customer relationship management (CRM)

Automation and AI are changing the nature of work. Every company job — including every front-office job — will be impacted. Always-available commerce and intelligent guided-selling solutions erode field sales teams. Automated self-service obsoletes generalists and Tier 1 customer service agents. This means that inside sales teams are now handling more highly considered purchases. Customer service agents […]

Great customer service helps control costs as companies squeeze out operational efficiencies. It also fuels sustainable top-line revenue growth by providing differentiated experiences that keep customers loyal to your brand. We just finished assessing 20 of the most important technologies in customer service in terms of their maturity and business value. Here are some of […]

The legendary R&B singer and songwriter Ben E. King got it so right in the Drifters’ 1960 recording of “This Magic Moment.” The song is timeless because it tells a classic tale of a first kiss. It also captures a moment in time in words and song that reminds us of the power of storytelling, […]

SAP announced a new name, market position, and strategy for its customer engagement portfolio. Instead of a potpourri of products, SAP will now offer the quirkily named C/4HANA, which is comprised of SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud (including CallidusCloud), and SAP Customer Data Cloud (Gigya). C/4HANA attempts to remind […]

SAP announced a new name, market position, and strategy for its customer engagement portfolio. Instead of a potpourri of products, SAP will now offer the quirkily named C/4HANA, which is comprised of SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud (including CallidusCloud), and SAP Customer Data Cloud (Gigya). C/4HANA attempts to remind […]

On Monday, Adobe announced its $1.68 billion acquisition of Magento. By adding eCommerce capabilities, Adobe is better able to compete with SAP Hybris, Salesforce, and Oracle. Why Magento? A number of commerce-centric offerings exist on the market — but none of them are like Magento. Magento has not only demonstrated growth, but it also boasts a vibrant community of developers and […]

I attended ServiceNow’s Knowledge18 conference, held in Las Vegas on May 7–10. It’s a well-attended conference, by 18,000 people who use one or more of the company’s cloud service management, HR, security, and customer service products, which are all built on an enterprise-grade platform. At the conference, there was a lot of emotion spent talking […]

Great customer service is not just about cutting costs or making operations more efficient. Instead, it’s a systematic reinvention of established technology, data, and operations — leveraging automation, data, and agents together to exploit each of their unique strengths. This year, I see 3 broad customer service trends that organizations must consider as they fundamentally […]

The definition of CRM has changed. Yes, that is a big statement to make, but it’s an important one. CRM grew from a customer data repository into functional applications, first with sales automation and then to support customer service and marketing. Today’s enterprise software vendors cannot rest on “core” CRM functionality; their buyers demand a […]

Modern CRM is about better serving and supporting customers during their journey. It empowers companies to form an emotional bond with their customers by looking out for their best interests. It empowers customer-facing employees with the right data and information about their customers at the right time so that they can focus on nurturing relationships. Here’s […]

Last week was a massive week for marketers. Black Friday 2017 hit record numbers: Not only did shoppers start early, they began clicking at a rate of 2,800 orders per minute, spending $1 million per minute at the peak of Black Friday. Research shows that email is a major driver to get consumers’ attention during […]

In the age of the customer, consumers have more information, more choices, more access, and more power. But they don’t have more time. That’s why the companies that attract, win and retain customers focus on delivering the tenets of great experiences: make it easy, make it effective, and build an emotional connection. But, customer service […]

AI will change the nature of work. Look at the rise of driverless cars and ridesharing — two services that are fueled by AI. Customer service for these services is going to look much different than it does now. AI today is still in its infancy; AI applications span discrete capabilities, all of which are […]

Consumers have more information, more choices, more access, and more power. But they don’t have more time. Customers want easy customer service experiences, that build emotional connections with the band – delivered as efficiently as possible. But enterprises struggle to deliver this kind of customer service because of the current state of customer service technology. […]

Over the past year, Forrester clients have been brimming with questions about chatbots and their role in customer service. In fact, in that time, more than half of the client inquiries I have received have touched on chatbots, artificial intelligence, natural language understanding, machine learning, and conversational self-service. Many of those inquiries were of the […]

The CRM market is mature and the subsection of that market focused on sales, sales force automation (SFA), is even more mature. This market has lumbered along for the past 20+ years, but the dynamics between buyers and sellers today has brought upon the need for a new evolution. We’ve included 10 vendors in the […]

Amazon just launched a preliminary cloud contact center offering, built on AWS. It offers an IVR, natural language understanding via Lex, queueing and routing and telephony infrastructure. It supports basic self-service interactions, and phone interactions. The best videos to explain what Amazon Connect does is at: Getting Started With Amazon Connect  and Introducing Amazon Connect.  Even […]

Customers hold the power in their relationships with businesses. Today, it's not enough for businesses to deliver products. Customers expect them to deliver outcomes and success. To do this, businesses must understand who the customer is, what their pain points are in achieving their business goals, and must help them choose the right products to […]

We’re firmly in the age of the customer, where customers – not executives – decide how customer-centric their companies are. And while good customer experiences can help control costs, executives are more interested in their potential to fuel sustainable top-line growth. Forrester defines CRM as: The business processes and supporting technologies that support the key […]