by twieberneit | Jun 6, 2023 | Blog, CRMKonvos, Sponsored |
Early May, technology vendor Zoho conducted its annual signature event Zoholics in Austin, TX. During this event, Marshall Lager and I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Jason Yoffy, director of engineering at RJG, a training and technology company that on one hand trains plastic injection molders how to make better parts with less waste and on the other hand also provides technology to support better production processes. RJG exists since 1985. It mainly serves companies in the automotive and medical industries that create safety critical and precision parts from plastic with close to 200 employees. We were interested in learning the good, the bad, and the ugly about their journey with Zoho; the needs they had, the experience on the way and, of course, where Yoffy sees scope for improvement. You can watch the complete interview on YouTube. RJG used an “antiquated, server-based”, i.e., an on-premise CRM system that the company wanted to replace as it left much to be desired. The chief concern was “enabling our sales team to sell better.” A lot of processes still were manual, which did not keep pace with the company’s fast growth. Reporting was difficult, of low accuracy, and slow. Lots of relevant data didn’t even make it into the system. Given that, there was lacking transparency in the state of the business; the teams did not get an understanding where everybody was, what the state of initiatives was. Creating a quote for a customer took far too long. While all this is not uncommon, “we wanted to grow up and find a solution that would help us move into the future.” Naturally, one...
by Marshall Lager | May 7, 2023 | Blog, News |
Zoho hosted its usual Analyst Day to coincide with the annual Zoholics event in Austin TX. You’ll likely have seen the announcements already, as well as some analysis of them; I’d like to focus on one set. Zoho has opened up beta access to a set of apps that are specifically targeted to serve solopreneurs, small business owners in the making, freelancers, and similar individuals. Briefly, these apps include: Zoho Start, which guides individuals through the process of launching a business; Zoho Publish, a visibility tool to access listing services, maps, and feedback sites; Zoho Tables, a hybrid spreadsheet/app combining ease of use with team access; and Zoho Solo, a mobile-only set of essential CRM and other business tools for solopreneurs. On the one hand, this is very smart. The majority of solo/small businesses worldwide have a smartphone or tablet as their only computer, driven by the commonality of solopreneurs around the world, both in the developed and developing worlds. The figures Zoho quoted to us included 5 million new business launches in the US annually, more than 33 million existing small businesses, and 70 million people who consider themselves freelancers. By catering to this audience with apps and services that support them specifically, Zoho taps into a huge market that is not otherwise well served. On the other hand, this approach is self-limiting. While we’re talking about majorities, the vast, vast majority of potential users will never grow beyond a one-person, one-device business, nor will they want to. The ones that do grow still aren’t likely to reach a level of revenue that will require a more extensive...
by twieberneit | Jan 9, 2023 | Blog |
Finally, it happened. We lived in our blissful world of an abundance of money that fuelled the illusion of eternal and unlimited growth. The stock markets knew only one direction for a decade. They were rising and rising. Venture capital was readily available. Valuations of all sorts of companies, profitable or not, skyrocketed. Growth at all cost over profitability has been the war cry. Acquisitions have been extremely expensive up to the end of 2021. Logic never supported this illusion, the signs have been on the wall, yet we closed our eyes. Then, in 2022, reality knocked at our doors, and none too subtle. In the “CX industry”, examples for this quite rude awakening include Zendesk. Zendesk went private in June 2022 for $10.2 bn after refusing a $16+ bn offer in February 2022. Another one is Freshworks shares starting a steep decline in October 2021 after a very successful IPO in September 2021. These are only two examples and I by no means want to single out these great companies. Other signs included an increasing number of major layoffs throughout the first half of 2022, culminating in Salesforce announcing more focus on profitability due to a subdued outlook and subsequently laying off 8 thousand employees. Oracle already laid off more than 10 thousand employees of its CX division in August 2022. Amazon fired 18 thousand employees since November, 2022. Especially companies in the tech industry increasingly implemented hiring freezes throughout 2022. This is to quite an extent a consequence of their optimism (or should we say hubris?) but also of companies across industries keeping their budgets in tighter control than before. Another problem is that the definition of customer experience...
by twieberneit | Jan 3, 2023 | Blog |
Happy New Year to everyone! Apart from all the political suff that I do not want to dive into, the year 2022 has seen a lot of exciting events and topics, from the rise and fall of the Metaverse, to lots of defaulting crypto companies. Towards the end of the year, chatGPt stirred up quite some waves. Not to forget the long story of Elon Musk taking over and handling Twitter … In more conventional areas, we have seen more of a renewed interest in affordable CX suites. Earlier in the year, also CDPs have been a big topic. Tips for good engagement to achieve customers having a positive experience is also always a topic. (Nearly) all of this is reflected in the 2022 top ten of my blog, which has seen a good number of visits. A big and heartfelt thank you to all my readers! Here are your top ten articles of 2022. #10 How to engage for customer experience and success #9 How to create value with a CDP #8 The impact of the supply chain on the customer experience #7 A great human – bot conversation with lots to learn #6 How (and why) a marine consultancy made Zoho core of their business #5 The almighty Metaverse – its Rise and Fate #4 How to make Zoho a business’s operating system #3 How to Zoho’matize a business #2 Don’t mess with Zoho – A Zohoday 2022 recap #1 Metaverse – the return of the Undead All of these are well worth revisiting. Thank you again for your readership. I wish you all the best for 2023. Exciting times are lying ahead of...
by twieberneit | Dec 29, 2022 | Blog |
The CRM Playaz asked me about my take on CRM for 2023. Of course, I happily supplied an answer … So, here we are. CRM in terms of concept and software is quite mature, after all it is around for quite some time. It went through some iterations and spun out into other areas, being more transactionally focused, instead of engagement focused. This led to the creation of more software categories, termed customer engagement management or, more recently, customer experience management. This had the potential to create misconceptions and ambiguities, especially when all three categories, customer relationship management, customer engagement and customer experience are looked at. There is confusion across these terms – as there are no generally accepted definitions around – and there is even confusion when looking at the terms individually. That made me express three wishes and advice, one for customer relationship management, one for customer experience, and one for customer engagement. TL;DR – if you do not want to read, here is the video that I created. Let’s start with CRM CRM stands for customer relationship management. I do not want to dive into the discussion about whether there is too much focus on the M and not enough on the R. This is certainly worth a discussion of its own. Instead, let me share the observation that, sadly, CRM is far too often used when actually SFA – sales force automation is meant. This is a limited view on CRM that has been introduced mainly by vendors that focus on enabling sales forces and that has gained far too much traction. Customer relationship management, as a...
