thomas.wieberneit@aheadcrm.co.nz
How to leverage The Power of Ecosystems

How to leverage The Power of Ecosystems

Ecosystems are a big topic. What makes an ecosystem successful? What hurts? Are there any key elements to ecosystems to make them succeed? Does it differ from communities? Can a vendor survive without one? Or even better: Can customers succeed without? There are lots of questions to be answered in the times of platform play. The CRMKonvos team had a vivid conversation with Alan Berkson, Global Director of Community Outreach and Analyst Relations at Freshworks, who, as part of is job works with, and builds ecosystems – pretty well, in fact. He has a lot of interesting things to say, also about the current rage, which is Clubhouse – will it succeed? Is there any good to it? Enjoy the...
Customer Service – its Future and the role of Emotions

Customer Service – its Future and the role of Emotions

Customer Service is changing fast, but is it all for the better? Which changes did the pandemic drive? Does messaging have a value, and if so which? How about the role of agents? What changed for them? Will they see an improvement in their jobs? The CRMKonvos team had the pleasure of a good discussion with Ian Jacobs, principle analyst at Forrester Research who covers customer service and is one of the most knowledgeable persons around this huge topic. Shortly before our broadcast Ian and some more of us were involved into an interesting and fiercely led discussion on LinkedIn around the role of emotions in customer service. Opinions clashed, strong arguments were exchanged. Naturally, this discussion made it into our CRMKonvo – and Ian made a couple of good points about the role (or not – no need for a spoiler here) of emotions and data, and how data can be used. In addition, we of course looked into drivers of the customer service functions, how different industries are able to engage for good experiences and whether happy agents do actually create happy customers – interesting data on that one, I need to say, but then, thinking about it, it is also quite obvious in retrospective. At the end of the day, we also asked him about his major predictions. Big thanks to Ian for this highly engaging conversation and his...
How to get CRM for small businesses right

How to get CRM for small businesses right

There is one scary fact in the CRM world. Out of roughly 25 million businesses, only 1 percent has a CRM system. Imagine this! It is a huge waste on one side and a tremendous opportunity on the other side. If vendors find the way into the future of CRM. Nimble seems to have found a way. The CRMKonvos team discussed these and other challenges of CRM systems with Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of Nimble. We are following his path for quite some time now, how he built Nimble from very small beginnings and always with the thought of enriching an ecosystem with his solution that is formed around simplicity and making life easier not only for the salesreps but for other employees, too. Learn how a philosophy of giving and sharing enables own growth by helping others to grow – from someone who achieved this repeatedly. And yes, Jon also knows why social selling and social CRM are not things anymore – if they have ever been. Jon is a true role model. Learn from him how to scale while being yourself, thinking...
How to create great virtual events

How to create great virtual events

This time, the CRMKonvos gang had a long and good chat with Jon Reed, co-founder of diginomica, one of the premier media outlets that serve the information needs of enterprise leaders in a digital era. Together, we have attended a good number of virtual events, which led to different experiences. Jon has written about virtual and hybrid events, we have our opinions. So what is better than having a frank discussion on what to do, what not, how to measure, what to measure. Of course, this easily touches the hot topic of personalization, and then AI driven personalization and AI in general. A long and very good conversation with one of the most influential thought leaders. Enjoy, as it is highly...
Great CX from an Oracle point of view

Great CX from an Oracle point of view

The CRMKonvos team started into the new year talking with Daniel Renggli, Director Field Marketing North at Oracle. As we all know, Oracle has a vast range of solutions across the whole value chain and is one of the few that can (almost) support a whole enterprise with its solution. Oracle was also known as a cloud laggard – a notion that got vastly changed in the last few years. And Oracle governs the complete hardware and software stack to support businesses, which again is rare in the enterprise applications world. The company’s IaaS infrastructure even can extend into the customer data center, which is a very interesting offering. Last, but not least, Oracle has a strong set of CRM- and CX applications, on premise and in the cloud, with the cloud software being established in the market in the past years. Oracle is one of the contenders in the #ClashOfTitans. All the more reason to talk with an Oracle representative about what is great CX and how to get there. Being confronted with the complete CRMKonvos gang, Daniel took his stand. And he did well. We learned a lot. You can, too. Here is the recording of the conversation. It is worthwhile the time. Trust...
Why Salesreps hate their CRM – and how to improve this

Why Salesreps hate their CRM – and how to improve this

Many CRM systems are still well in the past. They do not do what their users, especially sales people want them to do. They do not see them as helpful. Why not? What can be done to improve the situation? The CRMKonvos team discusses with Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research. Why do salespersons rather clean the bathroom than use their CRM? Do you know why a CRM system cannot be “sexy”? You will not be surprised to learn that technology is only one aspect in this picture. It’s not just the bathroom. A study that was conducted by Beagle Research found a long list of things salespeople would rather do than work with their CRM systems. For instance, waiting in line at the motor vehicles office, having a fight with your significant other, going to the dentist — you get the idea–are all ahead of CRM. The question is why? And Denis simple answer is that all the other things are finite and have an endpoint but CRM seems to be forever or at least more long term. That says a lot. Still, people are reluctant to discuss this and it’s no one’s fault, certainly it’s not the fault of the software, the software vendor or incompetence about the purchase process. What this nets out to is that the majority of CRM in use today was designed for another time, for different business processes that have been superseded by the Covid era but that started even before Covid. Digressing slightly, the same phenomenon could be seen about ten or more years ago. Back then businesses were trying to get...