common theme: No matter how terrific the strategy or technology, none of them will fly without great people at the controls.

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, but it still bears repeating: If you want loyal, engaged customers, you first need loyal, engaged employees. As much as we in this “CRM industry” tout the idea of customers first, and as much as the reality is that without customers you have a hobby not a business, it is employees who deliver those loyalty-building customer experiences, whether through delivering great service, designing unique products, creating and participating in two-way communications, or simplifying processes. Thus, to truly succeed over both the short and long term, a customer strategy must includes a comprehensive employee engagement strategy.

Here is some of the advice on employee engagement shared at the two events.

Continue reading "Rules of (Employee) Engagement" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ll preface this story by saying that politicians love to hear themselves talk. For those who don’t live in Connecticut, Atty. General Richard Blumenthal certainly falls in that category. He’s gone after student loan lenders, corrupt officials, and now his crusade against injustice has taken him up against AT&T and its near-monopoly on phone service. He recently held a press conference and released a number of statements to the press stating AT&T has “appalling disrespect for consumers and disregard for the law.”

Continue reading "AT&T Scolded for Poor Service" »

Posted by Jeremy Nedelka at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Many companies talk about real-time agent training, instilling a culture of innovation, and employing a customer-first strategy. But few companies actually can document examples of individual employees working to make every customer experience outstanding.

FedEx is one of those rare companies. In the March/April edition of 1to1 Magazine, I covered FedEx’s Purple Promise in the article "Powered by Purple," which vows to make every customer experience outstanding across the entire organization. As one of the FedEx contact center employees told me when researching that article, “The Purple Promise is ingrained in all of us. We just do what we can for the customer.”

Continue reading "The Purple Promise in Action" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Martha Rogers and I have just returned from the Technomarketing Conference in Sao Paulo, where we appeared jointly on stage together, two times over two days during this four-day conference. We don't often get the chance to do that, but it's always fun when we do. Brazil is an up-and-coming economy, with a dynamic business community and an entrepreneurial culture that is likely to make it an increasingly influential country.

Continue reading "Don Peppers Goes Behind the Scenes at Brazil's Technomarketing Conference" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the themes at last month's SpeechTek conference in Manhattan was that, economic downturn or not, the technology keeps making advances -- and, more importantly, companies in the field keep making money.

"We're in a position where companies still need to invest in the advancements being made," Michael Zirngibl, president and CEO of Angel.com, told me. "The industry at large is at a point where it's got all this customer data in hand; now we need to start using it."

Continue reading "Speech Technology Keeps Moving Forward" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This question may seem easier to answer than it actually is. In fact, in some organizations different constituents may see customer strategy completely differently. Some executives may be focusing on cost cutting while others are aiming to boost brand equity. According to Gartner managing vice president Scott Nelson, companies need to select one primary strategy and stick with it. Sure, you may cut costs while deepening customer relationships, but ultimately, if building relationships is your primary aim, it will take you down a different path of strategy, tactics, processes, and even technologies than cost cutting would.

Continue reading "What’s Your Customer Strategy?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In today’s increasingly customer-empowered economy, a successful organization is a customer-centric one. One that balances customer needs with corporate needs. That engages and empowers employees. That integrates information and operations. And that capitalizes on the technologies that support these efforts.

Today at the Gartner CRM Summit we’ve announced the winners of the 2008 Gartner & 1to1 Customer Awards—organizations that have recently implemented a successful customer strategy with resulting business impact. All of the winners—Gold, Silver, and Bronze—have demonstrated the positive effects their initiatives have had on both the customer experience and the bottom line.

And the winners are:

Continue reading "And the Winner Is…" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The current state of U.S. politics reflects an important business lesson. Groups with diverse perspectives tend to make better, more creative and effective decisions than groups made up of people with similar perspectives. So what's the catch?

Continue reading "The Wisdom of Diversity" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“CRM is what you wanted. CRM 2.0 is what customers want from you,” customer relationship management guru Paul Greenberg told a rapt audience during his keynote speech at the recent CRM Association’s Return to Customer annual conference.

Continue reading "Are You Ready for CRM 2.0?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Internet Explorer 8 hasn’t even been released yet, and already Microsoft is facing stiffer competition in the browser market. Tuesday Google offered its web browser, Chrome, for download. Chrome’s release has already been widely publicized, so I’ll shorten reviewing its features and focus on its ultimate impact. Chrome is very similar to Firefox, but it also employs some of the better features from Opera, Safari, and IE as well. It’s a free download, so visit www.google.com/chrome to give it a test run. What’s much more interesting than its entry into the browser market is the possibility that eventually Chrome could challenge Windows as a new operating system.

Continue reading "Google’s Chrome Polished and Ready for Download" »

Posted by Jeremy Nedelka at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

In May, São Paulo unveiled a new bridge—the Octavia Frias de Oliveira Bridge—which spans the Pinheiros River that flows through the city. The bridge deck is unusual due to its form, which is similar to an "X" crossing at the tower.

Continue reading "Brazil is the Next Frontier" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just like any other brand or company, politicians are trying to market their wares to you. And just like when choosing a particular product or service, your decision will likely come down to two elements of trust: intent and competence.

Continue reading "This Election Season, You Are Being Marketed To" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)