CRM Software Programs - Reviews & Articles

Modern CRM software programs helps you keep in touch with your customers in a modern way. Use the CRM software reviews and advice below to learn more about this increasingly popular type of software!

Choosing the Right CRM Software Application
This helpful article offers tips for finding the right CRM software application for your organization. Some simple "rules" to help you find, research, compare and choose the best CRM application for your organization.

CRM Solutions For Better Business
CRM solutions help companies enhance their customer relationship management (CRM) practices. There are mainly three parts in a CRM software system: the operative, the analytical, and the collaborative portions. This article explains each in detail.

CRM Software Programs Explained
CRM software programs are an integral part of customer relationship management (CRM). So what are these programs and how do they work? Read on to find out.

Choosing the Right CRM Solution
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become one of the hot topics in the business world in the last few years, and with good reason. Thus, considering a CRM solution for your business is of the utmost importance. Here are six tips for choosing the right one.

CRM Software is Nice, But It's No Rosie Jetson
CRM software can certainly improve your customer relations program, but it cannot run the program entirely. Unlike Rosie Jetson, your CRM program needs human input and direction. This article explains what these programs can do -- and what they can't.

Is CRM Technology Living Up to the Hype?
CRM spending has been growing considerably, especially in financial services, retail, and telecommunications. Many companies have invested in CRM systems to retain customers who demand more and better services by the day. But why? Is it really worth the cost?

5-Minute Guide to CRM Software
If a company is ready to release a new product, or maybe just wants to increase sales, CRM programs can help them determine what to do. It all has to do with understanding customer behavior and needs. The right kind of software can help you identify both.

CRM Case Study - A Successful Implementation
Here's a CRM case study that will highlight areas that can make your software implementation successful. This company bought individual software applications (instead of a complete end-to-end CRM system) for customer interaction and operation management. Here's how it went.

Understanding CRM Solutions
Companies who accept CRM software solutions are better able to maximize customer satisfaction and profitability. But what are these solutions and how do they help you accomplish such feats? Let's take a closer look.

Finding an Affordable CRM Solution
Let's examine that path and process to finding an affordable CRM software solution for your business. After all, being fiscally responsible is just as important as improving customer relationship management. Right?

Does Every Company Need a CRM Solution?
Every company has customers, and every company should maintain basic information about those customers. CRM software can help. But does your company need such a program? Here is some information to help you decide.

CRM Software - Ensuring Customer Success
CRM software programs are becoming the norm in many industries today. These programs help ensure customer success by automating much of the customer service management process. And who wouldn't want that?

Find Out How CRM Systems Work
If your business is having trouble getting over the proverbial hump, a quality CRM system may be the key to reaching that next level.

How CRM Software Works - Creating Customer Satisfaction
This literal definition of CRM is too narrow to really explain everything it does. In this article, we will discuss this unique business tool, and find out how these systems work to improve both relationships and profits.

Automotive CRM Software
CRM software specifically designed for the automotive industry has many features that auto companies will find useful. Let's take a closer look at automotive CRM programs and how they work.

SalesPage CRM Software Awarded ISM's Top 15
SalesPage v. 4.7 CRM software solution was awarded ISM, Inc.'s "Top 15 CRM Small & Medium Business Software" for 2006.

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We Welcome CRM Software Articles & Reviews

Hopefully, these articles and reviews help you understand the many CRM programs available today. If you would like to submit your own review of a particular CRM software program please review these submission instructions.

Moving tips from a mover in Austin, Texas.

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CRM Software News

Want to keep up with the latest in CRM technology? We offer the following news feed, courtesy of CRM Daily, to help you stay informed on the latest developments, products, and company news from the world of customer relationship management technology.

CRM Daily
Tech News by CRM Daily (http://www.crm-daily.com).

Mobile Search May Soon Find Its Niche
The growth of mobile search has been hindered over the past five years by perceived high data costs and limited handset capability. However, higher bandwidths and the uptake of 2.5G- and 3G-capable handsets by more mainstream consumers means the medium is likely to become a more important driver of both revenue and traffic for brands.

Nokia estimates that by 2015, 5 billion people globally will have access to an always-on mobile Internet connection, and there will be a 100-fold increase in mobile network traffic. What does this mean for brands? First, mobile Internet users will use search in a different way from regular Internet users. While the latter tend to search for several keywords to refine their results, mobile users - particularly because of the small size of their screen -- will look for only a couple. This means that only the biggest brands with the deepest pockets will even appear to consumers in the majority of mobile search listings.

The biggest trend in mobile search, and use of the mobile Internet in general, is for users to venture beyond their operator's designated portal to access that of another brand. Mobile Web advertising is encouraging this practice; click-through rates for mobile Web ads are reportedly five to 10 times higher than those for other forms of online advertising.

Scott Gallacher, director of online and partnerships at Sky, believes that many brands are wary of investing a huge amount of money in mobile search because it has not yet been seen to have sufficient penetration to warrant the spending. "I don't think mobile search is on the radar for most companies because it's just not that important a channel [to them], so why would they invest in it?" he asks. "From a brand perspective, it's slightly different for us because we have a mobile-based...

FreeCRM Delivers Safer SaaS CRM Service
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Aug 13, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- FreeCRM.com, the world's largest on-demand provider of SaaS CRM services with over 87,000 customers, today announced it is enhancing its security -- and protecting its customers -- by implementing advanced hacker-safe and PCI compliance scanning technology to protect, audit, and certify network and e-business security.

FreeCRM.com has added McAfee Secure scanning and PCI compliance auditing. McAfee Secure scans the FreeCRM.com site daily, adding comprehensive network security audits and vulnerability management technology.

FreeCRM.com is now the most secure on-demand, web-based (SaaS) Customer Relationship Management system available in the industry.

Now providing the most comprehensive protection of customer data in the entire online CRM industry, FreeCRM.com has also deployed Extended Validation (EV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates from VeriSign, Inc., the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Additionally, Free CRM is also a member of the TRUSTe Privacy Seal program as well as the BBB Online trustmark.

"FreeCRM.com is blazing a trail for other SaaS providers to follow, providing the highest level of security and protection available in the industry, eclipsing SalesForce.com by leaps and bounds," said Eric Stone, CEO of CRM ASP, Inc., parent company to FreeCRM.com. "In our industry, data protection is the most important issue for adoption of software-as-a-service. By working with McAfee, VeriSign, TRUSTe and the BBB, we are demonstrating our commitment to safeguarding customer information online and challenging our competitors to raise the bar for online security."

"We know that phishing and other schemes aren't limited to banks or retailers: any organization with information worth protecting is susceptible to fraudulent activity," continued Stone. "By deploying McAfee Secure and PCI Compliance and VeriSign EV SSL Certificates, FreeCRM.com is putting the interests of our customers first and setting a new standard for online security among SaaS providers."

About FreeCRM.com

With over...

Microsoft Opens Windows 7 Blog for Discussions
Microsoft has launched a new blog page for discussions with customers and partners about the next Windows operating system. "We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion," said Windows 7 development engineers Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky.

For a while now, Microsoft has said it would deliver Windows 7 approximately three years after the January 2007 launch of Windows Vista. "The product is tracking very, very well," said Senior Vice President Bill Veghte, who runs Microsoft's Windows business. "And we are looking good relative to our commitment," he told analysts last month.

To prep developers on the new OS, Microsoft will hold two major Windows events. "The Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference the following week represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," DeVaan and Sinofsky said.

Vista Under Fire

Sales of licenses for Windows Vista surpassed the 180 million in the second quarter, according to Colleen Healy, general manager of investor relations at Microsoft. "And Windows Vista had driven client revenue to an average growth rate of 16 percent since it became generally available," she said during a conference call with analysts last month.

However, Vista has come under fire because of its failure to work well with other software applications and hardware. Adoption rates in enterprises have also lagged analysts' expectations.

With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft will have its first major opportunity to improve industry perceptions about its operating system. "The biggest problem Vista has today is in perception --- a perceived lack of value and perceived instability," said Michael Silver, a research director at Gartner Client Computing.

Microsoft says it plans to listen more closely to what the world has to say about Windows. Earlier this year, Veghte...

'Game Changer' Customer Insight Portal Launched
Leximancer, a Customer Experience Management (CEM) and analytics software development company, today announced the launch of The Customer Insight Portal, a Web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) that delivers insight to not only what customers are saying, but why they're saying it.

"The Customer Insight Portal is a game changer for the way companies seek to understand their customer attitudes and behaviors," said Neil Hartley, Leximancer CEO. "It allows virtually any organization or individual user to easily gain insight into the root causes of customer opinion and feedback. Our state-of-the-art market intelligence software has been proven on the desktop world- wide and now we are making it available through The Customer Insight Portal."

For consumer-focused organizations, The Customer Insight Portal gives marketing professionals, brand managers, competitive intelligence and customer experience managers the ability to make critical decisions based on factual data regarding customers' thoughts and feelings toward their brand, products or service. The Customer Insight Portal goes multiple steps beyond traditional text analytics by employing a rich variety of scientific methods to analyze call center notes, survey data, e-mails, documents, blogs, social media and Web sites. This enables Leximancer to uniquely provide insight into the root causes of customers' attitudes and actions, allowing companies to determine not just what people think of them, but also why.

"The Customer Insight Portal lets business people explore and automatically find meaning, and identifies structured relationships between the key ideas or issues that are important to customers - uncovering information that was previously hidden," said Chris Westfall, Leximancer vice president of business development. "From the people that have already used the portal, they're saying that it provides previously unknown, actionable insights, which is great validation of what's possible."

The Customer Insight Portal provides deep insight without the need for set up, which means that...

Congress Plans To Push for Web Privacy
Support for a law aimed at protecting consumers' online privacy is gathering steam in Washington. Representative Edward Markey [D-Mass.], head of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, says he and others plan to introduce comprehensive online privacy legislation in the coming congressional session.

Dubbed the Online Privacy Bill of Rights, the law may require companies to get approval from consumers before collecting information about their Web-surfing habits, a process known as behavioral targeting that helps Web sites more strategically place ads. The legislation may also demand that companies disclose more information on how they collect and use people's Web-use data. "There is a reasonable chance that we will see something in the next Congress," says Michael Hintze, an associate general counsel at Microsoft.

Watching What You Watch

Legislative interest in ad targeting spiked amid recent hearings over a company called NebuAd, which makes devices that attach to the networks of Internet Service Providers and log surfers' movements. Lawmakers are particularly interested in the implications of NebuAd's technology, known as deep packet inspection [DPI], one of the most comprehensive ways of keeping tabs on what people do online.

An examination of NebuAd prompted congressional staffers to look at ad targeting more broadly. On Aug. 1, Markey's committee sent letters to 33 companies, including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, asking each to outline its tracking practices.

Behavioral targeting has come into its own in recent years as companies crafted ever more powerful methods for combing through data. Internet companies have bolstered their ability to target ads through the acquisition of large ad networks able to amass their own information on consumers' site-viewing habits. During the past year, Microsoft acquired aQuantive, Time Warner's AOL snapped up Tacoda, Google purchased DoubleClick, and Yahoo bought BlueLithium. The use of ad networks surged from 5 percent of total ad impressions sold in...

For Customers, There's No Need To Suffer in Silence
Have you been bumped from a flight? Belittled by a hotel clerk? Or stewed in a doctor's waiting room? Then Rupert Barkoff wants to hear all about it.

By day, Barkoff is a lawyer at Kilpatrick Stockton in Atlanta and a national expert on business franchising. But his hobby -- his golf, as he puts it -- is dissecting customer service horror stories, starting with his own.

The 60-year-old "self-appointed expert on customer service" is on a mission to collect 1,000 customer service stories. Barkoff created a Web site called anecdatabook.com to collect the tales, and he aims to write a book about the findings, a how-to tome that coaches people (and businesses) about how to right customer service wrongs.

He has co-authored a book on franchising and was a technical adviser on "Franchising for Dummies." Those subjects are limited, however. His current project is universal because everyone is a consumer who has endured shoddy or hostile service.

"Maybe we can teach people to do the right thing and be noisy about it," said Barkoff, a frequent traveler and somewhat of a serial letter-writing complainer. "You're doing a disservice to the business if you don't complain."

Constructive complaining is a lost art, he said. Customers often get nasty or, more often, shrug and walk away, figuring it's not worth the effort to right a wrong. Or they think no one cares. Businesses can be tin-eared when hearing complaints. Or they can even aggravate customers more when they respond.

Case in point: Barkoff ordered his wife a dozen roses. They arrived dead. He complained to the florist, who quickly offered Barkoff a cash refund. Barkoff was put off. The man should have immediately sent out a replacement arrangement, he said, even if he had to get it from a competitor. Barkoff says he brings maybe $400 a...

Crying Foul over Online Junk-Food Marketing
At age 2, Zameen Rashid is well acquainted with Lucky, the leprechaun who lists the marshmallow clovers, moons, and stars in boxes of General Mills' Lucky Charms cereal. Maybe too well, says his mother, Fahmida Rashid, who frets that too-frequent exposure to food ads in video games, TV shows, and the Web will foster unhealthy eating habits. "Just as you wouldn't expect to see a tobacco ad on a kids' site or show, there shouldn't be junk food ads there either," says Rashid, a 31-year-old resident of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Consumer and children's advocacy groups share Rashid's concerns. Having successfully lobbied the government to place limits on junk food ads on TV, they now target marketing to kids via the Web. "While there are some rules for TV, there are no rules when you move online," says Patti Miller, vice-president of children's advocacy group Children Now and a member of the Federal Communications Commission's Task Force on Media & Childhood Obesity. "We don't want to reduce junk food advertising to kids [on TV] and then find that it has just moved to another platform."

The worry is that food companies are bombarding kids with ads for non-nutritious foods, fueling the obesity epidemic that, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, has increased the proportion of overweight kids under age 12 fivefold in the last generation and left almost 19% of kids between 6 and 11 overweight.

A new report, commissioned by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, part of the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, Calif., focuses on methods of advertising food to kids that have become particularly popular during the past two years, such as spreading messages through social networks, and urges lawmakers to restrict junk food advertising to kids online. It will be presented to members of Congress and has been...

Privacy Issues Arise as Online Advertisers Get Tricky
Here are some things Internet users can discover about Kiyoshi Martinez, a 24-year-old man from Mokena, Illinois, from some of his recent posts online.

He watched "The Colbert Report" on Tuesday night, he likes the musician Lenlow and he received bottles of olive oil and vinegar for his birthday. Martinez has Facebook and LinkedIn pages, a Twitter account and a Web site that includes his resume.

So it is surprising to learn that Martinez, an aide in the Illinois Senate, is also vigilant about his privacy online.

"I'm pretty aware of the fact that anything you do on the Internet pretty much should just be considered public," Martinez said. While he knows that companies are collecting his data and often tracking his online habits so they can show him more relevant ads, he said, he would like to see more transparency "about what the company intends to do with your data and your information."

"Like all privacy matters, it's something that people need to be informed on," Martinez said.

Those same questions of data collection and privacy policies are attracting the attention of the U.S. Congress, too. There is no broad privacy legislation governing advertising on the Internet. And even some in the government admit that they do not have a clear grasp of what companies are able to do with the wealth of data now available to them.

"That is why Congress, at this point, is wanting to gather a lot more information, because no one knows," said Steven Hetcher, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Tennessee. "That information is incredibly valuable; it's the new frontier of advertising."

Beyond the data question, there are issues of how companies should tell browsers that their information is being tracked, which area of law covers this and what -- if anything -- proper regulation would look like.

On...

JetBlue's Comfy New Place To While Away the Hours
JetBlue built its much vaunted reputation for service on the concept of a high-value carrier, one that has retained its designer perks, such as leather seats and snazzy graphics, as well as good prices, even in an age of diminished passenger expectations. So when JetBlue realized in 2004 that it needed more space at its New York City hub, the carrier embraced the idea of a flagship terminal at JFK International Airport behind the iconic, Eero Saarinen-designed TWA building, using Saarinen's winged structure as a focal point and inspiration.

Conceived at a time when the future looked brighter for the industry, officials decided to carry on building Terminal 5 even when high oil prices sent airline fortunes, including JetBlue's, into the tank. "It is certainly a tough economic environment," acknowledges Todd Burke, a spokesman for the airline. "But there was no hesitation to go ahead, because this building is an investment in our future." T5, as it's called, is set to open on Oct. 1.

On a recent sneak preview of T5, there was no evidence of difficult economic times -- but clearly still a lot of work to be done. JetBlue kicked in $80 million of the $743 million cost, and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey covered the rest. The 635,000-square foot building, designed by the architecture and design firm Gensler, will accommodate 20 million passengers a year, 30 percent of JFK's total annual number, from 26 gates. It includes a 55,000-sq.-ft. retail and food area known as the Marketplace, based on a design concept by David Rockwell of Rockwell Group. The airline, in which Lufthansa holds a 19 percent stake, has 600 daily flights to 50 cities in five countries.

Countering Rage

The terminal is a matte grey metal-and-glass structure that isn't likely to win awards for architectural...

How Unified Communications Benefits the Call Center
The concept of "presence," which is central to unified communications, is not new to the call center, of course. In days past, it was referred to as "agent state." Because of this, one might reasonably say that a rudimentary form of unified communications was actually born in the call center.

Today's UC technologies, however, have the potential to turn the whole concept of "call center" on its ear. As many companies are pulling away from the concept of one large call center facility -- either out of necessity or choice -- many are turning to unified communications to build a call center entity that looks very different than it did just a few years ago. In the simplest explanation possible for what is a notoriously complex and often poorly defined subject, unified communications is the successful blending (or "convergence") of all communications media, methods and devices into one interconnected entity, if you will, that breaks away all barriers to communication within an enterprise.

Unified communications, when utilized in the contact center, leads to better and faster customer service; a more satisfying and seamless customer experience; better utilization of business processes; a greater likelihood of first-call resolution and more efficient usage of a company's human capital (no more wasted hours of "phone tag," for starters).

By applying the tried-and-true formula of multiplying the seconds...or even minutes... unified communications can shave off customer contacts following a first-call resolution model by the number of calls made per day, it's easy to see that unified communications can save a large call center (or even a not-so-large call center) a great deal of money in real dollars. Factor in the "soft" costs like greater customer loyalty, improved agent job satisfaction and lower turnover, and unified communications can very well be considered the backbone of a successful...

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