-
-
Trend watch columns
Learn about trends in the call center market from Donna Fluss, a thought leader and innovator in contact center and real-time analytics with more than 23 years of experience. In Donna's monthly column for SearchCRM.com, she covers all aspects of call center and real-time analytics. Catch up on recent columns here.
-
SearchCRM Cloud Guide
CRM systems running in the cloud, or on-demand or Software as a Service (SaaS), as it’s known, are becoming more popular as more companies consider these alternatives to full on-premises systems.
Typically available through subscription fees, cloud CRM leaves much of the overhead (such as servers and data maintenance) to the company hosting the infrastructure. Companies are more likely to consider a SaaS or cloud CRM system, thanks to the potential for lower costs in areas such as the contact center.
The relatively quick implementation time (as little as a few weeks), is another reason companies consider SaaS CRM software.
That said, not every company will realize cost and time savings with SaaS. For example, companies may find that comparing on-premises and on-demand CRM applications is a bit tricky.
"[Some SaaS vendors] do not allow you to dial down the number of users," said Rob Desisto, an analyst with Gartner. "Not only are you committed, in many cases you've paid up from the anniversary of year one."
-
Dreamforce '11 Special Report
Most recent news coverage:
CEO Benioff outlines priorities for Salesforce.com
Marc Benioff, chairman of Salesforce.com, met with dozens of reporters and analysts at the company’s annual Dreamforce conference this week and fielded a wide range of questions, from clarifying plans for its marketing cloud (it will happen) to expressing opinions on the U.S. economy (what recession?). Benioff stayed on message, promoting the cloud and his plans for the social enterprise throughout this exchange. The following is a selection of questions and answers:You showed the napkin on which you mapped out Burberry Ltd.'s strategy for a social enterprise and talked about other big-name customers highlighting Salesforce.com's work to help them create social enterprise strategies. How do you help everyone else?
Marc Benioff: We have 100,000 napkins (laughs). We have come up with a template. The Burberry template [is based on] things that are important to them, their brand and the feelings associated with their brand, which is important to them, but if you look at that napkin and compare it to the Toyota template, the Coca-Cola template, they're all very similar. We sent 300 executives out to 1,000 customers [this year], and they are building a catalogue by industry, and we will have hundreds of these [templates] within a year. This is a huge shift for us and for our sales organization.
-
Customer Experience Exchange
This bi-monthly e-zine offers insights into and tips about the customer experience. We will be covering customer engagement and loyalty, analytics, social and customer-facing initiatives, cross-organizational communication and how companies are maintaining a single view of the customer.
-
Business applications cloud computing mega-guide
In this guide collection, find answers to commonly asked questions about SAP, Oracle, CRM and manufacturing/ERP cloud computing.
-
Customer Experience Exchange Ezine Archive
Customer Experience Exchange Ezine offers insights into and tips about the customer experience. Catch up on past issues focused on customer engagement and loyalty, CRM analytics, social and customer-facing initiatives, cross-organizational communication, how companies are maintaining a single view of the customer and more.