I was pointed to a post today on the topic of customer service (Another Day, Another Customer-Service Nightmare on the EconoWhiner) that pointed out that companies
need to provide quality service and quality customer service if they’re going to survive an economic downturn as severe as this one?
Now I am not going to pick on AOL [...]

CRM Daily had a nice little article on Customer Retention that reminded me of the example I often use for how the elements of decision management contribute to more effective customer retention decisions. Large organizations spend vast sums on retention - one bank, for instance, spends $1Bn annually - and retention is a perfect candidate [...]

An old friend sent me a link to an article on the Financial Times - How to survive an IT squeeze. I was struck by a couple of quotes:
Scarcity of capital will generate increased competition for the cash that is available. Consequently it will be even more important that businesses do everything they can to [...]

Great comment from monkchips on twitter today:
the key to customer relationship management is to treat your clients as people rather than accounts. everything else follows from that.
Of course the challenge is how to make sure that all the people who work for you and all the systems your clients use do this. While you can [...]

Two gentlemen from Deloitte presented Integrating Predictive Analytics and BRM to Improve Health Plan Member Experience. 80% of healthcare costs are incurred by 20% of members and traditionally the 20% get all the focus. Analytics and data mining get applied to claims, authorization, costs as a result. Segmentation focuses on the unprofitable and unhealthy. Increasingly [...]

Randy Saunders had a great post over on the Perfect Customer Experience -Can I please speak with a live agent? In it he has a great quote:
Forester’s study finds that 45 percent of consumers prefer to speak with a customer service agent to answer questions and resolve service issues, yet most walk away from customer [...]

Last week I was invited to attend Chordiant’s European Customer Advisory Board. This session was held in lovely Munich in the middle of Oktoberfest and was both informative and a lot of fun. While I can’t share everything - some of it was for customers only - I thought you would appreciate what I could [...]

The use of analytics in business decisions, presented by one of InfoCentricity’s customers, was next. In many organizations modelers are busy building predictive models that they then throw over the wall to a business analyst. To bridge this gap you need a collaboration platform that allows modelers to do their thing while allowing business analysts [...]

Elana Anderson had a great post on direct marketing while I was on vacation -Next Generation Campaign Management.
She starts off with three great principles:

Listen to all information provided by customers and prospects — both explicit and implied.
Understand past and present information to determine the best possible marketing action.
Communicate in a compelling, timely, and relevant manner.

All of [...]

Ginger Conlon had a little piece on mobile marketing that caught my eye. This post highlighted the growing importance of mobile devices as both a customer support channel and as a marketing vehicle. I completely agree with this assessment but I think it means that, for both customer service and marketing, we will have to [...]