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Customer Service & Support

• Federated Customer Information

  A Practical Approach to Breaking through Customer Information Silos

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Customer information is the key to delivering a cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer experience that makes it easy for your customers to do business with you. In this report, we describe a best practices approach for harnessing customer information.
  Dec. 8, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Are You Handling Content Management as a Customer-Critical Issue?

  Shoddy Content Management Will Adversely Impact the Value of Your Company

  by Patricia Seybold

  Content management issues are costing your company big bucks when measured in terms of customer lifetime value. What should you do about it?
  Jul. 21, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Concerns of Customers.com Visionaries in Q2 2005

  Issues, Initiatives, and Requirements from Customer-Centric Executives in Q2 2005

  by Patricia Seybold

  Our hand-picked group of visionaries are committed to making it easy for their customers to do business with them. Here are the top-of-mind issues facing customer-centric visionary leaders in the first half of 2005.
  Jul. 7, 2005

  Strategies

  

• Integration Scenarios and the Networked Integration Environment

  Pillars of Your IT Integration Strategy for Customer Experience

  by Brenda Michelson

  In this report, we delve into the networked integration environment, its major layers and services, and its supporting environments, framed by the business drivers—customer experience scenarios that depend on integration.
  Apr. 14, 2005

  All Members

  

• Integration and Customer Experience

  Creating an IT Integration Strategy to Deliver an Integrated Customer Experience

  by Brenda Michelson

  In this report, we discuss the importance of integration to customer experience and share our perspective on how to develop an IT integration strategy to deliver on your customer’s expectations.
  Mar. 31, 2005

  All Members

  

• Designing a Fluid Enterprise Using an Adaptive, Customer-Centric IT Architecture

  Creating a Blended IT Architectural Portfolio to Support Your Customer-Centric Business

  by Brenda Michelson

  This report demonstrates our architecture blending process on four of the new architecture strategies in order to achieve enterprise fluidity for our fictional customer-adaptive business, Digits Undercover.
  Dec. 9, 2004

  All Members

  

• Where Does Support Fit in Your Customers’ Lifecycles? Everywhere!

  Support Isn't a Stage in the Customer Lifecycle; It's the Engine That Drives it!

  by Patricia Seybold

  Customers need to be supported throughout their entire lifecycle, not just during the post-sales stage. Customer support should be the engine that drives your business process improvements.
  Jul. 29, 2004

  All Members

  

• HP Provides Cross-Channel Inventory Visibility

  Responding to the Moment of Truth: 'Where Is This Product in Stock?'

  by Patricia Seybold

  One of customers' "moments of truth" in deciding which product to buy is knowing where the product is in stock and how soon they can receive it. Hewlett-Packard's Internet marketing group has partnered with Channel Intelligence to provide near-real-time
  Jul. 1, 2004

  Strategies

  

• Delivering Content in Context at National Semiconductor

  Organizing and Visualizing Content for Reference Hardware Designs

  by Geoffrey Bock

  National Semiconductor is in the midst of deploying a set of System Solutions, reference hardware designs that describe how to incorporate various analog devices to engineer different electronic products.
  Dec. 18, 2003

  Strategies

  

• The Top 10 Reasons that CRM Projects Fail

  and Our Prescription for Ensuring that Your CRM Project Won’t

  by Mitchell Kramer

  We’ve heard over and over again that 80 percent of CRM projects fail. We’re not sure that this is the right number, but there’s been a lot of commonality in the reasons for this failure. So much so that we offer in this report the top 10 reasons for thos
  Oct. 2, 2003

  All Members

  

• How to Approach Multi-Channel CRM

  Walk In Your Customers' Shoes and Identify the Services that Customers' Need across Channels

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Your customers demand a seamless experience when they do business with you—seamless across multiple channels. We call this multi-channel CRM. We created the Multi-Channel CRM Workshop to help you design this CRM approach.
  May. 22, 2003

  All Members

  

• Supporting the Partner Channel

  Education and Services Can Help Partners Truly Add Value, Keeping Them and Customers Satisfied

  by Patricia Seybold

  A well-educated and well-supported partner will help you make more sales.
  Mar. 13, 2003

  All Members

  

• American Express Comes Through for a Member in Need

  Solving a Problem Leads to an Easy Up-Sell

  by Ronni Marshak

  When a customer is in crisis, solving the problem on the spot makes the sale!
  Jan. 16, 2003

  Strategies

  

• What Customer-Centric Executives Need to Know about Portals:

  A Customer-Driven Approach

  by David Marshak

  Customer-centric executives should adopt portals as the latest tool in their arsenal for managing the customer experience.
  Dec. 13, 2002

  All Members

  

• Challenges in Supporting Customer Scenarios® Across Multiple Touchpoints

  Following Up on Fleet’s Focus on Customer Service: Personnel Doing a Fine Job, but Voice Response System in Desperate Need of Enhancement

  by Ronni Marshak

  FleetBoston has real problems with cross-touchpoint consistency in customer service.
  Dec. 13, 2002

  All Members

  

• Common Pitfalls to Avoid in CRM

  Think Customer-Managed Relationships (CMR) First and You’ll be On the Right Track

  by Patricia Seybold

  Many CRM initiatives aren't gaining traction because they've been implemented poorly. We've found eight common problems that keep CRM efforts from taking off.
  Oct. 24, 2002

  All Members

  

• BPR for CRM?

  Whose Business Processes Are You Redesigning? Make Sure It’s the Ones that Customers Care About!

  by Patricia Seybold

  Best practices in CRM are an alluring goal, but make sure you start with processes that the customers care about.
  Sep. 19, 2002

  All Members

  

• Why IT Architecture Is Important in the Selection of a CRM Solution

  Customers’ Changing Needs Dictate a Flexible, Adaptive, and Customer-Friendly CRM Infrastructure

  by Patricia Seybold

  Architecture has become a key consideration when evaluating CRM offerings. Often, IT architects are the key influencers in the decision-making process.
  Aug. 29, 2002

  All Members

  

• The Future of Contact Centers

  Rather than Going Away, They Will Be a Point of Consolidated Information and Functionality

  by Ronni Marshak

  Contact center solutions today provide a key set of capabilities which will, in the future, need to be enhanced to meet customer needs.
  Jul. 18, 2002

  All Members

  

• The Five Waves of CRM

  How CRM Functionality and Architecture Have Evolved

  by Patricia Seybold

  CRM has been a moving target, moving through five distinct waves of demands and technology solutions.
  Mar. 7, 2002

  All Members