In 1989, the song “If You Don’t Know Me by Now” by U.K. pop band Simply Red hit the number one spot on the Hot 100 list. Almost 25 years later—in the era of big data—the lyrics “If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never, never know me,” probably ring true for most people purchasing goods and services this holiday season, as I will explain. Read More
From the floor at Dreamforce: Must analytic solutions be purpose-built or can they solve multiple problems?
Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent the week in San Francisco attending Dreamforce, Salesforce.com’s annual conference. It was a great opportunity to gain insights from the industry’s leading vendors, share best practices among CRM experts and learn about up-and-coming tools and trends in the contact center space. Read More
The Customer-Centric Contact Center
Last week I attended Frost & Sullivan’s Contact Center West conference in Tucson, Arizona. The conference was a great opportunity to share insights, ideas and best practices among the industry’s top vendors and experts. Read More
The Next Competitive Battleground
“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” This was Jerry Gregoria’s fatidic statement just before resigning as Dell’s CIO in 1999. His words have become even more revealing in recent years, especially with advancements in technologies, including the proliferation of digital touch points. PCs, smartphones, tablets, not to mention social media, have profoundly impacted the way companies interact with their most important commodity. Because of this, customers across all demographics now share a common trait: they are empowered. And if companies want to stay competitive, the onus is on them to make the overall customer experience a top priority. Read More