Interesting Article in Interactive week:

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2766293,00.html

Opinions

Joe

While the article is the standard 'customers first, blah blah'...


According to Christopher Faulkner, President and CEO of *****, his company is built on the premise that "the customer must be at the center of every decision and strategy." CRM software should integrate customer services across communications channels, he says, whether customers seek support through e-mail, phone or chat. CRM software should also be integrated across departments. "Tech support data should be integrated with order precessing, sales and billing data so that every problem can be solved."

Faulkner adds that a Quality Assurance program is "essential to ensure that all the other parts of customer service program are working as they should."



:rolleyes:

Makes me wanna puke.

When any business starts babbling on about CRM as if it is some brand-new magic bullet, they are usually in serious trouble. CRM is like a cult. It attracts the most desperate of companies, offering them an out of the box, end to end, scalable and robust solution for their business problems.

I get regular religious tracts from CRM ministries, inviting me to their revival meetings so our company can be 'saved'.

CRM is nothing more than keeping good customer records, and having that information accessible, so that when they call or email, you can look it up and give them personalized service.

If businesses aren't keeping good customer records and don't have that information accessible to their tech support engineers, CSR's and sales reps, it's going to take more than just an end-to-end, out of the box, scalable and robust solution to fix what's wrong.

Seems like this is a touchie issue

I wonder how much ***** paid for their 'ad??' hmnn

I'm guessing a combination of money and a slow news day.....

The question I have - is there anyone else who works at *****? Everywhere you go and hear about *****, Chris always has to say something. Does he have any employees or other people who helped and will let speak? Maybe that is why they suck.

I am just glad Al Gore said that he invented the Internet. Hell, Chris would have put out a news release on his site a while back saying he and ***** did.

PS - Beating a dead horse is fun. I just can't help myself.:D

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Everywhere you go and hear about *****, Chris always has to say something. Does he have any employees or other people who helped and will let speak? Maybe that is why they suck.Well, while I can't attest to the suckitude of *****, I can attest to this: they've got a seriously focused and ambitious marketing department. Those "articles" are nothing more than press releases, written by someone on his staff, with a very deliberate and directed motivation: to promote ***** in any way possible.

Every sizable company has a PR department working for them, and this is one of their chief day-to-day functions: to "inform" the public about current activities and news about the company. (Now, you and I know, it has usually a lot more to do with advertising than informing.)

The media print it because that's what the media does -- trust me; I worked in a newspaper office for two years. For 99% of the stuff that comes off the wire -- be it a business wire or world wire or whatever -- they're just looking for stuff to fill the pages. I won't presume why this online mag bothered with this one, but I know that it's a lot easier and cheaper to publish anyhting and everything on the net, whereas in a magazine or newspaper, there are space limitations.

Seems to me that for whatever level of quality ***** delivers, they're definitely winning a PR campaign. And for evidence of that, look at this: we're discussing them. We wouldn't have reason to bring their name up if it weren't for their conscious effort.

Here is my problem and why I bitch (also I experienced it a few years back). It is like the movie poltergeist. You are new to home buying, you see big signs telling you about this GREAT new development. Sounds good to me, lets move in. You spend time and money moving. Then holy crap- the place is haunted, built on top of an old grave yard. I go through hell because I trusted this PR which turns out to be %#$@. Now I need to spend more time and money to move on. What a waste and a black eye.

PR is everywhere. All large companies do it. The key variable is how many vocal haters there are of *****. I challenge you to find a forum, directory, etc.. without some complaint about them. They mislead and piss off people. There are much larger host then them that you see very little complaints about.

Their PR and promotion lick butt. Good point. I mean free airline tickets. What better way to seal a deal with a newbie who doesn't know any better. But it is not PR that is making us talk.

Yeh his company is kicking our butts for the fight for customers. But it is like the jerk who always gets the prom queen. The reason I get so vocal is that I want to make sure that I can contribute and hopefully pull just ONE customer from going with them, and instead go with site5 for example. (Your host who you are very happy with).

Originally posted by JBIZ718
Interesting Article in Interactive week...

I disagree that it is 'interesting'. The heading is NEWS, so you'd think you were about to read something you might not have heard before, or that common sense wouldn't have already told you.

Instead (opening paragraph):

"One of the most important elements in providing excellent customer service is taking the time to listen to our clients and understand their needs," says Robb Allen, CEO of DataPipe. "We can't meet our clients' expectations if we don't understand what their needs are."

I can't wait until the June articles come out about the merits of installing hard drives into servers. Previews...

NEWS
Is a CPU enough?
Ima Dumbass, CEO of WhoGivesAcowpoop tells us that their company outshines the rest by using hard drives in their servers. Ima states, "You can't just throw a CPU into a server, you must also install a hard drive."

NEWS
Is AOL is all you need?
Yes. Why build a NOC when AOL is all you need? Although it might cost you millions of dollars to open up a state of the art datacenter, Mia Doofis, President of BasementHosting tells us that she laughs at other hosts who waste their money on such needless things. "I just get the least expensive eMachines computer at CompUSA and sign up for 4 years of AOL. With the rebate, I get all the money back and don't spend a dime on equipment!" Mia also says she saves money by buying $4.99 plastic bookcases instead of the costsly racks most hosts use.

NEWS
Is a CPU enough?
Ima Dumbass, CEO of WhoGivesAcowpoop tells us that their company outshines the rest by using hard drives in their servers. Ima states, "You can't just throw a CPU into a server, you must also install a hard drive."


Chicken rawks!

:beer:

Originally posted by Chicken

NEWS
Is a CPU enough?
Ima Dumbass, CEO of WhoGivesAcowpoop tells us that their company outshines the rest by using hard drives in their servers. Ima states, "You can't just throw a CPU into a server, you must also install a hard drive."

NEWS
Is AOL is all you need?
Yes. Why build a NOC when AOL is all you need? Although it might cost you millions of dollars to open up a state of the art datacenter, Mia Doofis, President of BasementHosting tells us that she laughs at other hosts who waste their money on such needless things. "I just get the least expensive eMachines computer at CompUSA and sign up for 4 years of AOL. With the rebate, I get all the money back and don't spend a dime on equipment!" Mia also says she saves money by buying $4.99 plastic bookcases instead of the costsly racks most hosts use.

:D

good point chicken, i think i might 'borrow' some of your analogies in the future