Ecosystem Play – One Game at a Time

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 30, 2021 | Blog, Sponsored |

It is not that uncommon that a software company creates new software based upon customer requirements. Actually, this is the way things should be done; not exclusively, but to quite an extent. Now, there are few software vendors who are truly independent. Most vendors are, and need to be, part of one or more other vendor ecosystems. This is simply a matter of scale, as there are only a few vendors who have the size and market power that are necessary to surround themselves with a good number of customers, ISVs, system integrators and other partners. And the number of these ecosystems is rather shrinking than growing.  What this means is not that these few companies can implement and deliver what they want, but that the other ones need to carefully check two things. First, which ecosystem(s) to belong to, be it one or more than one. And as the CEO of 3CLogic, Denis Seynhaeve in a recent CRMKonvo said: It is important to choose wisely, which ecosystem to commit to. One of the fundamental consequences of this decision is the degree of dependency on other vendors that the smaller vendor has. This degree naturally decreases with the number of ecosystems it participates in, although they can never be truly independent – which is also not wanted when playing the ecosystem game. Conversely, participating in more than one ecosystem increases options and the potential reach. On the other hand, there are some other factors that come into play. The software architecture and the software itself will become more complicated when different vendors’ systems shall get augmented. Deep knowledge in...

How to do Customer Journey Orchestration

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 30, 2021 | Blog, CRMKonvos |

Customer Journey Orchestration is one of the hottest topics in the CRM/CEM/CX area right now. And it is a bigger one than you might think. It involves thinking about ecosystems, actors, outcomes, interactions, jobs-to-be-done and much more. To get into the thick of it, we wanted to talk with someone who really knows this topic from the inside out, and is independent at the same time. This person is Dr. Graham Hill, who has advised numerous companies across the globe for over 30 years now. As said, Graham knows his stuff and is a recognized thought leader in customer experience, interaction optimization and journey orchestration. So, let us hear what he has to say! Spoiler alert: You will not regret it! Join us in the discussion with Dr. Graham Hill, who has a keen eye on this topic from a services dominant logic point of view. Attend, participate, engage. You will not regret it....

The history and trajectory of CRM – an expert view

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 20, 2021 | Blog, CRMKonvos |

CRM, in various incarnations, has been around since the 90s. If one counts in contact managers like Goldmine, then we are actually talking about the 80s. Some consider it a strategy, but whether it is or not, is a discussion that has been closed long ago. Still, there is a lot going on. And I mean a LOT. So, it is time to talk to someone who accompanies the industry since it was immature, someone who also contributed to shaping the industry and some of the solutions around. So, we reached out to Volker Hildebrandt. Volker is a fountain of information about where it comes from and where it is heading to. So, if you are interested in the current state of affairs and in the trajectory that the industry is likely to take, then listen in. You will not regret...

How to not manage your customers’ journeys

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 13, 2021 | Blog |

It is time to talk about customer journeys and customer journey orchestration. Again. The theme of two of my recent articles has been about customer data. First, in my article Why you don’t want a 360-degree on the customer I rubbed the coveted 360-degree view on the customer, which is utterly meaningless as a contextually relevant view on the customer is required to take any decision or action. Then I followed up with the view that a customer data platform (CDP) is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Actually, two ends. They are engagement and experience. Back in the day when no one talked about CDPs I wrote in a guest post There is no customer experience without customer engagement to Paul Greenberg’s ZDNet column that a well-orchestrated CRM system sets the foundation “for every meaningful and relevant engagement, proactive (company initiated) as well as reactive (customer initiated), which covers all communication/engagement channels, and an increasing number of possible touch points. The CRM system, at its core, is channel- and touch point agnostic. But it supports and serves all of them, every single one – including those that we do not yet know of. The customer engagement, as an ongoing process, itself happens via any number of interactions, the touch points chosen by the customer, but offered by the company”. This is, of course, based on Paul’s definition that “customer engagement is the ongoing interaction between company and customer, offered by the company and chosen by the customer”. Nowadays one could replace the term CRM with CDP, but how we call it doesn’t really...

How to create customer experience with blade technology

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 6, 2021 | Blog, CRMKonvos |

Starting with the concept of blades we went across a number of different topics related to customer experience with our guest Denis Seynhaeve. Denis is the CEO of 3CLogic, a company that is dedicated to ‘pluggable’ contact centers in the cloud, helping organizations to provide good customer experience via voice technology. So, naturally a number of questions arises. What is blade technology (hint, it doesn’t have anything to do with the blade runner but is closer to the blades used in data centers …)? How does this technology contribute to a customer experience? Why choosing AWS and not another hyperscaler – or run out of own data centers? And, first, and foremost: Why the concentration without exclusivity on ServiceNow? Here, Denis clearly has a strategy that differs from the one pursued by Richard Rosen of Fastcall, who has an exclusive focus on Salesforce. And, last but not least the fundamental question: How to choose the right ecosystem to play in, if one is not an 800-pound gorilla? Answers to these questions and more in our...