Customer Success Management Industry Has Emerged Investment in the Service Based on Their Needs

ContentsVol. 20, No. 4

24 28 32 10 42

COVER STORY FEATURES 24 New Marketing 28 Unified Agent 32 Customer Success Automation Desktops Management Hits the Mark Connect Reps to Comes of Age Mobile and social media Essential Apps Ensuring that clients get offerings enable organizations to A single interface that houses the most out of what have more targeted interactions. all of the information an companies have to offer is BY SAM DEL ROWE agent could need will increase key in today’s as-a-service, productivity and efficiency. subscription economy. BY LEONARD KLIE BY OREN SMILANSKY

COLUMNS/DEPARTMENTS INSIGHT REAL ROI

2 Front Office 40 Small Biz Buzz 17 Digital Dexterity a 20 Chat Apps Top 36 Fonolo Takes Credit Why it’s critical to Creating better Dream for Most Social Media for Reducing Call invest in customer customer experiences Only 7 percent of Messaging platforms Abandonment success. on the go is the key to companies worldwide are getting crammed Credit Union of BY DAVID MYRON unlocking value. have mastered the with business Colorado improves its BY BRENT LEARY digital domain. capabilities. customer experience 4 Reality Check with Fonolo’s In the era of digital 42 Scouting Report 18 U.S. Strikes Data 21 Mobile Marketing is In‑Call Rescue. disruption, tools like The market for Deal with Europe Essential for Brand journey mapping can cloud-based contact A new Privacy Shield Differentiation 37 With Paytronix, help you strive for center infrastructure is accord safeguards Companies need to a Pizza Chain authenticity. crowded, posing a big against U.S. spying. make their marketing Gets a Bigger Share BY DENIS POMBRIANT challenge to buyers. immersive for the of the Pie BY DONNA FLUSS 19 Customer 9 The Tipping Point most impact. Pie Five Pizza Co.’s Experience Metrics new rewards platform 44 Pint of View Required Reading Successful sale Are on the Rise 22 delivers the goods. enablement initiatives We should re-examine Continuity, Dance of the require a sound CRM’s tripartite consistency, impact, Rainmaker: How 38 Act-On Software infrastructure. nature. and integration are to Become a Sales Helps Truity Credit BY PAUL HARNEY BY MARSHALL LAGER the key competencies Superstar Union Connect with 10 Customer driving CX change. Focusing on the right Customers Experience clients, listening to Thanks to the them closely, and Don’t miss a crucial marketing acting as trusted component of CX: automation platform, advisers are central to emotion. a small bank hones sales excellence. BY BRUCE TEMKIN email campaigns.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 1 Front Office Why It’s Critical to Invest In Customer Success

HANKS TO the growing popularity of the smart move. Subscription services providers should subscription services model, customer expec- study usage patterns to determine how often and in tations and behaviors are changing and, in what ways clients are using the service and make rec- turn, forcing businesses to change as well. ommendations based on that analysis. TOne of the biggest benefits of a subscription services The concept makes so much sense, in fact, that the model is that customers can increase or decrease their customer success management industry has emerged investment in the service based on their needs. This because of it. Pioneers in this industry rightfully posit might justifiably frighten subscription services provid- that the more customers use a service, the less likely ers during difficult economic times. However, what if they are to cancel it. the solution wasn’t for customers to While the idea makes plenty of sense for subscrip- simply decrease usage but for them to tion services providers, it also makes sense for other be helped with garnering more value business models. As people and products become more out of the service, so that their busi- digitally connected, there will be new data for organiza- nesses can become more profitable? tions to study. Therefore, all businesses can and should This was exactly the situation that become much more attentive to customer behaviors. Salesforce.com faced during the Great Already, RetailNext Inc., an in-store analytics com- Recession. By the beginning of 2009, pany, provides an analytics platform that measures the faltering economy had caused shopper behavior through Wi-Fi, video cameras, POS such significant disruptions among systems, mobile devices, and other sources. Retailers the business community that Sales- can see how shoppers are moving around their stores force.com executives were worried and how marketing decisions are affecting the path about losing customers. In an inter- to purchase. With each shopping trip generating an ALL BUSINESSES view later that year with Chairman average of 10,000 data points, RetailNext analyzes tril- MUST BECOME MUCH and CEO Marc Benioff, the executive lions of data points annually. Additionally, Groupon’s MORE ATTENTIVE TO revealed that this worry prompted Breadcrumb POS system creates customer profiles that CUSTOMER BEHAVIORS. Salesforce.com, within a month’s capture buying behaviors, transactions, and specific time, to change the way it views and preferences. Based on this information, employees can serves its customers. When I asked offer discounts and make relevant recommendations him to elaborate on the change, he replied, “The big to improve the buying experience and sales. change in February was really that we needed to focus To see how companies such as Bluenose, Gainsight, much more on the existing customers and their suc- ServiceNow, and Totango are tracking customer be- cess and who they are and how they’re using the ser- haviors for hosted CRM vendors, read our feature vice even more than growing [our] business. While story “Customer Success Management Comes of growing the business is important—and we certain- Age” (page 32), by Associate Editor Oren Smilansky. ly are growing the business—we’re putting a lot of These solutions are not limited to CRM vendors; energy back into the customers…. I get messages their approach to tracking customer behaviors could from customers every day asking us to help them un- spark an idea that can be applied to your company. derstand how to be more competitive and work well in this environment. And I’m spending a lot of time on that, staffing that, focusing on that. That was not as high a priority, honestly, in January.” [The full version of the interview, “The Cloud Pleaser,” (CRM, Novem- ber 2009) is posted on destinationCRM.com.] Whether organizations are struggling during an David Myron economic downturn or simply have to justify every Editorial Director expense in a healthy economy, helping them make [email protected] the most of a service they are paying for is always a @dmyron on Twitter

2 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com 2012 National 2012 Regional EDITORIAL DESIGN Gold Silver VIEWPOINTS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR David Myron [email protected] Read the following exclusive essays MANAGING EDITOR Chris Cronis [email protected] SENIOR NEWS EDITOR Leonard Klie [email protected] at www.destinationCRM.com SENIOR DESIGNER Laura Hegyi [email protected] ASSOCIATE EDITOR Oren Smilansky [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Sam Del Rowe [email protected] 6 Ways to Improve Your PROOFREADER Greg Edmondson Customer Service for Millennials CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Donna Fluss, Paul Harney, Marshall Lager, Here’s what they expect—and how Brent Leary, Denis Pombriant, Bruce Temkin you can deliver. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD ANAND SUBRAMANIAM, SVP, WORLDWIDE Lior Arussy, PRESIDENT, STRATIVITY GROUP; Barton Goldenberg, PRESIDENT, ISM, INC.; MARKETING, EGAIN CORPORATION Paul Greenberg, PRESIDENT, THE 56 GROUP, LLC; Denis Pombriant, FOUNDER AND MANAGING PRINCIPAL, BEAGLE RESEARCH GROUP; Ray Wang, PRINCIPAL ANALYST AND CEO, CONSTELLATION RESEARCH Meet the New Consultative ADVERTISING SALES/PRINT & ONLINE Salesperson VICE PRESIDENT AND GROUP PUBLISHER Bob Fernekees 1-212-251-0608 x106 [email protected] Forget “Always be closing.” WEST COAST AD DIRECTOR Dennis Sullivan 1-203-445-9178 [email protected] Now the name of the game is EAST/MIDWEST AD DIRECTOR Adrienne Snyder 1-201-327-2773 [email protected] “Always be listening.” MARKETING GORDON BURNES, CMO, BULLHORN VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING Tom Hogan, Jr. [email protected] DIRECTOR OF WEB EVENTS DawnEl Harris [email protected] 4 Ways Mobile Apps EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT Providers Can Deliver PRESIDENT AND CEO Thomas H. 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Box 3006, Northbrook, IL 60065-3006, or call Customer service may be getting Searchable archive of all articles with digital document delivery: 1-847-291-5213. better, but customers are also less www. iti-infocentral.com Editorial Office 237 West 35th Street, Suite 806, New York, NY forgiving of bad service. Here’s Contents also available online under direct licensing arrangements 10001; (212) 251-0608; www.destinationCRM.com what not to do. with EBSCO, NewsBank, ProQuest, and Gale and through CRM MAGAZINE’S MONTHLY PR EDITORIAL EMAIL UPDATE: DYLAN ASTLE, VP OF MEMBER EXPERIENCE, redistribution arrangements with information service providers Contact David Myron at [email protected] DIRECTBUY Reality Check By Denis Pombriant Journey Maps: The Secret to Our Customer Success In the era of digital disruption, new tools can help you strive for authenticity

HO DOESN’T want their custom- In this case, authenticity means dealing with the customer ers to be successful? This sentiment has on the customer’s terms in the context of what the customer remained about as constant as support deems is important. I think of this as “a moment of truth,” for motherhood, apple pie, and baseball, the vendor being in the moment with the customer. If a Wbut now, amid the ongoing digital disruption, the notion customer needs a bit of information, your process should of customer success is being significantly re-evaluated, be built around delivering it, with the least muss and fuss industry-wide, economy-wide—heck, planet-wide. possible. I know many people will say that this is often a Before the disruption, we could all say nice words about perfect opportunity for an upsell or a cross-sell attempt. customer success and mean them, but You’ll have to be the judge of that. our ability to actually support custom- Sometimes a request for information is ers was severely limited by two factors: just that, not a cry for help. a lack of relevant data and the inability Being authentic means not assuming to act in the moment. Thanks to the anything, but also not taking anything disruption, those are no longer issues. for granted. The best way I know to tread Vendors used to have to act on the fine line between being authentic and behalf of customers, and executives being over the top is to develop scripts had to make best guesses and order for your major interactions, especially up programs and processes, but they the automated ones, and the tool for that weren’t always right. It was the “HiPPO” era, for highest- is journey mapping. Journey mapping is still new, and there paid person’s opinion, and the HiPPO ruled. HiPPOs are many questions about it. It comes to us from marketing were easy to spot. They were typically the ones with the automation, but it is much more broadly applicable. gray hair or the least hair. Often their decisions all boiled My best guess is that journey maps are the last piece down to trying to delight customers. and the keystone of digital disruption. Without them, the But there’s a huge disparity between vendor inten- whole digital disruption is nothing more than the front tion to delight and customer perception of it. A Harvard office on steroids. But with them, we can achieve a degree Business Review article (“Stop Trying to Delight of sophistication not seen before in CRM, especially in Your Customers”) points out that rather than our automated dealings with customers. This sophisti- VERY OFTEN trying to delight, we might more profitably cation can drive business processes that deliver all the CUSTOMERS explore delivering adequacy. The reason is things we’ve wanted in the front office for a long time: DON’T WANT TO BE pretty simple: Very often customers don’t want better engagement, personalization, and higher returns

DELIGHTED. THEY to be delighted. Much of the time, they have on the CRM investment. Building and maintaining journey maps, and using JUST WANT WHAT small requests, such as finding information, and it’s hard to delight when the bar is so low. them to generate application code, is the best approach THEY WANT, AND Customers just want what they want, and the to satisfying customers through authentic processes, but THE LESS DRAMA less drama the better because they (we) all have it is also the thing that enables us to define a second or THE BETTER. other things to do, and the sooner an engage- third layer of an interaction, just in case we discover that ment with a vendor is over, the faster they can a particular customer really is a candidate for an upsell. get on to the next thing. Journey maps have the unique power to assure customer So if you can’t reliably delight customers, and if, in success and support vendor success. fact, they don’t even care about delight, what’s left? This brings us to a less-is-more situation. Not having to delight Denis Pombriant is the founder and managing principal of Beagle Research customers takes a lot of pressure off vendors. In place of Group and the Bullpen Group. He is a widely published CRM analyst in the United States and Europe, and his latest research spans all areas of social delight, I suggest aiming for authenticity, but this needs CRM, cloud, and mobile computing. His latest book, Solve for the Customer, some unpacking. is available at Amazon.com.

4 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com CONFERENCE PREVIEW

MAY 23–25 2016

OMNI SHOREHAM Topics Covered: WASHINGTON, DC n Social, Mobile, Omnichannel CRM, and Analytics n CRM Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them n Techniques to Improve Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service n Improving Organizational Culture to Enhance Customer Experiences n Successful CRM Metrics, Techniques, and Methodologies KEYNOTE PLATINUM SPONSORS SPEAKERS

DENNIS SNOW former member of the leadership team at Walt Disney World Co., and author of the book Lessons From the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life

BRIAN SOLIS digital marketing analyst, speaker, author, and principal at research and advisory firm Altimeter Group

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WWW.CRMEVOLUTION.COM 7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

6 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. WELCOME & OPENING KEYNOTE TRACK A n Sales Strategies 10:15 a.m. – A101 n Planning for CRM Success 11:00 a.m. Rick McCutcheon, Full Contact Selling 11:15 a.m. – A102 n Social Selling: How Sales Organizations Become Digital SUNRISE DISCUSSIONS 12:00 p.m. Chris Hergesell, EY LLP CRM Evolution will host early morning discussions from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday for business professionals to openly talk about CRM strategies. Come network, discuss challenges, and 1:15 p.m. – A103 n CRM’s Role in Enabling Sales Transformation 2:00 p.m. Jim Dickie, CSO Insights share ideas with peers and CRM experts. 2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. A104 n Solution Sessions TUESDAY, MAY 24 3:15 p.m. – A105 n Six Ways to Increase Prospect Intelligence to Win More Business 4:00 p.m. Scott Hornstein, B2P Partners 8:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. 4:15 p.m. – A106 n Promote Active CRM Using the Willing-to-Buy Framework 5:00 p.m. Phil Perkins, Acumen Corp., & SD1 | Breakfast With the Influencers Panel Dan Schultheis, Personal Communications Consultants The world of CRM and customer experience has not only changed dramatically, 5:00 p.m. – but escalated in its importance at businesses. Join four CRM influencers over 7:00 p.m. GRAND OPENING RECEPTION GRAND OPENING RECEPTION coffee and breakfast in an informal panel, moderated by conference chair Paul Greenberg to discuss what’s going on in the world of CRM. What is its future? 8:00 a.m. – Be ready with your questions and they’ll be ready to answer. 8:45 a.m. CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

8:00 a.m. – SD1 n Breakfast With the Influencers Panel WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 8:45 a.m. MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group 8:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. KEYNOTE CRM (R)evolution n Brian Solis, Altimeter Group SD2 | PANEL : Gaining Sales Advantage: Sales Optimization Tools, Techniques, & Technology 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX Salesforce automation has become not a nice-to-have but a must-have system to run sales operations. But it takes more than the basics when it comes to closing TRACK A n Sales Strategies a deal in an era where customers want personalized attention. If you are able to 10:45 a.m. – provide that attention— ranging from the content to the offer—your chances of A201 n Lead Conversion Mixology Ben Chaib, Los Angeles Film School closing the deal are improved immensely. Why is that? What do you have to do? 11:30 a.m. What technology tools are out there to help you do that? This vendor panel on 11:45 a.m. – A202 n Sales Is From Mars, Marketing Is From Venus: An Alignment Story With sales optimization will give you those answers. 12:30 p.m. MA + CRM Christian Wettre, W-Systems SD3 | Predicting the Future: Customer-Driven Innovation 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by Customers, both corporate and individual, are the drivers of innovation. This concept of customer-driven innovation raises the question: How do organizations 1:45 p.m. – A203 n How Creating Business and IT Alignment Improves Customer effectively predict what would be viable? To achieve that insight, organizations 2:30 p.m. Engagement Outcomes Leslie Ament, Hypatia Research need to gain a holistic view of their customers to understand what is valuable 2:45 p.m. – n to them. What do customers expect from your brand or products? How often 3:30 p.m. A204 Solution Sessions are they purchasing and through what channels? What features do they use 3:30 p.m. – frequently, and what do they want more of? Companies need to be proactive 4:15 p.m. BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX in uncovering this information with a customer-obsessed approach. It’s not just 4:15 p.m. – A205 n Making Sales Predictive and Mobile Michael Combopiano, what the capabilities of new products are, it’s how and why customers will use 5:15 p.m. BMO Harris Bank, & Jim Steger, Sonoma Partners them that are of utmost importance. Attend this session to learn how to use 5:30 p.m. – customer-driven innovation to meet their evolving demands. 8:00 a.m. – 8:457:00 p.m.a.m. CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST NETWORKING RECEPTION

SD4 | Executive Primer, Part 1—Digital Strategy: How to 8:00 a.m. – SD2 n PANEL: Gaining Sales Advantage: Sales Optimization Tools, Techniques, Thrive in the Digital Deluge 8:45 a.m. & Technology MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group A piecemeal approach to the digital marketplace is doomed to failure. A little 9:00 a.m. – n Customer Engagement social media or channel optimization here, a little web enhancement and an 9:45 a.m. TRACK A ecommerce app there, leaves an organization distracted by the details of 10:00 a.m. – A301 n PANEL: CRM and Small Business in a Digital World implementing ad hoc and often incompatible initiatives. What is needed instead 10:45 a.m. MODERATOR: Brent Leary, CRM Essentials is a comprehensive and forward-looking digital strategy that encompasses 10:45 a.m. – A302 n When Amy Met Siri: How Virtual Companions Will Change Customer all aspects of digital engagement and enables the organization to anticipate 11:30 a.m. Engagement Forever Brent Leary, CRM Essentials and exploit new opportunities as they arise. Attend this session to learn the components of an effective digital strategy; how to gather digital information about BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX your customers, analyze it, and derive actionable insights from it; and the digital 11:45 a.m. – tools available to customize and optimize each individual customer’s experience. 12:30 p.m. CLOSING KEYNOTE PANEL

WWW.CRMEVOLUTION.COM CONFERENCE AT-A-GLANCE MONDAY, MAY 23

Delivering World-Class Customer Service: Lessons From the Mouse n Dennis Snow, president of Snow & Associates, & author

TRACK B n Marketing Strategies TRACK C n Management Strategies B101 n Laziness, Narcissism, and Other Politically Incorrect Considerations C101 n Build Insight-Driven Customer Experiences in Formulating Marketing Strategy n Robert Bergman, Lewis University R. “Ray” Wang, Constellation Research, Inc.

B102 n Mapping Personas in Your CRM System to Maximize Value C102 n Implementing a CRM Program in the Federal Government Samantha Stone, The Marketing Advisory Network Antony Calvo, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by

B103 n Understanding Intent Data C103 n Session title to be determined David Raab, Raab & Associates, Inc. Casey Coleman, Unisys

B104 n Solution Sessions C104 n Solution Sessions

B105 n Using Customer Journey Mapping to Create Great Experiences David Kay, C105 n Session title to be determined DB Kay & Associates, Inc. Chuck Brooks, Chuck Brooks’ Company

A106 n Promote Active CRM Using the Willing-to-Buy Framework n B106 n Is Personalization Enough? Marketing Challenges and Opportunities C106 Not Being ‘Really Disruptive,’ but Delivering Disruption for Real Phil Perkins, Acumen Corp., & Michael Fauscette, G2 Crowd Robert Wollan, Accenture Strategy, Sales & Customer Service Dan Schultheis, Personal Communications Consultants

GRAND OPENING RECEPTION GRAND OPENING RECEPTION TUESDAY, MAY 24

SD1 n Breakfast With the Influencers Panel SD1 n Breakfast With the Influencers Panel MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group

KEYNOTE CRM (R)evolution n Brian Solis, Altimeter Group

BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX

TRACK B n Marketing Strategies TRACK C n Customer Service Strategies

B201 n Digital Transformation in the Age of the Mobile Customer C201 n The Endangered Customer: Eight Steps to Guarantee Repeat Business Sheryl Kingstone, 451 Research Richard Shapiro, The Center For Client Retention

B202 n Connecting In-Store Behavior to Online Dynamic Design C202 n Evolving the Customer Experience in a Cost-Constrained World Amy Halford, General Mills, & Molly Hjelm, 84.51° John Marrone & Shari Johnson, Merck

KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by KEYNOTE LUNCH sponsored by

B203 n Delighting the Multichannel Customer C203 n Excellent Customer Service Is Amazing Marketing Brian Border, Shutterfly, Inc. Erin Robinson & Jordan Golob, AOL

B204 n Solution Sessions C204 n Solution Sessions

BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX

A205 n Making Sales Predictive and Mobile Michael Combopiano, B205 n CRM Meets the Internet of Things (IoT) C205 n People, Process & Technology Tips BMO Harris Bank, & Jim Steger, Sonoma Partners Dileep Srinivasan, Atos, & Neil Procter, Hive (by British Gas) Justin Robbins, HDI & ICMI, & Danny Estrada, Net@Work, Inc. NETWORKING RECEPTION WEDNESDAY, MAY 25

SD3 n Predicting the Future: Customer-Driven Innovation SD4 n Executive Primer, Part 1—Digital Strategy: Glenn Stoffel, Bluewolf How to Thrive in the Digital Deluge Barton Goldenberg, ISM Inc.

n TRACK A n Customer Engagement TRACK B Predictive Analytics TRACK C n Management Strategies

B301 n Using Predictive Analytics to Fuel Marketing Success: Fortune Tellers C301 n Executive Primer, Part 2—Digital Strategy: The Core Role of CRM Need Not Apply Steven Ramirez, Beyond the Arc Barton Goldenberg, ISM Inc.

B302 n Next Best Action Personalization C302 n Rethinking Customer Loyalty in an Age of Rapid Turnover Nicola Saraceno & Tiziano Cembali, Luxottica Group Denis Pombriant, Beagle Research Group, LLC BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX BREAK IN THE XXXXXXX

CRM in Sports n MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group

WWW.CRMEVOLUTION.COM 3 Days, 6 Tracks, 50+ Speakers, and MORE! CUSTOMER KEYNOTE SPEAKERS SOLUTIONS EXPO The Expo combines the CRM Evolution, Customer MONDAY, MAY 23 Service Experience, and SpeechTEK showcases. This central gathering place features the leading 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. sales, marketing, customer service, and speech Delivering World-Class Service: Lessons From the recognition solutions. It is the perfect opportunity to Mouse meet with C-level executives, industry pioneers, and Dennis Snow, president of Snow & Associates, former member of the leadership team at Walt Disney World Co., and author of the book the technology gurus who help you do your job better. Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Admission to the Expo is free with the purchase of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life any conference pass or just $25 for Expo-Only access (when purchased by the early-bird deadline). World-class customer service is not simply a matter of smiling employees who say “please” and “thank you.” Everything your customer sees, hears, or touches Monday, May 23 impacts their experience. “Everything speaks.” This program highlights how deliv- 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ering world-class service requires careful orchestration of the entire customer experience. Attendees will discover the key points of contact that make or break Grand Opening Reception the customer experience; how to elevate the customer experience from ordinary Tuesday, May 24 to extraordinary; and customer service processes that make service excellence “business as usual.” 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 25 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. TUESDAY, MAY 24 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. CRM (R)evolution Brian Solis, digital marketing analyst, speaker, author, and principal at research and advisory firm Altimeter Group

6 Even though customer experience (CX) is a major priority for 2016–2017, strategists face a challenge that technology alone can’t solve. How executives see customers and how they see brands/businesses are combining to create an experience divide that requires a shift in leadership to solve. The future of CX is a balance of BX MAY 23–25 (brand experience) and UX (user experience) all rooted in human-centered design. His new book, X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, is testament to his work. Brian Solis share his views on closing the experience divide and more so, 2016 building relationships through the design and cultivation of meaningful and share- OMNI SHOREHAM able experiences. WASHINGTON, DC Register today! WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 Use code CRMMG 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. to save! CRM in Sports: Maximizing Fan Engagement with Data MODERATOR: Paul Greenberg, President, The 56 Group Three Events for One Great Price! PANELISTS: Representatives from several major league sports teams For a sports team, its on-the-field competitors are very different than its An All Access Pass gains you access to all three off-the-field competitors. Outside of the stadium, teams have to compete with conferences, featuring more than 120 strategic other forms of entertainment for discretionary dollars (such as concerts, movies, and tactical customer sessions to choose from. Go restaurants, plays, etc.). How do sports teams compete? What do they have to know about their fans? What types of new engagement strategies must they above and beyond with your customer engagement deliver? This panel answers these questions and more. Plus, you can hang out strategies. Register for an All Access Pass today! with sports people, which is pretty useful and cool.

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The Tipping Point By Paul Harney To Maximize Sales Enablement, Optimize Your Processes Successful sales enablement initiatives need a sound infrastructure

IKE ITS predecessor, sales force automation, SALES PROCESS MAP sales enablement aims to improve the effective- We’ve all seen the standard sales cycle that starts with ness and efficiency of sales organizations. Sales prospecting and ends with a closed sale—rinse, lather, effectiveness focuses on the “what,” or determin- repeat. A sales process map offers a detailed continuum Ling the best action; sales efficiency focuses on the “how,” of the sales phases for your business with associated or using the least amount of resources (people, time/ internal and external actions. Ancillary processes, such process, technology). Sales enablement is about refin- as business case development, will have their own maps. ing the processes around customer engagement, solu- There should be overlays that tie customer commitment tioning, and contracting to increase sales metrics (executive briefing), demo, current/ productivity. The evidence for its impact is future state analysis, reference site visit, and compelling. In its 2015 Sales Optimization executive briefing to the sales phases. These study, CSO Insights (which was acquired by internal maps should be accompanied by MHI Global) found that companies with a external maps that match customer value sales enablement function saw an 8 percent created and decision-making steps to your increase in sales reps’ hitting their revenue sales phases. This comparison keeps the targets, translating into a 10.2 percent revenue increase. team’s focus on assimilating with customers, ensuring Companies implementing sales enablement should the defined actions drive value on their terms. follow the maxim “Get your process straight, then automate.” Many sales projects fail because broken processes BUSINESS CASE DEVELOPMENT are automated—and then the processes can’t exploit the According to MHI’s 2015 Sales Best Practices study, over technology. Below are three sales processes that should be 60 percent of world-class sales organizations say that their refined to ensure the appropriate infrastructure is in place. customers require formal ROI calculations before making a decision. This recent statistic underscores the need to INTERNAL DECISION MAKING document and refine your business justification process, This is most important; it drives all other actions. For including detailed procedures around the following: sales, there are three kinds of decisions: financial (pric- • gaining executive commitment on analysis, ing, revenue, profitability, cashflow), operational (service resources, and funding support; levels, deliverables), and legal (liability, indemnification, • use of customer “actuals,” industry data, and damages). Every deal is unique, but many decisions are previous justifications; common to all deals and can be preapproved. Providing • metrics for direct/indirect benefits; and the sales team with a playbook of acceptable • success criteria by stakeholder and associated decisions or range of solutions for common contract commitment. COMPANIES WITH A requests will expedite responses to custom- There is no better sales tool than a business case that SALES ENABLEMENT ers and eliminate a big source of delay: lack has been jointly developed and validated by the customer FUNCTION SEE AN of access to decision makers, especially high- with a clearly defined pathway to success. 8 PERCENT INCREASE level executives. Push complex decisions as Devoting the time and resources to refine critical sales IN SALES REPS’ far down the chain as possible. This gives processes is a task too often neglected because of a quar- HITTING THEIR managers authority over and responsibility terly focus. Companies that do will find reduced sales REVENUE TARGETS. for decisions, and introduces accountability. cycles and increased sales capacity as they move to enable For cross-functional decisions, schedule a world-class performance. twice-weekly war room where each department is represented and sales provides background info with a recommendation. This ensures consistent access Paul Harney ([email protected]) is an independent sales process con sultant who utilizes his vast sales experience to help companies close the to decision makers and sufficient review time and saves disconnects between sales infrastructure, the opportunity pursuit process, and countless hours scheduling and attending meetings. customer value creation.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 9 Customer Experience By Bruce Temkin Apple and JetBlue Focus on Customer Emotion—and So Should You Don’t miss this crucial component of CX

F THE customer experience (CX) efforts of most for 10,000 U.S. consumers and nearly 300 companies across companies continue down the path they’re on, they’re 20 industries. The correlation between the Temkin Expe- likely to fail. Why? Because these efforts often ignore rience Ratings (a metric that combines success, effort, and a critical component: emotion. Some companies get emotion) and the likelihood consumers will repurchase was Iit. Amazon, Apple, and JetBlue all score well in Temkin very high (a Pearson correlation of 0.84, if you’re wondering). Group’s Emotion Ratings. That they’re also wildly success- It was interesting to look at the relationship between ful is no coincidence. loyalty and each component of CX; strikingly, emotion Every time customers interact with your company, had a more significant connection to all measures of loy- their experience is perceived along three dimensions: alty we examined, including these: (1) success, or what they can accomplish; Buying more. Eight-seven percent of con- (2) effort, or how hard or easy it is for them sumers who gave a high rating for emotion to accomplish it; and (3) emotion, or how were likely to make multiple purchases, com- they feel about an interaction. To fully pared to 13 percent of those who gave a low understand your customers’ experience, rating. That 74-percentage-point gap exceeds you must focus on all three. the one for success (66) and effort (67). Recommending to friends. Seventy-six EMOTION: TOO OFTEN IGNORED percent of consumers who gave a high rating In Temkin Group Research’s “State of CX for emotion were promoters, compared to 6 Metrics 2015” report, nearly 200 respondents from large percent of those who gave a low rating. That 70-point gap companies rated their organizations’ ability to measure exceeds the one for success (58) and effort (61). different elements of CX. Here are the results: Forgiving. Sixty-three percent of consumers who gave • Forty-nine percent are “good” or “very good” at a high emotion rating were likely to forgive a company’s measuring success. mistakes, compared to 11 percent of those giving a low • Forty-two percent are “good” or “very good” at mea- rating. That 52-point gap exceeds the one for success (42) suring effort. and effort (45). • Twenty-six percent are “good” or “very good” at Clearly, improving the emotional component of CX pays measuring emotion. dividends. Just take a look at the Temkin Emotion Ratings (a Comparing results from the previous year, the ability subset of the Temkin Experience Ratings): Besides Amazon, to measure success improved, but the ability to measure Apple, and JetBlue, the leaders include Chick-fil-A, Lexus, effort and emotion stayed the same. To recap: Companies and PetSmart. These companies understand the importance are about twice as effective measuring success as they are of forging an emotional bond with customers. measuring emotion, and nearly three quarters of organi- Here are a few tips to help get you started doing like- zations are not good at measuring emotion. wise. First, talk about customers’ emotions. We need to This shouldn’t be a surprise. Most professionals get more comfortable dealing with the topic. Make cus- HOW OFTEN DO have worked on projects with functional require- tomer emotions a regular and integral part of customer YOU TALK ABOUT ments (which generally define the success crite- experience discussions. Second, do more qualitative ria), but how many of you have been involved research. Analytics are important, but emotion often gets CUSTOMER with projects that define emotional requirements? lost when our focus turns to percentages and statistical EMOTION? How many discussions have you had in your significance. And finally, focus on the customer journey. HOPEFULLY THE organization about your customers’ emotions? Keep in mind that customers often have more important ANSWER IS MORE I’m guessing that the answer is close to “none.” goals than just completing an interaction. THAN “NEVER.” A KEY DRIVER OF LOYALTY Bruce Temkin is customer experience transformist and managing partner of Emotion should clearly be considered, but to what Temkin Group, a research and consultancy firm focused on enterprise-wide customer experience transformation. He is also the chair and cofounder of the degree? Another Temkin report, “ROI of Customer Experi- Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org) and author of the blog ence 2015,” examined the connection between CX and loyalty Customer Experience Matters (experiencematters.wordpress.com).

10 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Verint ® Best Practices Series PAGE 12 CONNECTING FOR CONVENIENCE: FOUR BEST PRACTICES FOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

OpinionLab PAGE 13 FIVE BEST PRACTICES TO INTEGRATE VOC INTO YOUR CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING

RedPoint PAGE 14 HARNESS DATA, INSIGHT AND ACTION TO ENGAGE TODAY’S DIGITALLY Customer EMPOWERED CUSTOMERS Pitney Bowes PAGE 15 INTERACTIVE, PERSONALIZED Engagement VIDEO IMPROVES CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AT SECURITY Strategies FIRST INSURANCE That Keep Customers Connected Gallup defines customer engagement as “the emotional connection between your customers and your company.” This very simple definition belies the difficulty in creating emotional bonds between customers and brands and the sustained effort required to improve and strengthen those connections.

This month’s Best Practices topic offers recommendations for building connections between customers and companies from a variety of different perspectives. Our contributors offer insights ranging from how to listen to what your customers are saying to how to make it easy for customers to interact, and even how to predict where friction may occur on the customer’s journey.

The concept of engaging customers has emerged as one of the principal tenets of CRM in the past several years, and this installment should be required reading for any executives interested in creating stronger customer relationships.

Bob Fernekees VP/Group Publisher, CRM Media Information Today, Inc. Bob Fernekees, Group Publisher 212-251-0608 x13 [email protected] SPONSORS Adrienne Snyder, Eastern/Midwest Account Director

® 201-327-2773 [email protected] 549 W. Randolph Street 3001 Summer St. [email protected] 175 Broadhollow Rd. Chicago, IL 60661 Stamford CT 06926 www.redpoint.net Suite 100 Dennis Sullivan, 312-800-4500 800-327-8627 Melville, NY 11747 [email protected] [email protected] 1-800-4VERINT Western Account Director opinionlab.com pitneybowes.com www.verint.com 203-445-9178 mypbvideo.com [email protected]

Produced by: CRM Media WP12 April 2016 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

Connecting for Convenience: Four Best Practices for Customer Engagement

What do customers really want when spot emerging patterns and customer self-service than offering FAQs. That’s they engage with your business? Recent issues and offer proactive assistance. why it’s essential to provide customers research suggests they want to resolve their Over time, you might even be able with solutions that can respond to issues quickly, and place more value on the to predict outcomes based on certain their immediate needs and guide them speed and convenience of their interactions. trends or customer behaviors and accordingly to help ensure they feel valued It’s not surprising that more and more take pre-emptive action. This can be and understood, even when they aren’t customers are leaning toward self-service especially helpful for reducing customer engaging directly with an employee. through apps and websites, which can be churn and developing customers for life. more convenient than a live interaction by Company-managed social phone or chat. 2. BE READY WHEN CUSTOMERS communities—online hubs where people CONTACT YOU FOR SUPPORT. with shared interests can communicate, There are still times, however, in which Self-service channels have helped reduce get support, and build relationships—are customers hit a self-service roadblock and agent-assisted interaction volume for a great way to connect with customers need to interact with someone to resolve routine tasks and issues. However, now, and help them connect with each other. an issue or get a question answered. At with so many channels of interaction, You can also leverage selected posts and that point, it’s critical for organizations agents are increasingly involved in complex best practices from community members to have empowered staff members who inquiries and more apt to interact with and highlight them alongside your are informed and able to resolve issues frustrated customers who have tried organization’s own knowledge articles. quickly and efficiently. Customers expect unsuccessfully to resolve their issues a company’s employees to have immediate through other channels. 4. UNIFY YOUR TECHNOLOGY. access to information about them, such as Knowing and serving your customers order history, transactional data and more. Today’s customers expect agents to be well is best done with the support of empowered to do more than they can do for modern technology that brings customer This raises the question—with a mix themselves. A modern, unified employee interactions together holistically. Verint® of self-service and assisted service, how desktop application built for customer offers a portfolio of solutions to help can you optimize customer engagement service can empower employees to act transform customer engagement in today’s in a cohesive manner? Below are four best quickly, deliver a personalized experience, omnichannel service environment. Our practices that speak to this very question. and take the best path for customers. By customer analytics, engagement consolidating information and providing management, and workforce optimization 1. CONNECT ON A DEEPER LEVEL rich customer context, integrated data, solutions can help your organization USING CUSTOMER ANALYTICS. guided processes and dynamic knowledge, know, empower, and connect with With so many devices, channels and it also can simplify service delivery and help customers and employees, so you can a plethora of data available, it can be drive better outcomes with less effort. deliver better outcomes with less effort. difficult to gather and correlate customer With these customer engagement interactions and behaviors. What do they Next-gen employee desktops can also optimization solutions, you can enhance say? What do they type? What do they click? foster employee engagement by providing loyalty, increase revenue, improve And what are they looking to achieve? access to scheduling, alerts, coaching, efficiency, and reduce risk. Contact Most organizations can get to the “what” and training. Gamification can even be Verint today or visit www.verint.com/ of customer behavior through transactional embedded to further encourage the right customer-engagement to learn more. data, but it’s harder to get to the “why.” behaviors and incentivize performance through collaborative and competitive Speech, text, and customer journey approaches within and across teams. analytics can help by surfacing themes and trends that your organization might 3. COMPLEMENT SELF-SERVICE 1-800-4VERINT otherwise be unaware of or unable to WITH ONLINE COMMUNITIES. www.verint.com recognize in large volumes of data. In Web and mobile self-service can reduce www.verintblog.com short, you can “know” your customers costs and improve customer satisfaction. better. With this intelligence, you can It’s a win-win. But there’s more to © 2016 Verint Systems Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | April 2016 WP13

Five Best Practices to Integrate VoC into your Customer Journey Mapping

The customer journey map is an essential 1. COLLECT FEEDBACK IN 5. MAKE CUSTOMER tool for organizations needing to address THE MOMENT OF TRUTH INSIGHT ACTIONABLE the persistent cross-channel CX challenges Create an engagement platform that is While all this insight is all well and that hinder a unique and frictionless user non-intrusive and allows your customers good, how do you turn it into something experience. Without a customer journey to leave feedback on their own terms. digestible, meaningful and – most map, you’re unlikely to be able to provide This encourages them to share undiluted importantly – actionable? In order to a consistently positive experience at each thoughts, opinions, and emotions, create accurate buyer personas or design interaction point. allowing you to capture deeper insights an effective journey map, you need at each moment of truth – whenever or the proper functionality to not only Today’s customers expect every stage wherever that is in their customer journey. collect data but to analyze it as well. At along their journey – from initial research OpinionLab, empowering you to take to selection to purchase to advocacy – 2. CAPTURE ACCOMPANYING CONTEXT action on what your customers tell you is to be seamless across all channels and If you implement a VoC solution that fundamental to what we do. We provide devices. Different buyer personas are automatically captures associated context powerful Data Visualization tools that likely to take completely different paths – whether that is a specific web page, empower you to quickly understand key to purchase – which means the more mobile device type, browser, location CX pain points, trends and improvement channels an organization is able to etc. – with this feedback, you can really opportunities in real-time to make your integrate, the greater its ability to facilitate delve deep into what your customers are VoC data far more actionable. Find the needs of a diverse customer base. telling you. out at which point in your journey your processes are falling short, and then take While a customer journey map helps an Is their experience affected by some immediate steps to rectify issues that organization focus on what matters most to factor you were unaware of? And is this require further attention. its customers, it is unlikely to reach its full factor easily rectifiable? Context is critical potential without the necessary contextual to establishing inconsistencies within your OpinionLab’s customer-initiated, data or continuous updates needed to truly customer journey map, along with the ‘always on’ feedback collection understand evolving customer behaviors action you need to take to iron these out. methodology and accompanying and expectations. customer experience analytics ensure 3. ASK TARGETED QUESTIONS you capture the Voice of your How do you fill this void? First and Customize the questions you ask to Customer and extensive context foremost, you need to actively listen and specific points in the customer journey. required to scrutinize each stage of engage with customers as they navigate For example, ask different questions on your customer’s journey. Use and act their way through the journey to purchase. feedback comment cards attached to on this information to inform An effective Voice of Customer (VoC) different pages on your website, locations comprehensive customer journey maps program provides deep, real-time and and more to capture insight specific to the to provide a thorough understanding context-rich insight that can provide user’s experience at that exact point of their of the experience you deliver at every valuable insight into customer journey interaction with you. This provides key point of the journey. mapping. understanding on why your customers do not complete their journey. The more you learn about your customers by listening to them on their 4. INTEGRATE FOR DEEPER INSIGHTS OpinionLab is a high-growth SaaS provider terms at different points along their Integrating your VoC technologies of continuous Voice of Customer listening journey, the greater understanding you with other analytical tools can provide solutions that drive smarter, real-time business gain of their desires and expectations even deeper insight into how your action to deliver a high quality and consistent and the better equipped you’ll be to react customers interact with you. In customer experience. The world’s largest to their needs and give them what they particular, session replay integrations brands use OpinionLab to optimize their want. This in turn puts you in a much provide a clear understanding of how customer experience and drive engagement stronger position to increase profits, your customers engage with you digitally across channels. retention and loyalty, all while allowing and the points in their journey they most you to avoid potential CX disasters. But feel most compelled to tell your about opinionlab.com how do you do this effectively? their experiences. 312-800-4500 WP14 April 2016 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

Harness Data, Insight and Action ® to Engage Today’s Digitally Empowered Customers

Today’s consumers are bombarded These new data sources are invaluable An important aspect of this “action” with messages – via email, social media, – but often the data is messy and hard to competency is being able to personalize text messaging, the web, and many other match to existing records. This makes data interactions even when the person is channels. They’re skilled at filtering out quality and data integration critical. Also, anonymous – e.g., visiting a web site what’s irrelevant or not valuable. They increasingly, data sits not just in traditional without identifying themselves. Every web have the power to control exactly how and databases, but in Big Data environments site visit, mobile or social “touch” provides what information they consume – and they like Hadoop. Today’s data competency is valuable knowledge you can use to make use it. If you don’t engage them, it will be simply not the same as in years past. that person’s next visit more compelling as if your brand doesn’t exist. And if your and increase the likelihood they’ll convert competitor does engage them, pretty soon INSIGHT: DEFINING ACCURATE and become a customer. you won’t exist. PREDICTORS OF ENGAGEMENT Data provides the foundation for strong TECHNOLOGY ENABLER: A CUSTOMER Engagement is especially challenging customer engagement, but organizations ENGAGEMENT PLATFORM in the digital age – where communication must use their data to create insights into Building these customer engagement channels and customer touchpoints are customers’ individual needs, wants and competencies is an undertaking which, proliferating, and the number and variety desires to discover what it will take to like many things in business, can benefit of customer data sources are exploding. engage them in the future. They need to from modern technology. When selecting a develop “predictors of engagement.” platform, you should look for a solution that: While all this data increases the opportunity to understand customers Sometimes, “predictors” are quantifiable • Supports all three critical customer better, to be successful you first need to predictions made by algorithms. For engagement competencies – data, manage it – and the more data there is, example: What are the chances a specific insight and action the harder it is to pull that off. Making customer will respond to a specific message? • Is designed with “change” in mind customer engagement easier, even in the But, more generally, insight refers to – changing data sources, changing the digital age, requires organizations to anything that helps you understand how to communication channels build competencies in three critical areas: engage your customer. • Can work with data of any type from data, insight, and action. any source – structured, unstructured, Creating predictive algorithmic models traditional databases, Hadoop, or DATA: BUILDING A DYNAMIC, for marketing purposes is getting easier other Big Data environments UNIFIED CUSTOMER PROFILE every day. Therefore, using algorithms • Fits comfortably into your existing Successfully engaging a customer has become “table stakes,” not a unique marketing technology ecosystem – means knowing all you can about her: differentiator. Even smaller, under-resourced provides capabilities where there are who she is, how you’ve tried to engage organizations need analytics; without it, they none, but also connects to what you her before, how she’s responded, and will fall behind swiftly. If you’re in a more may already be using how she’s chosen to engage with you. sophisticated organization, you can no longer • Delivers value quickly – no You need a dynamic, flexible, unified assume that even cutting-edge analytics alone long implementations or costly customer profile – that can be enhanced will differentiate you. You need to do more. maintenance efforts dynamically – to understand your relationship with each customer. ACTION: CREATING MORE An effective data-driven customer EFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT engagement platform can enable your Traditionally, organizations thought Once you have data and insight, you organization to optimize use of all your their most valuable customer data came can engage your customers through action. data and gain insights to drive the right from internal operational systems: In the digital age, companies must move actions needed to improve loyalty, advocacy demographic profiles, purchase histories, beyond campaigns and welcome customers and business results. account transactions, and so forth. Now, and prospects when they choose to interact, however, in the digital age, your most such as by visiting your web site, or calling valuable data often comes from customers’ your service center. Each of these “moments For more information please visit behavior in social media channels or on of engagement” counts in your overall www.redpoint.net or email their mobile device. customer experience. [email protected]. Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | April 2016 WP15

Interactive, Personalized Video Improves Customer Engagement at Security First Insurance

OVERVIEW Video capabilities can In a marketplace crowded with also help drive behavior regional home insurers offering low-cost across the customer policies, Security First Insurance wanted lifecycle through targeted to distinguish itself via the customer “best next engagement” experience it provides. In short, Security recommendations: directing First Insurance wanted to make and keep viewers to read a company’s its customers happy. But that can be blog, contact one of its sales challenging when many consumers have representatives, or visit an a hard time reading long, complicated online customer service homeowners policies and are sometimes center, for example. disappointed in their coverage as a result. The Security First Insurance video features a friendly Working with Security spokescharacter explaining individual policies in consumer- “Customers get unhappy when their First Insurance, Pitney friendly language. homes are damaged, they need to file a Bowes developed an claim, and they don’t have the coverage animated seven-minute interactive, the email watch the video through to about they thought they had,” said Ben Bomhoff, personalized video that targets policyholders the four-minute mark, receiving the video’s Vice President of Enterprise Systems, insuring single-family homes. The video most important coverage messages. Security First Insurance. begins with a friendly spokescharacter addressing the customer by name and Forging deeper connections BUSINESS NEED inviting her or him to explore personalized At a deeper level, the video engenders Security First Insurance wanted to create information on coverage types, deductibles, stronger ties between the insurance a customer experience entertaining enough billing processes and available discounts. company and its policyholders by directing to make customers want to learn about the The video then discusses the viewer’s viewers to the Security First Insurance coverage and limitations of their policies. coverage and its limitations, explaining customer portal and blog. As consumers The company also wanted a product that technical and terms in the process. continue to check in with the company, would help engage customers throughout Hyperlinked buttons that appear on the their feelings of loyalty to Security First the policy lifecycle. Security First Insurance screen allow the viewer to navigate from Insurance may grow, making them more felt that personalized videos could help section to section. The conclusion invites likely to renew their policies. meet these goals. viewers to access the company website and home safety blog. BUILDING UPON SUCCESS SOLUTION Building on the success of its video for Pitney Bowes EngageOne® Video, part BENEFITS consumers with single-family homes, Security of the Pitney Bowes Customer Engagement Pitney Bowes EngageOne Video First has also produced an interactive, Suite, helps organizations deliver interactive, has improved the customer experience personalized video for customers buying personalized communications to their at Security First Insurance by helping condominium insurance. It plans to soon customers. Consumers can control and consumers better understand their coverage produce videos for people buying renter’s interact with these videos, determining and by improving customer engagement. insurance and for renewal customers. Eventually, which parts they’d like to view, and when. “Working with Pitney Bowes, we were able the company hopes to use interactive, to produce a personalized personalized videos to attract new policyholders, video ... that connects emailing video links to prospects who request with people, one that they quotes via the corporate web site. actually want to view,” Bomhoff said. Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI) is a global technology company offering innovative products and Customer response rates The company has solutions that enable commerce in the areas emailed 52,000 links to of global ecommerce, shipping and mailing, location intelligence, customer engagement and personalized videos over customer information management. More than the last year. The open rate 1.5 million clients in approximately 100 countries is 55 percent, according around the world rely on products, solutions Many viewers are watching the video for four minutes, to Bomhoff. Seventy-six and services from Pitney Bowes. For additional long enough to absorb the most important messages. percent of those opening information, visit Pitney Bowes at www.pb.com.

Digital Dexterity a Dream for Most Only 7 percent of companies worldwide have mastered the digital domain

espite the growing need for They also have an easier time finding Companies in this “engaging” stage companies to build an online experts when needed; establishing part- have possibly the hardest time making the Dpresence, only 7 percent could nerships; responding to individual cus- jump to the next level, Bonnet says. Many, be considered masters of their digital tomers’ needs and preferences; detecting he notes, feel compelled to further change domains, according to research from emerging trends; and self-organizing. but find the process difficult, particularly Capgemini Consulting. But Didier Bonnet, senior vice president because they already have some initia- In its “Organizing for Digital: Why for digital transformation at Capgemini, tives in place and have already created Digital Dexterity Matters” report, Cap- says these characteristics evolve at different the work-arounds that mesh those digital gemini found that an overwhelming rates all the time, which further compli- and traditional activities. “True adoption majority of companies today lack the cates the process of digital transformation. requires a complete shift in mind-set and digital skills needed to react quickly to practices across an entire organization’s emerging technologies, challenges, and workforce. As organizations cross over, customer habits. new tensions emerge, raising many new The study, conducted with the MIT questions,” he says. “As circumstances Center for Digital Business, uncovered repeatedly change, firms have to be quick several characteristics that equate to to respond, which requires time and digital dexterity. Companies, of course, quick buy-in to move forward—a skill need to have a significant online pres- many companies still are developing.” ence, but digital dexterity also includes Recognizing the challenges associated the ability to rapidly adapt organiza- with enterprise change management, tional design and become more intel- Bonnet emphasizes the need to explain ligent through systematic data-driven the benefits and make digital transfor- decision making. Attributes that set the mation meaningful to key stakeholders most digitally dexterous organizations by articulating how digital transforma- apart from others include the following: tion will improve the way people do their • a digital-first mind-set that priori- jobs—making their work easier, better, tizes digital solutions; faster, or more fulfilling. • systematic experimentation to drive That very few firms have reached the Once they do change that mind-set, innovation across the organization; level of digital dexterity is not really “employees will perpetually be on the • the ability to self-organize quickly surprising. In fact, most companies, lookout for new technologies to find around new digital opportunities; 56 percent, fall within the “initiating” ways to make their work more efficient • an empowered workforce through stage, where they are just starting the and/or effective,” Bonnet suggests. access to data; and shift toward digital investments and are “Then, the reward structures for sus- • employees who are engaged in col- slowly building their digital competen- taining digital transformation should laborative problem-solving. cies. An additional 21 percent are in the not be just financial. Intangible incen- Companies that could be considered “engaging” stage, where they are well tives such as status, reputation, recogni- digital leaders were twice as likely to see under way with their digital transition tion, expertise, and privileges are great growth, profitability, and customer sat- and using digital capabilities to person- managerial levers to drive employee isfaction as their competitors, and were alize the customer experience, simplify motivation, productivity, and ultimately better equipped to seize opportunities routine tasks, and enable internal and reach your transformation goals,” he and respond to disruptions more quickly. external collaboration. adds. —Leonard Klie www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 17 U.S. Strikes Data Customer Experience Metrics Deal with Europe A new Privacy Shield accord Are on the Rise safeguards against U.S. spying Continuity, consistency, impact, and integration are ust slightly more than three months the key competencies driving CX change after the European Union’s Court of JJustice threw out the long-standing usinesses are maturing in their Safe Harbor Agreement for the sharing use of customer experience of consumer data between the United B(CX) metrics, employing them States and Europe, a new deal was put more than they did in the past, and get- in place. The European Union in early ting better at using them, according to February agreed to a deal that reinstates research from the Temkin Group. the free flow of consumers’ digital data As proof of that, the percentage of on both sides of the Atlantic. organizations that earned a “strong” or Under the deal, the U.S. will provide “very strong” rating grew from 11 per- written guarantees that U.S. intelligence cent to 14 percent this year, the Temkin agencies will not have free access to data Group noted in its “State of Customer coming out of Europe. Experience Metrics 2015” report. to the same concepts, “we have no com- The U.S. also granted the Depart- Companies have also improved across mon vocabulary and [won’t] be driving ment of Commerce oversight for how all of the four major competency areas: change,” Temkin says. U.S. firms implement the agreement continuity, consistency, “impactfulness,” Organizations are effective if they and agreed to appoint an official in the and integration, the research firm found. use the insights they’ve gleaned from State Department to address grievances Bruce Temkin, managing partner of CX metrics to support their decisions, by Europeans who believe that U.S. the Temkin Group, explained that for Temkin points out. Companies that entities are misusing their data. Europe- CX metrics to be valuable, they must are doing this well will not roll out new ans can also challenge U.S. rulings with be continuously “integrated into the products or invest in new business units their own local data commissioners; U.S. rhythm of the business.” If a company without consulting their CX metrics. firms will have to comply with orders wants to measure an aspect of customer Lastly, integration signals “the degree from those data commissioners. experience effectively, it must do so on to which the organization is looking at At press time, the deal still had to be a regular basis so that it is fresh in mind the metrics while dealing with other ratified by the 28 countries that make up during the next period of measure- important measurements of the busi- the E.U. Several European privacy advo- ment. In other words, the gaps between ness,” including sales, performance, cacy groups were preparing to fight it. measurements shouldn’t be too big, and cost, Temkin says. Unfortunately, Some of those same advocates filed Temkin suggests. this has been the most challenging of the legal action that led to the October deci- Achieving consistency “has a lot to do four competencies for companies. sion by the European court to overturn with cultural change” and a company’s For companies that get it right, the the Safe Harbor Agreement that had been adoption of a common language for benefits can be substantial. According in place since 2000. The court ruled at the discussing CX metrics, Temkin says. If to Temkin’s research, companies with time that U.S. data protections were infe- a large organization shares a set of CX stronger CX metrics outperform their rior to those in Europe and lacked proper metrics across its separate parts, that peers: 49 percent of companies with government and judicial oversight. organization could have more produc- stronger CX metrics have well-above-av- If formally approved, the new deal, tive conversations that enable it to drive erage customer experience scores com- called the EU-US Privacy Shield, will go change. For instance, companies that pared to just 17 percent of those with into effect in early April. educate their sales, service, and mar- weaker CX metrics programs. Addition- In a statement, U.S. Commerce secre- keting about Net Promoter Scores, and ally, those with stronger CX metrics are tary Penny Pritzker called the deal “a major use the term to signal the same concept 50 percent more likely to have signifi- achievement for privacy and for businesses across departments, will benefit from cantly better business performance than on both sides of the Atlantic.” She added, the common language. “If everyone has their competitors. “It provides certainty that will help grow their own measurement and metrics,” Yet while Temkin concedes that cus- the digital economy.” —Leonard Klie and uses different terminology to refer tomer experience can be a key differentiator,

18 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com he notes that the strength of a product Temkin says. In his view, mastery is Likewise, organizations must take into and price will carry some a longer way achieved when a company has estab- account the differences between their cus- than others. Of the 86 percent of compa- lished a well-defined way of measuring tomer segments. A large company might nies that don’t have strong programs in customer experience, consistently uses it have enterprise customers, small-busi- place, Temkin estimates that about half to run its business, and makes improve- ness customers, and customers who are will be impacted if they don’t take action, ments based on these metrics. served through a distribution channel, while the other half are “good enough for Companies “should decide what their Temkin points out. “If we don’t apply whatever their business needs are.” core set of CX metrics are going to be,” our metrics independently to those, then Still, 55 percent of companies aspire to Temkin says. They “need to decide what we just get a mishmash of the metric that become CX leaders, and many of those their North Star for a healthy customer wouldn’t provide the insights we need to are still a long way from perfection, relationship is.” drive our business.” —Oren Smilansky

Currently, many businesses are strug- Advocate Marketing Has Big Benefits gling to effectively manage customer But first businesses need to better manage customer feedback feedback, usually as a result of disparate programs or internal disagreements. The dvocate marketing can turn increasingly relying on social media for report identifies three areas of improve- recommendations into rev- customer support, having advocates ment for businesses. Aenue opportunities and help who actively share examples and assist First, many brands’ programs provide companies unify traditionally separated newcomers is highly valuable. only sporadic interactions. It can be dif- engagement programs, but many com- The report cites Salesforce.com’s ficult to forecast referral supply, and sales panies are falling short on using it to its MVP customer program as a successful or business partners often delay asking full potential, according to a recent study example of this strategy: The program marketing for references. Advocate mar- by Forrester Research. has more than 180 advocates contrib- keting resolves these issues by cultivating Advocate marketing, as defined in the uting roughly 80 percent of community relationships with customers instead of report, is “the use of marketing strategy, content and answering more than 35 simply reacting to urgent requests. budget, and resources to encourage cus- percent of online forum questions. Second, corporate policies often cause tomers, employees, or partners—or any Second, advocate marketing rewards different departments to guard customer combination of them—to do something loyal buyers by enhancing their reputa- relationships, resulting in disjointed cus- on behalf of your company, with or with- tions. According to the report, prospective tomer experiences and underutilization out the expectation of mutual benefit.” customers want to know of customers who provide In the past, advocacy for a brand was that the endorsements on a “If the customer journey is positive feedback. Advo- seen purely as a gesture of goodwill, and site are real, more so than in cate marketing improves it was widely believed that rewarding the past, and simply adding a cycle, advocacy is the the customer experience by advocates would somehow breach that a customer logo on com- chain drive that keeps actively managing customer credibility, according to Laura Ramos, pany collateral isn’t enough. the wheels spinning.” profiles and enabling all vice president and principal analyst cov- Now, prospects want to see departments to have access ering B2B marketing at Forrester. Today, the people and the process behind success to the customer responses they need. those views are changing, she observes. stories. Advocate marketing can provide a Finally, junior staff often lacks the expe- “That has shifted a lot with social media deeper, more nuanced view of these people rience that senior advocates appreciate. It and with the idea of applying gamifi- and decisions, infusing customer engage- is essential for companies to hire expert cation to allow companies to thank, ment with a much needed human element. marketing managers who know how to reward, and recognize customers for Third, and perhaps most import- create lasting connections with customers. doing things for them,” she says. ant, advocate marketing can transform “If the customer journey is a cycle, then Companies that employ and encour- customers’ successes into new business advocacy is the chain drive that keeps the age advocate marketing can expect sev- opportunities. Customers can raise aware- wheels spinning,” Ramos says. “Without eral benefits related to the customer life ness about business problems and provide advocacy, you’re not going to multiply cycle, Ramos concluded in the report. evidence that businesses can overcome marketing’s effects. You can have much First, advocate marketing encour- these problems. In this way, businesses greater reach at lower cost versus tradi- ages buyers to share best practices and continue conversations with customers tional reach tactics by having customers help each other thrive. With businesses and establish new connections. advocate for you.” —Sam Del Rowe www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 19 Chat Apps Top Social Media for Consumers Messaging platforms are getting crammed with business capabilities

essaging apps have recently users are young, an extremely import- popular in China, not only provides a surpassed social media sites ant demographic for many companies. messaging and file-sharing platform but Mas a communications chan- Messaging apps have also proven to be also lets users hail cabs, order food deliv- nel, according to Business Insider Intelli- better than social networks at user reten- ery, buy movie tickets, play games, check gence, a research service from the digital tion and engagement. These apps hold in for flights, and bank online, directly news publication Business Insider. The on to nearly six times more users than all through the app. The Line app in Japan research suggests consumers are increas- other apps. Sixty-two percent of people and KakaoTalk in South Korea also offer ingly turning to messaging apps such as who downloaded messaging apps were still extensive mobile commerce features. WhatsApp and WeChat to communicate using them 12 months later, compared to In the United States, Facebook Mes- with companies, browse merchandise, just 11 percent of users of other apps. senger, Snapchat, and Kik are starting to watch content, and make purchases. Messaging apps also get used more follow WeChat’s lead in “m-commerce.” And businesses are adopting them as often, with users logging in an average Last year, for example, Facebook well. Separate research from Aberdeen of nine times a day; all other apps aver- expanded Messenger as a business tool, Group found that 45 percent of com- age about two launches per day. And letting retailers use the platform to send panies have already messaging app users receipts and shipping updates, for exam- incorporated messag- are engaged for more ple. Facebook is also said to be building ing into their support than a half hour per payment capability into the app. activities. These apps session. According to BI Intelligence, messag- boast a number of “These apps are very ing apps can generate considerable rev- distinct characteristics sticky. Users enjoy enue per user by facilitating purchases that also make their them and tend to use through a number of avenues, including audiences particularly them more,” McKit- in-app advertising. Nearly one-third of appealing to busi- terick says. Kik users, for example, interacted with nesses and marketers. Part of their appeal, brands on the messaging platform last These include their according to experts, year through what the company calls size, retention, usage stems from greater opt-in advertising. rates, and user demographics, says Will Internet availability and falling prices for Still, for all of the appeal of messaging McKitterick, a senior research analyst at data plans, lower costs for smartphones, apps, marketers continue to invest more BI Intelligence. and improved app features that include time and resources into social networks The publication notes that the top four stickers, emojis, Voice over Internet Pro- such as Facebook and Twitter than they do messaging apps—WhatsApp, WeChat, tocol (VoIP) services, gaming, and even into messaging services. At some compa- Facebook Messenger, and Viber—have payment services. nies, social media accounts for a larger combined user base than the top Another reason for their “These apps are 55 percent of their digital invest- four social networks—Facebook, Twitter, appeal comes down to the very sticky. ments, according to BI Intelli- Instagram, and LinkedIn. The messag- numbers as well. While social Users enjoy them gence’s research. McKitterick ing apps combined have almost 3 billion media is more of a broadcast expects that to change quickly. users, while the social networks count 2.3 channel to large audiences, and tend to use This will happen fast once billion users. WhatsApp alone recently messaging apps are much them more.” messaging app providers and crossed the 1 billion user milestone. more private, intimate, and CRM vendors more tightly It is important to note that Facebook personal, offering a one-to-one experi- integrate their systems, he states. owns two of the largest messaging apps. ence, McKitterick explains. “There’s a disconnect right now in that Facebook acquired WhatsApp in Feb- “They can also be more attractive to [messaging] platforms grew outside of ruary 2014 for roughly $19 billion, and brands,” he adds. “It’s not your typical CRM, but the plan has always been to its own Facebook Messenger app counts form of advertising.” link them,” McKitterick says. “We’re still about 850 million unique users. That appeal is only going to grow as in the early days of these integrations, Adding to their appeal for businesses, more app providers build out and mon- but they will all be worked out soon.” the large majority of messaging app etize their apps. WeChat, which is very —Leonard Klie

20 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com mobile devices have on other channels, he says. “Mobile enables brands to improve the customer experience throughout the customer journey—not just on mobile or digital or through cross-channel devices, but also in stores, in branches, wherever people are,” Husson states. “To truly deliver on this, you need to automate, define scenarios of engagement, and define the messages that you want to send that would be relevant to particular individuals based on their past behavior, their preferences, whatever you know about them.” Some leading marketers are already starting to see this and are now looking to incorporate mobile strategies into Mobile Marketing Is Essential their legacy marketing and campaign automation systems to produce visible for Brand Differentiation value for consumers. Companies need to make their marketing immersive for the most impact The study also identified vendors, such as Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce.com, usinesses need to do more to marketing at Forrester. “From a phil- which are now adding machine learning incorporate mobile strategies into osophical perspective, [companies] to current automation offerings to pro- Btheir marketing efforts, according think of mobile as a sub-digital channel. duce actionable insights from Big Data to a report from Forrester Research. They don’t necessarily think big about and promote campaign optimization. While many brands are attempting mobile,” he says. “You need to rethink To highlight the importance of mobile to make their ads viewable on mobile the customer journey. You need to evolve strategies, Forrester also reported that phone and tablet screens, few are cre- store operations. You need to evolve consumers spend 78 percent of their ating truly immersive experiences for your processes. You need to evolve your mobile time in apps, with Web brows- their customers on mobile platforms, culture to really embrace mobility as a ing accounting for just 22 percent of the study found. catalyst for business transformation.” that time. The average consumer has In fact, most companies are under Another part of the problem is that 25 apps installed on his device, though investing in mobile strategies, a trend that executives need to be more aware of the he uses only about five of them regu- Forrester expects to continue this year. importance of mobile initiatives in an larly. That makes it difficult for com- According to the research, just 20 per- overall marketing strategy and make the panies with stand-alone branded apps cent of marketers admitted to having the necessary changes in focus to promote to ensure that consumers will regularly budgets they need to effectively engage mobile marketing, Husson use their apps, the research customers on mobile devices, and only 33 maintains. “More often than not, suggests. percent know how to measure mobile ROI. Husson also emphasizes marketers struggle While this could be taken Forrester further expects that only a the importance of invest- as evidence that companies small number of leading marketers will ment and skills development to evaluate the ROI should not invest in their begin to fully integrate mobile solutions to strong mobile marketing of mobile.” own apps, Husson thinks into their marketing strategies, measur- strategies. “More often than otherwise. “[Businesses] ing the impact of mobile efforts across not, marketers struggle to evaluate the should evolve a more advanced app channels and seeking opportunities to ROI of mobile. They know mobile is strategy to precisely connect the dots promote their brands. important, but it’s not necessarily prior- with what they know about their cus- Companies are struggling to integrate itized,” he says. tomers, to act upon data based in their mobile strategies into their marketing Additionally, while many marketers CRM systems or the contextual data plans for a number of reasons, accord- track measurements such as unique they can leverage from mobile…to really ing to Thomas Husson, vice president visitors and app downloads, they do target their most loyal customers,” he and principal analyst covering B2C not necessarily look at the impact that says. —Sam Del Rowe www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 21 REQUIRED READING Dance of the Rainmaker: How to Become a Sales Superstar Focusing on the right clients, listening to them closely, and acting as trusted advisers are central to sales excellence

n Becoming Preferred: How to They’ve typically identified two or three $250,000. How do I break that $250,000 Outsell your Competition (2002), revenue-producing activities that drive revenue barrier? If you keep doing IMichael Vickers, executive direc- their business, and they focus on getting everything you just did in your first year tor of Summit Learning Systems (and excellent at those things. They farm out the to break it, you probably won’t. You’re a CRM contributor), offered salespeo- things that are non-revenue producing. going to have to change your behaviors, ple a set of guidelines designed to help Is there a particularly important skill and your form. them become their customer’s “emo- for rainmakers? How can technology help us change tional favorite.” The book has since Listening. Rainmakers show up in a those behaviors? gone through a number of meeting and know how to A rainmaker plugs all their tasks and adjustments, but “in today’s listen and understand. They actions into a CRM system and doesn’t marketplace,” Vickers told listen to what you’re actually have to remember anything. They don’t Associate Editor Oren Smi- saying, what you need, and create to-do lists; they schedule every- lansky, “a lot of the concepts what you mean. thing in their CRM solution. are still relevant.” They will always seek to They don’t get sucked into all the “But we also felt a need to understand their clients for interruptions. Rainmakers will just extend beyond that,” Vickers the potential opportunity, check their email a couple times a day, says. His follow-up, Dance and their product represents and answer if it’s important. of the Rainmaker: Creating a solution to a problem. A They know how to manage their cli- Authentic Differentiation in Today’s true rainmaker never shows up in a ents, and they’ve segmented their clients Competitive Marketplace, presents advice meeting with the expectation to just sell and ranked them so they know who to for reps on how to fine-tune their skills his widget. He’ll only position and sell spend their time on. Rainmakers will to reach superstar status. his widget if that is the perfect solution generally spend half their time (50 per- CRM: What are some of the typ- for that particular client. cent) on the top 5 to 20 percent of their ical characteristics that define a They will find out what the goals of customer base because they understand “rainmaker”? the stakeholders are, and how to become Pareto’s principle—the 80/20 rule [i.e., Vickers: From a Native American trusted advisers to their clients. Most 20 percent of the inputs achieve 80 per- historical or mythical perspective, rain- rainmakers are trusted by the client. Their cent of the results]. makers have always been responsible for client doesn’t make a decision Is there any other advice the abundance of the tribe and the area, without talking to them. “Most rainmakers you can offer salespeople as as well as their fertility and growth. They What kinds of mistakes are trusted by they try to get to the next are all about persistence. prevent salespeople from the client. Their level? Rainmakers are excellent at finding reaching rainmaker status? Today’s salespeople need their target markets. They understand They’ll receive training, client doesn’t to have a broad education. that the smaller the niche, the bigger but because there is a lot of make a decision They need to understand the market. They highly fine-tune their pressure on them to make without talking [for instance] how tax rules markets. Once they’ve identified their a deal happen, they tend to to them.” might apply to a company or markets, they know how to gain access default under stress to what account, what the latest tech- to them. They do a lot of research on the they know. nologies coming down the line are. C-suite, understand their drivers, and Let’s say that the first goal of the sales- They need to be trusted resources. If bring their value offering to that level. person is to make $100,000 a year. Well, I’m going to pick you as my vendor or They also focus on delivering distinc- there are certain behaviors, paths, pro- provider, the more value you can bring tive value. Whatever their offering is, what cedures, and processes you do to make to me outside of the product or service value are you going to add on top of that? that $100,000. Now the next goal may be you’re selling, the better.

22 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com EXPAND YOUR CONCEPT OF SERVICE

SmartCustomerService.com aims to help organizations improve the speed, sophistication, accuracy, and relevance of customer service and support efforts. Offering expert advice, news, white papers, web events, buyer’s guides, and much more, SmartCustomerService.com is the best resource to find the tools needed to deliver exceptional customer service. Visit our site today to learn more about how to improve your customer support initiatives. @SmartCustServ smartcustomerservice.com New Marketing Automation Hits the Mark > > > Mobile and social media offerings enable organizations to have more targeted interactions | By Sam Del Rowe

t’s not often that marketing automation software is used to acquisitions and rebranding to improve their own marketing remove an offensive word from everyday vernacular. But solutions. In the fast-paced digital age, the successful imple- that’s exactly what the Special Olympics has aimed to do. mentation of marketing automation systems is essential for IUsing social media and marketing automation from Sales- businesses to be competitive. force.com, the organization launched its “R-Word: Spread “Marketing automation is now a centerpiece in terms of the Word to End the Word” campaign in March 2014. And companies’ communication strategy, their customer engage- already the effort has garnered 3.9 million likes on Facebook, ment strategy. It’s gone from being an email management 16,200 Facebook fans, and 1,800 Twitter followers. system to a central part of customer engagement strategy,” These results suggest that today’s marketing automation says Bruce Culbert, partner and chief service officer of the software, when combined with social channels, can far surpass Pedowitz Group. the potential of earlier versions of the software. Understand- ably, marketers are taking notice. GETTING PERSONAL The convergence of marketing automation and CRM is The goal of marketing automation is to make automated com- becoming increasingly important to marketers, as individu- munication feel like a personalized experience for potential ally targeted messaging via email and social media channels and existing customers. With the influence of digital mar- has become commonplace and is empowering marketers to keting permeating the rest of the industry, offline channels make the most of their time and resources. Furthermore, many such as billboards, broadcast and cable, print publications, vendors within the CRM industry are making moves through and brick-and-mortar retail are all beginning to incorporate

24 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com the personalized approach of digital. “If there’s anything that the increasing importance of employees with backgrounds in represents a sea change for marketers, it’s that the automa- science and math. tion story is an old one in the digital world, a relatively new “Marketing automation [has become] a bigger market one in the offline world, and the offline world is becoming because the analytics allow you to automate the right thing more digital every day,” says Jeffrey Rayport, strategic adviser rather than just automating anything,” says Mark Smith, in marketing services, online media, and e-commerce at Har- president at Kitewheel. Smith also emphasizes that mobile vard Business School. “The automation that comes with [the technology has been a massive driver in the rise of real-time digital world] is part of everything that marketers do,” he adds. marketing. “In your pocket you’ve got this always-on con- One of the major ongoing changes in marketing in gen- nection, this insatiable immediacy that everyone now has to eral—and marketing automation in particular—is the rise get an answer right away, [and] that’s changed the job for the of data-driven campaigns. While having an overarching cre- marketer,” he says. With regard to marketing automation in ative vision is undoubtedly still essential to any marketing particular, Smith says that marketers are now automating a campaign, the discipline has become much more reliant on different set of processes: two-way exchanges with consumers. Big Data analytics. This is particularly true when it comes to Because customers expect nearly immediate answers to their marketing automation, where analytics enables marketers inquiries, marketers’ systems need to have real-time, up-to- to deliver highly personalized ads to their target audiences. date information on customers’ recent activity. According to Rayport, marketing is slowly but surely shift- Although the popularity of mobile technology has certainly ing from an art to a science—a process that is reflected by made marketers’ jobs more challenging, the ubiquity of mobile www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 25 COVER STORY

devices also ensures that marketers can access the informa- mobile devices to personalize and manage customers’ in-store tion they need to effectively engage customers in a fast-paced experience is where retail is headed. environment. Mobile devices provide a wealth of data about consumers beyond the typical information, such as how many MAKING A CONNECTION times a consumer has visited a company’s Web site, what items With customer data being essential to any marketing cam- he looked at, what he bought, etc. Now, marketers can gather paign in the digital age, and mobile devices holding a wealth information on customers’ context, such as location, weather of information about customers, harnessing the data in CRM conditions, and even local events. This kind of data enables systems can prove lucrative for businesses. “As marketing and marketers to vastly improve their knowledge of customers and CRM come together, we are seeing a pretty strong trend in better target them with automated campaigns. being much more data-driven and personalized in engagement with prospects,” says Peter Chase, founder and executive vice CHANGING CHANNELS president at Scribe Software. Chase believes that companies While marketing automation is most prominent in the digital with successful marketing automation strategies have found sphere, it is also becoming more commonplace in other chan- ways to “bring all the right and relevant information together nels. According to Rayport, brands spend the most in terms of into their core marketing automation systems,” while simulta- dollars on broadcast and cable channels—but this could change neously creating a connection to their CRM systems. in the next 12 to 24 months, with digital Rayport agrees. “The next big thing to (Web and mobile) investments surpass- happen is linking all of the rich data and ing broadcast and cable. Regardless, with insights that are resident in CRM systems, those two channels still accounting for “In your pocket you’ve which are filled with first-party data—the the majority of marketing dollars spent, got this always-on most valuable and indicative consumer businesses are developing ways to apply data that’s out there—to the analytics that marketing automation techniques from connection, [and] that’s are part of the targeting and the message the digital realm to broadcast and cable. customization that’s going on through According to Rayport, there are two changed the job for programmatic channels,” he says. “The major patterns that make automated the marketer.” companies that do that sooner rather advertising in broadcast and cable media than later are the ones that are going to possible. First, an increasing number of have a real advantage in the efficacy of households are “cord-cutters”—that is, they simply purchase how they spend marketing dollars.” bandwidth from cable and telecom operators and then consume Establishing a link between marketing automation and CRM video content from streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and systems can be difficult, however. Chase notes that many com- Amazon Prime. Because these customers are consuming tele- panies may utilize multiple marketing automation tools, and vised and video content on entirely digital platforms delivered bringing them together “with one version of the truth” can be through digital channels, automated video advertising is espe- challenging. Furthermore, technological expertise is called for cially lucrative. Second, an increasing number of households to connect marketing automation and CRM systems as they are that elect to purchase traditional channel bundles from big cable typically siloed channels. According to Chase, many companies operators have a fiber-to-the-home configuration connected to have not yet “matured to that level” of integration. a digital converter box—a fully digital system that delivers video Nevertheless, many big-name vendors in the CRM market streams, and thus can enable automated advertising. have taken steps to improve the connection. “CRM and mar- Some businesses are also looking to bring digital intelli- keting automation are really starting to blend together and gence into the offline world—a move exemplified by Ama- become one and the same,” says Daniel Lynton, founder and zon’s announcement that it will expand into retail bookstores. CEO of LyntonWeb. “You really see the major players having “You can pretty much guarantee that those Amazon stores are their own marketing automation product to try to bridge the going to have a huge amount of digital marketing intelligence gap between CRM and marketing automation.” The effort is built in,” Rayport says. “There’s no reason why Amazon would worth it, Chase says: “The best companies are looking at their bother to build bookstores without putting a bunch of its ultra- systems and saying, first of all, I have all of this great informa- low-cost displays all over those stores.” tion in my CRM system that I can use to be more personalized Smith agrees: “I’m pretty sure that they will have a data- with my prospect, I can synchronize some of that out to my led and technology-led approach to those physical stores,” he marketing automation system so that I can use it to both seg- says. “The same way that when you go to their online store, ment and personalize communication.” you get those recommendations, you can imagine their brick- and-mortar stores will have a similar capability, where you get FUELING GROWTH THROUGH M&A’S recommendations all around the store, to guide you to things Salesforce.com has made a big push to compete in the mar- you might be interested in.” According to Rayport, the use of keting automation industry, offering two solutions in Pardot

26 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com COVER STORY

and ExactTarget. One of Pardot’s key features is its email this merger and acquisition, Vocus was rebranded as OutMar- marketing—in November 2015, Salesforce.com announced ket, and the company’s small business email marketing solu- integration of Pardot with Gmail, a big move given the tion, iContact, was established as an independent company. popularity of Google’s email platform. Pardot’s email mar- Now, OutMarket and iContact have been rejoined under the keting provides users with email scheduling, including iContact name, with a focus in particular on email market- autoresponders for forms and landing pages; personalized ing. The solution offers a number of key features, including messaging with automatic segmentation and content that segmentation to deliver timely, personalized emails, social changes based on prospect engagement; and optimized send- networking capabilities that enable monitoring of real-time ing that is supported by A/B testing. In addition to email activity, and engagement tracking that allows marketers to marketing, Pardot also provides marketers with feedback via quickly respond to interest signals from prospects. iContact return-on-investment reporting that evaluates campaigns also offers syncing with Salesforce.com, to sync records of con- and email performance and can connect data from various tacts and subscribers in both systems. marketing tools. While mergers and acquisitions have enabled CRM com- In 2013, Salesforce.com acquired ExactTarget, rebranding panies such as Salesforce.com and Oracle to expand into the marketing automation and analytics provider as Sales- marketing automation, marketing vendors may also be look- force Marketing Cloud. In addition to marketing automation, ing to build their own CRM solutions. One such company is the solution offers a range of services, Hubspot, which, according to Lynton, including email, mobile, and social mar- has developed its own CRM system as keting. The email component enables “[Personalization] opposed to being acquired. Hubspot’s users to execute promotional and auto- CRM system aims to provide a seamless mated campaigns, as well as personal- speaks to the need to experience with marketing, enabling ized emails, transactional messages, and users to manage content, channels, behavior-triggered messages—features really connect to and marketing performance from a that address the increasing importance your buyers and dashboard that also offers information of personalized marketing campaigns. on important company personnel. The mobile marketing component also build relationships Not surprisingly, one of the hallmarks offers key engagement features: Its mes- of the system is integration with Hub- saging component enables marketers with prospects as Spot’s Marketing Platform, enabling to send both short message service and well as customers.” users to easily provide sales teams multimedia message service interactions, with leads. and the MobilePush solution enables While these companies are leading the marketers to manage an unlimited number of mobile apps way in connecting marketing automation and CRM, many and push messaging that is personalized and targeted on both organizations still have a long way to go to optimize the data iOS and Android devices. The depth of and emphasis on per- they have and make customer engagement more personal- sonalization in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud exemplifies ized. According to Lynton, personalization will continue to how CRM and marketing automation can come together to be a trend and drive marketing in the future: “It’s import- provide marketers with data-backed solutions. ant and it speaks to the need to really connect to your buyers Oracle has also made a push into marketing automation and build relationships with prospects as well as custom- with Eloqua, which it acquired in 2012. Eloqua takes a data- ers,” he says. With this in mind, it is essential for companies driven approach to marketing automation, and one of its key to look for ways to gather their various pools of customer benefits is its integration with Oracle WebCenter Sites. Web- data—whether from marketing or sales channels, or other Center Sites enables marketers to create and manage social sources—and extract crucial information from that data to and interactive online content for customers, and the combi- optimize customer engagement. “The brilliant marketing of nation with Eloqua enables marketers to provide customers the future will be a marriage of data and analytics—that kind with a unified, personalized digital experience. Eloqua’s mar- of discipline and really understanding a market, really under- keting automation is integrated with CRM and connected to standing consumers, doing it in a rigorous, empirical way, and prospect intelligence and productivity tools that gather infor- then being able to take that understanding to frame a creative mation about customer engagement—information that can challenge,” Rayport says. While the rise of Big Data and mar- then be sent to sales teams to help them improve interaction keting automation means that marketers will be using more with customers. numbers, creativity—and a human touch—is still essential to OutMarket is a particularly interesting example when it the discipline. comes to marketing automation. Originally known as Vocus, the company was acquired by private equity firm GTCR and Assistant Editor Sam Del Rowe can be reached at merged with PR software company Cision in 2014. Following [email protected]. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 27 Unified Agent Desktops CONNECT REPS TO ESSENTIAL APPS A single interface that houses all of the information an agent could need will increase productivity and efficiency | BY LEONARD KLIE

28 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com re your contact center agents relying on each unique interaction and customer, explains too many applications to serve custom- Ashish Kothari, program manager for Microsoft ers? Ventana Research reports that 44 Dynamics CRM. percent of contact center agents need Another benefit, as many organizations struggle to to access three or more applications to handle multichannel interactions, is that the unified resolve a single customer issue. Adding more cus- desktop provides the same interface to handle every tomer issues could increase the applications needed type of interaction. Agents don’t need to go into one to 20, according to some estimates. And in many system to respond to email and then close out of that cases, the bulk of that data would reside somewhere system and enter a separate voice-based system to far outside of the contact center. handle phone calls. It’s the same desktop for every All the time that agents spend alt-tabbing and customer interaction channel. copying and pasting between applications not only For all its promise, though, a unified agent desk- invites error but also introduces unnecessary wait top is not right for every company. “Because of the times and has a negative impact on call resolution, complexity of stitching all these systems together, customer satisfaction, and agent productivity. this type of orchestration really only makes finan- Luckily, companies are finally starting to see the cial sense for large customer service organizations need for converged systems that marry the tools and, obviously, only for ones that use multiple their contact center agents use every day with other applications,” says Ian Jacobs, a senior analyst at business processes and applications outside of the Forrester Research. contact center. Called unified agent desktops, these “It’s good for high-volume call centers, with half systems provide connectivity to all sorts of disparate a million to a million calls per month,” Kothari enterprise systems and applications and bring them says. “A unified agent desktop is probably overkill into one coherent view. Unified agent desktops can for contact centers with small call volumes or simple connect to phone, email, and ERP systems as well as interaction types.” customer case management, video chat, and other But for those organizations that meet the above applications, making it easier for agents to quickly criteria and are looking to provide better customer traverse from one task to the next. experiences on a more consistent basis, a uni- Having a unified agent desktop offers agents a fied desktop can be “nirvana,” says Brent Leary, 360-degree view of every customer, showing all prior cofounder of CRM Essentials. interactions, activities, and related information in Jacobs agrees. “Companies need a more unified real time. Whatever app or information agents might tool set if they have any chance of fulfilling that need, it is always available right on their desktops, broader view of what customer service can be.” even if it is housed in CRM or ERP systems, internal Unified systems, he adds, “can allow a single agent or external knowledge bases, Excel spreadsheets, or to handle numerous functions in a more seamless on the Web. manner. All the tools that agent needs are linked “Access to information, no matter where it’s together, look similar, and work alike.” housed, becomes part of the agent solution,” explains Matt Kresch, director of product market- THE BUSINESS BENEFITS ing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which introduced According to experts, the unified agent desktop has the Unified Service Desk as part of its spring 2014 great potential to reduce call handling times and release. “It all happens within the course of the increase first call resolutions. Companies can reduce agent’s regular workflow.” average call handling time by eliminating annoying The key to making this work is orchestration, a idle time when customers are placed on hold while technique in which a single action can call multiple agents log into various back-office systems trying to applications in concert. Not only can the orchestra- find the information they need. tion layer pull customer-specific information into That time savings alone can generate huge returns. the app itself, but it can open those apps in tabs on “If you can shave off even just 10 to 15 seconds per which the agent can work. These tabs can indirectly call, you could see significant savings,” Kothari says. communicate with one another and even push data Amdocs reported recently that a large North back and forth between them. American contact center operator using its Smart Ideally, a unified agent desktop should be able Agent Desktop solution shaved 17 seconds off its to open each component contextually within the average handle time, leading to $12 million in sav- conversation, with information that is relevant for ings annually.

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When Telefonica’s O2, a U.K. tele- supervisors as well, according to the and president of DMG Consulting. “This com services provider, implemented the experts. Because all agents are using the was the promise of CRM as we envi- Jacada Workspace unified agent desk- exact same systems, it’s a lot easier for sioned it 25 or 30 years ago.” top, average handle times (AHT) across managers to measure and log each cus- That original vision, though, was far its pay-as-you-go call center dropped tomer interaction and compare how different than what the technology at the 43 seconds, representing a 12 percent individual agents and the entire contact time would allow, and even today, adop- reduction in time and costs. Addition- center are performing on different types tion isn’t where it needs to be. ally, customers’ data services can now of interactions. “It’s still the holy grail,” Kothari says. be fixed during the first call, eliminating Managers can more easily move “While the concept of a single view of approximately 15,000 outbound call- agents from one campaign, product customer data has been discussed for many backs a month, a reduction of 30 percent. line, or interaction channel to another years now, there is more talk about the need A unified agent desktop gives agents because the system remains the same no for this capability than actual adoption,” all the information they need at their matter what they’re working on. says Omer Minkara, research director for fingertips, enabling them to respond to contact center and customer experience customers more consistently every time. management at Aberdeen Group. Also, no matter how customers choose “There is more talk According to Aberdeen’s research, to interact, whether by phone, email, only about a third of companies have or any other channel, agents will have about the need for integrated their customer service appli- the same visibility into all of their inter- [a single view of cations with other business applications actions, whether they come in through and processes. “This is an area where we voice calls, Web chat, email, social customer data] than recommend companies to focus more on media, or text message. through 2016 and beyond,” Minkara adds. Leary says that organizations can get “a actual adoption.” Adoption has been slow, according to more cohesive understanding of what’s Jeff Foley, director of product marketing driving customer needs and expecta- And the reporting that comes with the at Pegasystems, “because contact centers tions, with a greater ability to efficiently unified agent desktop reflects equally traditionally have been viewed as cost turn that knowledge into the kinds of across every agent and interaction, so centers, and so companies tried to put as experiences that create better opportu- measuring performance is much more little investment into them as possible.” nities for long-lasting, valuable relation- uniform. Every click, keystroke, or dispo- “Many contact centers are still using ships with more demanding customers.” sition by agents can be tracked and made sticky notes,” he points out. And the truth of the matter is that visible to management with uniformity. Also contributing to the slower adop- customers today are omnichannel, so These tools also give greater insight tion was the fact that companies were contact centers need to be as well. Omni- into agent behavior and the ways in which reluctant to invest in unified agent desk- channel agents need to work on multiple they use applications to answer customer top tools that required a lot of expensive channels, often simultaneously. With a queries. Managers can then use that infor- professional services engagements and unified agent desktop, omnichannel mation to further improve efficiency and lengthy deployments. queues can now feed into a single desk- automate repetitive tasks and workflows. Vendors today have largely addressed top application so that the agent can Finally, unified systems reduce agent this issue by reducing the services needed accept voice, chat, or email interactions “onboarding” and training time. New to deploy their tools and providing addi- without missing a beat. The application agents only have to become familiar with tional capabilities, such as process moni- could also enable them to switch seam- one system, and once they learn how to toring and intelligent guidance for agents. lessly between channels. use that single unified desktop, it doesn’t As a result, companies’ interest in uni- Because an agent can be spared from matter if new products, systems, or fied desktops has perked up. “Companies retyping data during and after the call, channels are added because the under- are demanding this capability now,” Min- she can have more of “an effortless expe- lying technology remains the same. kara maintains, noting that in the process, rience, and for the customer contacting companies are also getting closer to accom- her, it’s also an effortless experience,” AN OLD IDEOLOGY plishing the true purpose behind their Kresch says. Indeed, a unified desktop While the market for unified agent omnichannel customer service efforts. application “holds a lot of promise to desktops is just starting to emerge and “A lot of contact centers now are stream- make agents’ lives easier, as well as to traction is slowly building, these systems lining operations, and that is driving a lot reduce customer frustration from dis- aren’t really a new concept. of process improvements,” Kothari says. jointed experiences,” Jacobs adds. “If you go back to the very beginnings Adoption is also on the rise as appli- The reduced effort brought by uni- of CRM, this is what it was supposed to cation vendors of all kinds are making fied systems extends to contact center be all along,” says Donna Fluss, founder integrations easier. “You can now even

30 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com UNDERSTANDING UNIFIED DESKTOPS

tailor apps to very specific customer sce- Kothari recommends that companies systems, and expanded their integration narios,” Kothari says. create scripts and workflows that dictate partner ecosystems. Still, there are definite leaders and which records the agent desktop opens But for all of the advances, the market laggards, according to Foley. Industries and when. for unified agent desktop software is still that have seen higher adoption include And then it’s important to fight the very fragmented. Some vendors, such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, temptation to do too much at once. Oracle, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and retail, hospitality, government, telecom- Doing so could clutter agents’ work- SAP, provide solutions that offer deep munications, and utilities. spaces when the real goal of a unified customizations, integrations, and sup- That list is going to expand, he says, as desktop is to show only the fields and port for very large enterprises. a unified desktop becomes “table stakes tabs the agent needs for each situation. Other vendors, including Amdocs, for everyone.” “The biggest thing any company needs Altitude Software, Aptean, Aspect Soft- “You have to bring data from multi- to do is to have a destination in mind,” ware, Cicero, Cincom, Genesys, Jacada, ple sources into one system of record. Foley says. “Identify where you want to inContact, Infor, LivePerson, Open- There’s no way around it,” Foley says. be three years from now, and then you Span, Pegasystems, SugarCRM, Touch- can get started and make changes over base, and Verint Systems, offer solutions GETTING STARTED time to get you there.” that cater more to the midmarket. Organizations in need of a new unified Keep in mind, though, that these Also adding to the complexity is the agent desktop application have plenty of systems are not without costs. “It’s not number of vendors that are now entering options. But before you explore them, always a low-impact purchasing deci- the market. Telephony and contact center experts say, you should assess your sion,” Jacobs warns. “When [the com- infrastructure vendors such as Cisco Sys- needs. For example, identify the infor- pany’s business processes] change, the tems, Five9, 8x8, and Avaya; analytics mation and applications to bring into orchestration must change. This means vendors like NICE Systems; enterprise the desktop. “That’s really the first step,” companies need to have the appropriate feedback management vendors such as Fluss says. To make that determination, Kothari suggests that companies identify their “call drivers”—why customers are “One glitch [in a unified system] could reaching out to them in the first place. Then organizations must decide destroy all the goodwill built from years which systems and data sources to inte- of delivering great service.” grate. This effort will likely increase in complexity over time as the Internet of Things becomes more prevalent. “With technical resources available for the care Confirmit and Allegiance Software; and the Internet of Things, there will be so and feeding of such a system.” even social media management firms like much more data about the customer that And that care and feeding has to be an Conversocial, Lithium, and Jive Software will be coming in,” Foley says. At that ongoing effort. Data has to be accurate have come out with products that offer point, “it’s not just about what data you and up-to-date, not only in the contact some unified agent desktop capabilities pull into the system, but what you plan center system but in all of the other sys- or feed into those systems seamlessly. to do with it,” he adds. “Getting a 360- tems that it touches. And then, while some vendors pro- degree view of the customer is only the “An integrated system like this has to be vide solid software capable of standard- start. You need to turn that into action.” up and available nearly 100 percent of the izing the agent desktop across channels To help with the effort, newer systems time,” Leary maintains. “One glitch could and applications, others provide best-of- come with a decision engine that can sift destroy all the goodwill built from months breed capabilities across a single channel through the customer information and or years of delivering great service.” or a handful of applications. Some work determine which data is important to the exclusively within their own environ- agent in the context of the conversation. THE VENDOR LANDSCAPE ments; others incorporate technologies “Companies are swimming in data now, Once your needs have been assessed, from other vendors. and many don’t know what to do with it you’re ready to evaluate the various Finding one vendor that does everything all, so you need a system that can decide vendor solutions. Unified agent desk- well out of the box is difficult, Fluss says. what is relevant at the time,” Foley says. top solutions have greatly matured Pegasystems’ Foley agrees. Right now, Experts also suggest mapping all of the during the past four or five years. Ven- he says, “it’s really not possible to rely on end-to-end processes and defining dis- dors have solidified their offerings by one vendor for everything.” tinct employee roles so that workspaces adding capabilities on top of their earlier and task flows can be designed specifi- foundational building blocks, integrated Senior News Editor Leonard Klie can be cally for each profile. new channels and data sources into their reached at [email protected]. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 31 Customer Success Management Comes of Age

32 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Ensuring that clients are getting the most out of what companies have to offer is key in today’s as-a-service, subscription economy | By Oren Smilansky

ne has only to look at our daily routines to and cable providers. It piqued the interest of many realize that customers’ relationships with business leaders when the model proved success- companies have evolved significantly in ful in the CRM industry, which once thrived on Orecent years. If you’re running low on hand large, one-time sales. Today, as the Amazon.com soap, you can log on to Amazon.com and order a and Zipcar examples suggest, other industries are fresh supply through your Prime account. When following suit. But before your organization falls in you’re visiting an expansive and unfamiliar city, love with leasing, it should be ready to implement you can tap into your monthly Zipcar subscription a customer success management (CSM) strategy. and summon a GPS-equipped car for the amount of time you need it. SUBSCRIPTION MODEL’S MASS APPEAL What do these two companies have in common, The subscription model is appealing to businesses and why is this a big deal? The answer to the first and customers alike. Businesses value the pre- part of this question is subscription services. And dictable revenue stream. Plus, it enables them to that’s important because both companies are suc- maximize the lifetime value of their customers. ceeding with subscription services in industries Customers, on the other hand, appreciate the better that traditionally haven’t had them. pricing, access to premium products and services, The subscription model has long been—and still and fixed costs that a subscription model offers. is—the preferred method of payment for utility Some organizations are already evolving the model companies, newspaper and magazine publishers, to appeal to a larger audience, one that includes

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budget-conscious and commitment-phobic consumers. These WHAT DOES A CSM TEAM DO? companies have combined the subscription model with the stan- Many companies are focusing their energy on assembling person- dard purchasing model, enabling people to enjoy the benefits of nel who are dedicated to customer success, ensuring that users of membership while paying only for what they need. This allows products and services are thriving. More than half of the com- customers to buy items in smaller quantities before deciding panies Totango spoke to in its most recent annual SaaS Metrics whether a product is right for them. Companies like Birchbox Survey are investing more heavily in customer success staffing and Dollar Shave Club give people the opportunity to order and than on technology or programs. This suggests that they are even sample beauty and grooming products rather than commit to large more interested in getting the teams in place than they are in quantities at once. Blue Apron applies a similar logic with cook- building the infrastructure necessary to scale customer retentions. ing supplies, as it seeks to allow culinary wizards to minimize the These teams work to maintain what they refer to as custom- amount of ingredients they must commit to before making a meal. ers’ “health scores.” To calculate these scores, they rely on data These developments suggest that the nature of customer stored in CRM systems combined with billing information, relationships is changing. Businesses might once have had the customer support tickets and feedback, Net Promoter Scores, power to dictate the terms of purchase without worrying about survey information, and insight on the particular ways in which competition luring customers away, but that’s no longer the products are being used by the consumer. case. “We’re in the age of the customer,” says Kate Leggett, vice For instance, a typical problem with software is that those president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “[They who are using it are unaware of new features and updates that are] in the driver’s seat, and they hold the power.” are being made available by the vendor. While a marketing And, Leggett adds, “our world is moving towards a subscrip- automation company or a provider of service desk software tion economy”—an economy, she explains, in which customers might send out an email to customers informing them that they can opt in or out of deals with relative ease and not lose signif- are eligible for an upgrade, it means nothing if they don’t get the icant amounts in the process. memo. If customers don’t open the email with the release notes, Under this model, companies that fail to provide products they are unlikely to update their system and be able to utilize and services when they’re most needed are at risk of losing those the best the company has to offer. Customers’ impressions of recurring customers, who will jump ship in favor of a business the company are bound to drop in that case. that can deliver the goods. Keeping track of behaviors with a product or service also In the case of a Web site like Netflix, for instance, customers “sub- allows companies to tailor experiences to meet a customer’s scribe, and if [they’re] not getting the movies they want to watch, specific needs. Maria Martinez, president of sales and customer and on time, [they’re] going to end up leaving them,” Leggett points success at Salesforce.com, notes that all of the company’s cus- out. Competing entertainment platforms might do better at recom- tomers have a unique set of expectations, depending on the size mending the kind of content people are most interested in viewing. of their business, their company’s vertical or industry, and the In light of all this, customer success management, or client products they use. “This means we have to focus on value on a advocacy, has in recent years emerged and gained popularity as customer-by-customer basis,” Martinez says. CSM “allows us an area with strong ties to customer relationship management. to get to know our customers in very specific ways, so that we And, fortunately, the means for tracking customers effectively can coordinate the right offerings to ensure the best outcomes is maturing, thanks to CSM. in the shortest time possible.” Leggett defines CSM as a strategy and a process, aided by The discipline, in fact, extends to sales, marketing, and cus- tools, to ensure that “customers are properly ‘on-boarded’ and tomer service efforts. “I don’t see a lot of companies having a getting the maximum economic value from their purchase.” customer success team that is independent of sales and service,” “There was a time when [everyone was concerned with] Leggett points out. acquiring new customers,” says Karl Rumelhart, vice president The responsibilities of customer success managers at times of products at Gainsight, a vendor of CSM technologies. But appear similar to those of marketers or even service agents. “the industry has come to realize that the management of your CSM professionals often work to anticipate service issues before existing customers is somewhere you should really focus.” they become issues. They’ll explain how to use a product in a Guy Nirpaz, CEO of Totango, a provider of CSM technologies, way that is understandable, which may prevent complications estimates that for mature software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses, an and misunderstandings later on. average of 65 percent of revenue comes from recurring customers. The success team will want to know the right time to reach Leggett adds that if a customer is getting the most out of a out to a customer with informational material, and how to current product or service, it is much more likely that he will present it so that the customer is engaged and pays attention continue to do business with the company and invest money and learns something from it. in its offerings. “The more you engage, the more you understand, and the more For this reason, among others, companies “need to get a effective you’re going to be moving forward,” Rumelhart says. really good understanding of how customer success impacts These teams will also want to analyze customers’ behav- the company as a whole,” Rumelhart says. ior with products and automate messages they can send to

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customers, ones with tips to help customers get the most out NEXT STEPS IN CSM of products or services they’re using. The CSM market is still maturing, analysts say. There are According to Leggett, CSM tools collect data from different around 20 serious vendors in the nascent industry, and most systems into one hub. They track and report on the status of of these have emerged in roughly the past five years. Natalie accounts and offer up opportunities for improvement. Ana- Petouhoff, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation lytics can help companies identify patterns in usage and ele- Research, identifies the top vendors in this market as Service- ments that lead to churn. The systems can also trigger alerts Now, Totango, Gainsight, and Bluenose. that notify users when they should tend to an account. “There is a lot of venture capital funding going into this Gainsight’s Customer 360 option, for instance, centralizes area,” Leggett says. But because it is so closely tied to CRM, customer information from different sources—including a Leggett anticipates that the two will eventually merge into one. CRM system, service desks, usage tracking software, survey Before investing in technologies, Leggett notes that com- tools, and financial systems—to give customer success man- panies should have discussions about customer success strat- agers a more immediate view of their customers that enables egies, and let those discussions guide their efforts. “The first them to act quickly. discussion point is what are your metrics and indicators of The client relations directors at Bright Horizons Family Solu- success,” Leggett says. Then a company can begin to figure out tions, a company that provides child care services in workplaces, what data it will need. Once the metrics and data are defined, has used the tool to keep better track of client information. a company can begin the process of tracking them, either with “They [needed] a tool that would help them manage accounts a homegrown CSM system or a commercial one. and make sure that they’re successful—that people are attending CSM solutions are clearly beneficial to organizations that have the day care, having a good experience, and will renew that con- implemented a subscription services model. And if CSM is not on tract—so that they can sell additional services,” Rumelhart says. your radar now, it will be: As the Internet of Things takes hold and Using Gainsight’s solution, the company reduced the the number of digitally connected devices increases, organizations amount of time and work required to make sense of the data will have ever greater opportunities to study customer usage pat- that lived in different systems (data that could tell them how terns, making a CSM solution not only appealing but necessary. each client fared). Armed with this information on client health and history, Bright Horizons’ client relations directors could Associate Editor Oren Smilansky can be reached at better understand which clients needed immediate attention. [email protected]. Services Contact Center. And there was very little staff training needed to get Fonolo Takes Credit for them started, she adds. In fact, Reinhold calls the deployment Reducing Call Abandonment “one of the simplest and most straight- forward I’ve ever experienced.” Credit Union of Colorado improves its customer After implementing Fonolo, Credit experience with Fonolo’s In-Call Rescue Union of Colorado decreased its call abandonment rate by an average of 40 ne day in early 2015 Credit percent. One month in particular, the Union of Colorado experi- abandonment rate dropped by 49 percent. enced what a manager there The company has a 92 percent success calls a “perfect storm”—bad rate in reaching customers on the first Oweather, staff turnover, and a problem call-back attempt. The system is pro- with the company’s credit card network grammed to attempt to reach the caller created such a spike in call volume that three times before it gives up. callers were on hold for about 28 min- Credit Union of Colorado has also ben- utes. For a company so laser-focused on efited from lower telephone costs because customer service—the 35 people answer- fewer callers are on hold. Costs now are ing phones in its contact center are not more predictable and scale with usage. called agents but member advocates— of Colorado, calls the Fonolo solution Another selling point to the Fonolo this was unacceptable. The organiza- “a safety net,” noting that it’s not always system: Credit Union of Colorado did tion knew it needed to act quickly and easy to predict when call center spikes not have to switch phone systems to decisively. will happen. accommodate it. The company currently So in July of 2015, the 80-year-old And though pricing for Fonolo In-Call uses Cisco Systems’ automatic call dis- Denver-based financial institution—with Rescue starts at about $15,000, Reinhold tributor and interactive voice response 15 branches, 100,000 members, and assets says her company approached it from systems, but Fonolo also works with totaling more than $1 billion—imple- another angle: Credit Union of Colorado systems from Avaya, Genesys, Interac- mented Fonolo’s In-Call Rescue call-back looked not at whether it could afford the tive Intelligence, Aspect, Five9, and a few solution in its contact center. solution but whether it could other vendors. That decision has resulted in a “Customers are afford not to deploy it, she says. “We’re extremely happy to be a part reduction in abandon rate, an delighted and in Since making that decision, of the customer experience strategy at improved caller experience, and a much better the call center environment Credit Union of Colorado,” said Shai increased agent morale. is completely improved, she Berger, CEO of Fonolo, in a statement. With In-Call Rescue, Credit mood when we adds, “because customers are “Our mission at Fonolo is to make it easy Union of Colorado customers reach them.” delighted and in a much better for call centers to add features like call- who are on hold for two and mood when we reach them.” backs, virtual queuing, and visual IVR a half minutes are told how long their Fonolo’s own research has found with minimal effort.” —Leonard Klie expected wait time will be and given the that 63 percent of consumers prefer option to request a call-back instead of the option of a call-back over wait- thepayoff

having to wait. The solution holds their ing on hold, and 75 percent say it is SINCE IMPLEMENTING FONOLO’S IN-CALL RESCUE SOLUTION IN ITS CONTACT CENTER, CREDIT UNION place in the call queue and automatically “highly appealing.” OF COLORADO HAS SEEN THE FOLLOWING: calls them back when an agent is free. The member advocates also find it  a 40 percent reduction in call Callers can also schedule call-backs at appealing. “As soon as we turned it on, abandonment; times that are more convenient for them. the agents took to it right away,” says  a 92 percent success rate in reaching customers on the first try; and Laura Reinhold, Member Services Juliet Robinson, operations analyst for  more predictable costs that scale Contact Center manager at Credit Union Credit Union of Colorado’s Member with usage.

36 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Additionally, Pie Five can use the data stored on Paytronix to customize point- based offers. And the firm can get a better understanding of customer preferences by conducting surveys that gather feedback on suggested menu items, ingredients, offers, and combinations. Getting people on board proved easy. “We were able to take all of the members we had in our e-club program and automatically enroll them in the Circle of Crust program,” Turman says. Those who were still using VIP punch cards took a little longer to get acclimated, as they continued to use them to redeem their pizzas—but ultimately they showed little resistance. “Overall, it was a very With Paytronix, a Pizza Chain smooth transition,” Turman says, especially for guests who “were interested in Gets a Bigger Share of the Pie having a card that could be placed on Pie Five Pizza Co.’s new rewards platform delivers the goods a keychain, or an account that could be looked up with a phone number.” ounded in 2011 in Fort Worth, rewarded with a free pizza. (That is, if In less than two years, the Circle of Texas, Pie Five Pizza Co. prom- they hadn’t lost their cards or forgotten Crust program has attracted more than ises handcrafted, customizable to get them punched each time.) 500,000 participants, and between Jan- pizzas ready in five minutes or “Paper cards are old-school, and we uary 2015 and January 2016, mem- Fless. According to Jami Zimmerman, didn’t want to be old-school,” Turman bership grew by 90 percent across Pie director of communications at Rave says. “We really wanted to know more Five’s existing locations. In addition, Restaurant Group, the chain is “all about about our customers, so we could stream- the company’s emails began to receive choice, personalization, and making sure line that process and be ahead of the times.” more attention. Messages reached open that each person gets their pizza exactly So Pie Five went searching for a new rates of 25 to 30 percent, with the most the way they want it.” technology and ultimately settled on Pay- successful ones getting opened at a rate But personalization can prove difficult tronix’s Rewards Platform. While several of 40 to 60 percent, Turman says. if you lack the tools for targeting custom- vendors offered comparable functional- The company has 80 stores in 24 states, ers. And as of 2013, the growing chain ity, what separated Paytronix was that but by its five-year anniversary in June, still used outdated ones that couldn’t rewards were its core focus. “We felt like the company aims to have 100 locations; produce the insights required to expand they would be a good partner for us for by 2017, the goal is 180, Zimmerman says. beyond its 11 store locations. the size we were at the time and To stimulate that growth, Pie Five will “When we first started, we had “Paper [VIP] also as we grew,” Turman says. continue to leverage Paytronix. Accord- a paper VIP [punch] card and cards are old- In 2014, Pie Five devel- ing to Turman, the vendor is “working an e-club,” recalls Kimberly oped its Circle of Crust digital on integrating with Olo, our vendor for Turman, Pie Five’s digital mar- school, and we rewards program. It runs on online ordering.” The integration will keting manager. “And those didn’t want to a simple point system: Every allow loyalty members to redeem points two programs were totally sep- be old-school.” time customers purchase an with online orders and enable new arate.” Pie Five could email spe- entree salad or pizza, they’re guests to sign up for the Circle of Crust cial offers to its customers, but it didn’t rewarded with two points. Once they’ve program. —Oren Smilansky have much information aside from their earned 20 points, they are eligible for a names and email addresses. free pizza or large salad. And customers thepayoff And, Turman adds, “we didn’t know don’t have to inform Pie Five personnel SINCE LAUNCHING ITS CIRCLE OF CRUST anything about the people who had the about their eligibility—the information REWARDS PROGRAM, POWERED BY PAYTRONIX, VIP card.” Cardholders were required to is linked directly to their accounts. Mem- PIE FIVE PIZZA CO. HAS SEEN:  500,000 new rewards participants; produce a piece of paper each time they bers are also notified about new products  90 percent membership growth in existing made a purchase, and after collecting a and offers and can claim a free pizza or locations; and specified amount of punches, they were large salad on their half birthday.  email open rates of up to 60 percent.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 37 in this issue Act-On Software says. “By using Act-On’s platform, we have been able to gain a lot more knowledge n CRM USER COMPANIES Helps Truity Credit about what truly is happening.” Act-On enables Truity to custom-design Colorado Credit Union ...... 36 Union Connect emails for notifications and promotional with Customers offers based on recipient behavior, and the Pie Five Pizza Co...... 37 credit union can now allow subscribers to Thanks to the marketing self-select products such as home loans, Truity Credit Union ...... 38 automation platform, a auto loans, and credit cards using Act-On small bank hones sharper Forms. This information can then be automatically entered into email campaigns, n email campaigns ADVERTISERS saving marketers time and ensuring that ooperative financial institution customers receive the most relevant infor- CRM Evolution...... 5–8 Truity Credit Union, which has mation at the right time. www.crmevolution.com branches in Oklahoma, Kansas, According to Dahlgren, Act-On’s seg- Texas, and Arkansas, has been mentation tool has proven particularly Customer Service Ccompetitive with larger financial institu- valuable, as it has enabled Truity to delve Experience ��back cover www.custservexperience.com tions by offering its customers better rates, deeper into its customers’ preferences— fewer fees, and more personal attention. and improve its customer relationships.

ITI Practical Books...... 39 But until recently, Truity’s approach to “We have been able to find out more about www.infotoday.com email marketing was leaving the organi- how our members are behaving, and what zation in the dark. interactions they have with us, from Act-On

Smart Customer Service...... 23 Truity was relying on ad-hoc promo- than we could with just running reports out www.smartcustomerservice.com tional emails, text-only messages, and of our core system,” he says. “A lot of that manual member tracking, all of which has to do with the segmentation engine they The Endangered Customer...... 35 were managed by the company’s e-com- have—we can query off the various fields in www.tcfcr.com merce team. This approach our data set.” proved time-consuming and “We are now In addition to marketing n BEST PRACTICES SPONSORS inefficient and did not cap- interacting with— automation, Act-On provides italize on opportunities for as opposed to just clients with integration to all gathering customer informa- major CRM systems and con- OpinionLab...... 13 pushing emails tion. “We were sending a lot of nectors to third-party appli- www.opinionlab.com emails out from our core oper- at—our members.” cations. According to Paige ating system, and that didn’t Musto, director of communi- Pitney Bowes...... 15 have all the tracking functionality,” says cations at Act-On, the software will enable www.pitneybowes.com Kyle Dahlgren, assistant vice president of Truity to continue to compete at a high e-commerce at Truity Credit Union. level despite its small size: “The beauty and RedPoint...... 14 So the credit union enlisted Act-On the simplicity of a platform like Act-On www.redpoint.net Software’s marketing automation plat- allows Truity to compete with big banking form, which enabled Truity to segment firms and…deliver [their customers] an Verint...... 12 its subscriber lists, personalize emails, and experience that companies of their size may www.verint.com provide prospects with worthwhile con- not be able to do with the resources they tent. Armed with these tools, the institution have,” she says. —Sam Del Rowe n WEB EVENTS has seen impressive results: Email open rates have climbed as high as 54 percent, Looker...... 41 with an average of 36 percent—a marked thepayoff http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/looker/891 improvement in comparison to the previ- SINCE IMPLEMENTING ACT-ON SOFTWARE’S MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORM, TRUITY ously maintained range of 18 to 25 percent. CREDIT UNION HAS SEEN: RedPoint...... 16 Conversion rates have also increased, with  an increase in email open rates from http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/redpoint/889 18 percent to 36 percent; one campaign closing 17 percent of leads  an increase in conversion rates, with one generated. According to Dahlgren, the campaign closing 17 percent of leads SugarCRM...... inside front cover http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/sugarcrm/882 increase in open rate is hugely important in generated; and terms of connecting with customers: “We  an increase in campaign response rates— within one week of implementation, Roundtable/Web Events ...... inside back cover are now interacting with—as opposed to Truity had received hundreds of new www.destinationcrm.com/webinars just pushing emails at—our members,” he credit card applications.

www.destinationCRM.com Practical Books for Business Information Professionals from the Publisher of

21 DAYS TO SUCCESS BUYING AND SELLING WITH LINKEDIN INFORMATION Business Social Networking the A Guide for Information Professionals and Gnik Rowten Way Salespeople to Build Mutual Success By Ron Sukenick and Ken Williams By Michael L. Gruenberg 192 pages 224 pages ISBN 978-1-937290-05-4 ISBN 978-1-57387-478-6 $15.95 $49.50

CRM IN REAL TIME EXCELLENCE EVERY DAY Empowering Customer Make the Daily Choice—Inspire Your Relationships Employees and Amaze Your Customers By Barton J. Goldenberg By Lior Arussy 384 pages 240 pages ISBN 978-0-910965-80-4 ISBN 978-0-910965-79-8 $39.95 $24.95

THE MOBILE MARKETING DESIGNING A SUCCESSFUL HANDBOOK, SECOND ED. KM STRATEGY A Step-by-Step Guide to A Guide for the Knowledge Creating Dynamic Mobile Management Professional Marketing Campaigns Edited by Nick Milton and By Kim Dushinski Stephanie Barnes 248 pages 224 pages ISBN 978-0-910965-90-3 ISBN 978-1-57387-510-3 $29.95 $59.50

GLOBAL MOBILE FACE2FACE Applications and Innovations for Using Facebook, Twitter, and the Worldwide Mobile Ecosystem Other Social Media Tools to Create Edited by Peter A. Bruck Great Customer Connections and Madanmohan Rao By David Lee King 632 pages 216 pages ISBN 978-1-57387-462-5 ISBN 978-0-910965-99-6 $49.50 $24.95

Look for these titles wherever books and ebooks are sold, or order direct from the publisher i n f o t o d a y . c o m For more information, call (800) 300-9868; outside the U.S. call (609) 654-6266. Visit our website at infotoday.com or email [email protected]. Write to Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055. Small Biz Buzz By Brent Leary Get Mobile Sites and Apps to Work for You Creating better customer experiences on the go is the key to unlocking value

MALL AND MIDSIZE businesses, like all information on pricing, and what discounts are available, organizations, are constantly having to provide and possibly an easy way to make a purchase. customers with real value—value that moves them to action on a consistent basis. Companies MOBILE SITES VERSUS MOBILE APPS Sare starting to realize that mobile sites and mobile apps According to Burns, customers go to mobile sites more are becoming their most direct, immediate channel with during exploratory stages—if they’re doing price compari- customers. The more you can improve sons, or they want to get more information your interactions on those channels, the on a specific package or an investment that better experience customers will have, and is being offered. But using a mobile app is the better metrics you’ll see—and not just much more of a marker for customer loy- traditional site metrics like clicks or time alty. Users generally are already customers spent, but important financial metrics, like at that point, and they’re downloading the customer lifetime value. app for a specific purpose. In a recent conversation, Drew Burns, Mobile app adoption in financial ser- principal product marketing manager vices is skyrocketing because people can at Adobe Target, shared with me a few do a lot of their online banking through important tips for helping companies sharpen their a mobile app. Airlines today are also taking advantage of mobile strategy. mobile apps, enabling customers to get their boarding pass, make seating changes, and see their priority level AVOID REPEATING WEB SITE DESIGN and additional rewards. The more that you’re able to MISTAKES ON MOBILE SITES engage and show customers you value them, the more According to Burns, many businesses developing mobile stickiness and brand loyalty they’ll have over time. sites end up running into the same issues they ran into with their Web sites: home pages that are cluttered with CURATE EXPERIENCES BASED ON LOCATION unnecessary or irrelevant content, or an entry page not Location-based targeting can help make customers aware personalized to individual site visitors. Ask yourself: Is of products and services most relevant to them in real time. this content absolutely necessary here, and why? Burns says that forward-thinking companies are asking if they can create curated experiences at such disparate locations as DIFFERENT TECH MIGHT REVEAL DIFFERENT INTENTIONS the airport or the corner store, or use the mobile app for, say, People often have different intentions when they’re push notifications based on available parking space at the mall. accessing a site from a mobile device versus the desktop. He also sees a shift to the “digital town,” where more The travel industry provides a good example. curated experiences are taking place digitally when users When you’re on a desktop looking up vaca- arrive at a physical location. With a mobile app, retailers, A MOBILE APP IS tion packages, you might be spending a lot for example, can deliver relevant information to shoppers’ A MARKER FOR more time reading, looking at pictures, and devices as they browse on location, saving them the addi- CUSTOMER LOYALTY: evaluating options. And if it’s evening, when tional time needed to search for it. USERS GENERALLY ARE you’re at home in front of a bigger screen As you can see, there are many factors to consider as ALREADY CUSTOMERS with more time, you might spend a little bit you move into designing mobile sites and apps. But the AT THAT POINT. more time on a site looking through those main thing is knowing what experiences need to be cre- vacation packages. ated for each part of the customer life cycle—and how to But if it’s during the morning commute, tie them all together in the delivery channel that provides you’re probably using your smartphone to access a the best route to the customer. mobile site to do some quick comparison shopping. Or Brent Leary is cofounder of CRM Essentials, an Atlanta-based advisory firm if you’re near a hotel or a resort, you could be looking to focused on small and midsize businesses. He is also the author of Barack see if a room is available. And in that case, you want quick 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Businesses.

40 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com

Scouting Report By Donna Fluss Cloud-Based Contact Centers: Bringing Clarity to a Crowded Market A glut of vendors poses a challenge to buyers

HE CLOUD-BASED contact center infrastructure sector is close to 20 years old, but it is still a relatively immature market. Although Tthe sector has been around for a while, it didn’t come into its own until 2010, on the heels of the Great Recession. While it’s clear that this market is sustainable and will thrive for many years to come, it is expected to undergo a great deal of change over the next five years. With more than 150 competitors, the cloud- based contact center infrastructure market is over-crowded and confused. Some end users are turning to their carriers for these services. Others are looking to their incumbent on-premises providers, and still others are going to the Web and doing searches to see which vendors turn up. Currently, there is no clear market leader; no single vendor always ranks at the top People. These are your vendor’s human resources— of the heap in this sector. However, DMG expects this to implementers, project managers, integration specialists, change in the next few years. Based on market growth and professional services, and support staff, with outstanding the increasing stability of a few of the cloud-based contact and deep business, technical, and domain/vertical expertise. center infrastructure platforms, some of the vendors are maturing enough to become leaders. THE COMPETITORS The cloud-based contact center infrastructure market LEADERSHIP CRITERIA continues to be hot—it is perceived to be highly attrac- There is much more to market leadership than simply the tive, lucrative, and filled with opportunity. Although this number of customers, implementations, or seats. DMG market is growing rapidly, as reflected by a nearly 50 per- has developed leadership criteria to assist end users in cent increase in seats as compared to the prior year, the assessing providers in the cloud-based contact center opportunity is not large enough to sustain the current infrastructure marketplace. DMG proposes that vendors crop of 150-plus competitors. The question is, which ven- be evaluated in these four areas: dors are best suited to survive and thrive into the future? Business leadership. This includes the ability to exe- Regardless of the answer, one thing is certain: All 150 cute and the completeness of vision. Ability to execute won’t make the cut; there will be a shakeout. Below is a encompasses a company’s ability to market, sell, imple- high-level review of 11 leading and contending vendors ment, and support its solution. Completeness of vision that should be considered when selecting a cloud-based addresses a company’s ability to build and deliver a highly contact center infrastructure solution. (This list includes dependable, differentiated, and innovative offering. U.S. and European competitors, although a growing Solution. You should be looking for a functionally rich number of these vendors have a presence in other parts and broad solution that offers a seamlessly integrated of the world.) application. The solution should easily integrate with 3CLogic is a privately held provider of cloud-based third-party on-premises and cloud-based applications. contact center services that are hosted on Amazon Web Platform. A platform must be 100 percent (or nearly Services’ public cloud. 3CLogic Cloud Contact Center so) dependable and reliable, and should include fail-safe is a multichannel solution that supports inbound, out- disaster recovery and business continuity. bound, and blended voice, email, SMS, and Web chat.

42 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Scouting Report

The solution also provides basic CRM capabilities as a email, chat, SMS, and fax, and it also provides basic CRM- standard component. The solution is geared for environ- like capabilities. Intelecom’s sweet spot is contact centers ments with 50 to 200 seats. with 25 to 500 seats. 8x8, a public company (NASDAQ: EGHT), is a Interactive Intelligence, a public company (NASDAQ: provider of cloud-based contact center infrastructure ININ), has two single-tenant cloud contact center infra- solutions, Internet Protocol–private branch exchange structure offerings: CaaS (for 50 to 500 seats) and CaaS (IP-PBX) telephony, and carrier/network services. 8x8’s Small Center (for 10 to 50 agents). The solutions provide Virtual Contact Center (VCC) supports inbound, out- support for voice, email, chat, bound, and blended voice, email, chat, and social media. text, SMS, and video. In June VCC also provides CRM:Lite, a ticket management appli- 2015, Interactive Intelligence WHICH VENDORS cation, as a standard component of the system. Its sweet released PureCloud Engage, ARE BEST SUITED TO spot is contact centers with 2 to 300 concurrent agents. a multitenant offering that is SURVIVE AND THRIVE Connect First is a privately held provider of integrated hosted on Amazon Web Services. INTO THE FUTURE? cloud-based contact center software solutions and carrier/ LiveOps recently separated network services. Connect First’s Contact Center Infra- its cloud-based contact center structure (CCI) is a multichannel, cloud-based platform infrastructure business from its business process out- that supports inbound, outbound, and blended voice, sourcing (BPO) unit, which sells agent services. LiveOps email, and chat. Its sweet spot is contact center environ- Engage, the company’s cloud-based contact center infra- ments with 50 to 250 seats. structure solution, supports voice, email, text, SMS, Web Content Guru is a United Kingdom–based network chat, and social media. The company targets contact cen- services technology provider. Its solution, storm Contact, ters with 150 to 400 seats. is a multichannel cloud-based contact center solution NewVoiceMedia is a privately held cloud-based contact that supports voice, email, chat, SMS, and social media, center software suite provider headquartered in the U.K. and it also natively provides basic CRM functionality. The company sells ContactWorld, a solution that supports Storm Contact is geared for environments with 50 to voice, email, chat, and social media via its integration with 250 seats. Salesforce.com. NewVoiceMedia maintains an important Enghouse Interactive is the communications soft- relationship with Salesforce.com, one that generates the ware and services division of Enghouse Systems, a public majority of its opportunities. The ContactWorld solution company that is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange is geared for contact centers with 20 to 500 agents. (TSX: ESL). The company sells Contact Center Service Provider (CCSP), a multitenant, multichannel (voice, FINAL THOUGHTS email, text, SMS, Web chat, and video) cloud-based con- All of these vendors claim to support relatively large contact center infrastructure platform that is sold to carriers, tact center implementations, and each one has a couple outsourcers, and service providers. It comes with Tracker, of customers at the high end of its respective sweet spot. a proprietary case management tool for basic CRM. But many of these vendors are primarily selling to smaller Five9, a public company (NASDAQ: FIVN), is a pro- environments, and so the bulk of their experience is in vider of cloud-based contact center infrastructure solu- working with these smaller contact centers. tions and carrier/network services. Virtual Contact Center The vendors listed above have been carefully vetted by (VCC) is a multichannel contact center solution that sup- DMG and provide all of the claimed features, yet there ports voice, email, chat, and social media. Five9’s target remain substantial differences in how these features and market is contact centers with 5 to 700 agents. capabilities are provided. Prospective buyers are strongly InContact, a public company (NASDAQ: SAAS), is encouraged to compare the offerings; involve department a provider of cloud-based contact center infrastructure personnel (contact center managers, supervisors, and solutions and carrier services. The company’s Cloud agents), as well as the IT and security departments, in the Contact Center Platform is a multichannel solution that selection process; and speak to references about the tools, supports voice, email, chat, fax, SMS, social media, and implementation process, and ongoing support. And for work items. InContact’s target market is contact centers a detailed review of the cloud-based contact center with 50 to 750 seats. market, please see DMG’s 580-page “2015–2016 Cloud- Intelecom, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, is a pro- Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report.” vider of cloud-based contact center solutions and communication services. Intelecom Connect is its cloud-based Donna Fluss ([email protected]) is founder and principal of DMG Consulting, contact center infrastructure solution; it supports voice, a provider of contact center and analytics research, marketing analysis, and consulting. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 43 Marshall Lager april’s Chief Unification Officer Pint of View People, ______, and Technology We should re-examine CRM’s tripartite nature

POKING AROUND TWITTER the other day, I came human assets. These two concepts surround the piece that’s across a tweet from @aaremesar proposing, “#CRM is not missing from the original premise—process. about the technology, but about the people involved. What Whenever we talk about CRM or pretty much any other do you feel about it?” Fair’s fair—I wasn’t just poking around; enterprise concept, there are three pillars: people, process, and I was tagged in the tweet along with the inestimable Graham technology. You’ve got to have all three. Great talent and inno- Hill and Jesus Hoyos, gents whom I’m proud to call colleagues vative programming will both fail if there isn’t a methodology because it makes me look good by association. in place to help the one use the other in the most effective way. My reply was about what you’d expect from me. “I hope People can make up for technological shortcomings, and tech- it’s still a little about the technology; we’re not allowed to nology can take tedious or repetitive work out of the hands of sell people. :-)” Graham and Jesus, of course, people, but they can only do it well if there’s a decided to think before responding. Their smart process to make it happen. responses, respectively, were “It is not EITHER/ You can’t truly say that one leg of a tripod OR but AND” and “Technology is moving is more important than another, but maybe faster than the business strategy, making change CRM isn’t a tripod. There aren’t any tripedal mgmt important.” We were all correct in our animals on Earth, and the (arguably) most way, but Messrs. Hill and Hoyos made points successful one is bipedal. People are one leg, I’d like to consider at greater length. technology the other, and process is the pelvis, Graham is spot on when he says it’s not the part in the middle that links them and lets either/or but and. I also think he takes the them work together to move the organism for- Guinness Record for most consecutive con- ward. I especially like the idea that the pelvis junctions used in a sentence with proper grammar. There’s is what makes things happen, because I am a sad and lonely really no point in having the technology without people to creature. Fortunately, the analogy works anyway. operate and interpret it. Similarly, we’ve reached a point in If I had to pin myself down to either people or technology the developed world that people simply can’t manage their as laid out in the tweet, I would probably go with the former. lives and businesses without technology. That’s sad and cool People create technology (and process too, but whatever) or at the same time—we dream of uploading our conscious- learn to do without it. People make things happen, and people nesses into machines at the same time we watch TV shows are what businesses serve, as well as what businesses use to pro- about people who live completely off the grid. Businesses can vide service. Technology is like the honey badger—it don’t care. operate without an investment in tech, but they will be lim- Technology that isn’t driven by purpose is meaningless, even if ited by that lack. it looks awesome. As it stands, people can do things indepen- Jesus’s answer is pretty nuanced for so few characters, dent of technology; technology can’t do jack without people. because it hits several issues simultaneously. Technology is by Until the machines take over, anyway. When artificial intelli- far the fastest-moving part of a modern enterprise—so fast gence conquers the world, technology can do whatever the hell that we have trouble figuring out what to do with it before it wants. I, for one, shall welcome our new robotic overlords. something newer comes along. Change management, the way we get people to transition to new technology, is about the Marshall Lager is a person whose process involves technology, as the managing adaptability of the human mind, and people who are able to principal of Third Idea Consulting. If you can figure out how that makes any sense, change once can do so again. They become more valuable as contact him at www.3rd-idea.com, or www.twitter.com/Lager.

44 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | APRIL 2016 www.destinationCRM.com

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