CRM News

marketwatch.com

July 14, 2008

::: Helpstream joins the Oracle PartnerNetwork :::

Helpstream, which provides on-demand collaborative customer service solutions, has become a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork. At the same time the company is integrating its products with Oracle CRM On Demand to provide customer self service and community capabilities. The integration of the products will enable customers to tap into the advantages of Web 2.0 and engage their customers in a more collaborative manner. This means a huge leap forward for the customer-facing processes of a business.

Helpstream hopes to connect customers to information and to one another thereby integrating them as a community, this not only helps in problem resolution but also in brand promotion.

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informationweek.com
July 11, 2008

::: A look at business apps in the iPhone app store :::

When it comes to corporate business applications for the iPhone 3G, users are getting the most support from vendors that provide customer-relationship management and business intelligence software. For those using their iPhones for business, software providers are increasingly allowing access to their offerings via the Safari browser, yet there are few native iPhone apps to choose from. Just 24 applications grace the business section in the App Store – out of a total of about 500 App Store offerings on iTunes – proving the iPhone remains largely a consumer device.

Users of those native App Store apps will enjoy more of the iPhone features and user-interface functionality than those using the iPhone simply as an Internet browsing device into corporate applications.

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foxbusiness.com
July 10, 2008

::: KANA Wins 2008 CRM Excellence Award :::

KANA Software, Inc. a world leader in multi-channel customer service, announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC)’s Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has named its knowledge solutions, part of the KANA Suite, a recipient of a 2008 CRM Excellence Award. KANA’s solutions were recognized for providing demonstrable business improvements at some of the world’s largest and best-known companies.

KANA offers intelligent solutions for multi-channel customer service, spanning phone, e-mail, collaboration, chat and Web self-service – all of which leverage a shared knowledge source to ensure quality, consistency and customer satisfaction.

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mycustomer.com
July 08, 2008

::: CRM market still on the up, say Gartner and AMR :::

According to Gartner, sales of CRM software rose dramatically in 2007, driven in part by the take-up of software as a service (SaaS) offerings, according to analyst group Gartner. Global spending on CRM software surged in 2007 to roughly $8.1 billion, a 23.1% jump over 2006′s total of about $6.6 billion.

Some 53% of sales were concentrated in the US and 32% in Western Europe, but the emerging markets were the strongest: sales of CRM software increased by more than 40% last year in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. “The market was driven by greater contributions from emerging regions, continued rapid adoption of SaaS, and a continued focus on investments that promote customer retention and enhance the customer experience,” noted Sharon Mertz, Gartner research director.

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marketwatch.com
July 09, 2008

::: iMagicLab acquires assets of 5Square.com :::

iMagicLab, which considers itself America’s leading software provider for automobile dealers, ihas announce today that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of privately-held 5Square.com, a provider of Web-based Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications for the automobile retailing space. iMagicLab will integrate 5Square’s SFA and CRM software into its DealerCRM(TM) platform to provide a more expanded suite of integrated applications that address each of its core customer groups. iMagicLab expects to retain 5Square’s key employees and existing operations in Westlake Village, CA and will continue to support 5Square’s current customer base.

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networkworld.com
27 June, 2008

::: Real estate firm uses Zimbra for all its agents :::

Back in 2005, Joe Trifoglio, CIO of Zip Realty, needed a new email system for his 2,500 real estate agents spread out across 14 major metropolitan areas. His homegrown, open-source e-mail client worked well, but he needed something that would work on top of his custom built CRM system, known internally as ZAP, the Zip Agent Platform. Prior to shopping for a new messaging system, Trifoglio’s real-estate agents toggled between their e-mail and CRM app, and had to manually input a lot of information (such as appointments) between the two. The company has chosen Zimbra as it is based on open source and Java and is compatible with his existing systems.

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blogs.zdnet.com
June 27, 2008

::: Coveo G2B for CRM :::

Newton, Mass.- and Quebec-based Coveo G2B for CRM has been developed using the Coveo Enterprise Search-platform technology and it aims to allow businesses a single view of their customers. It is a part of the company’s G2B Information Access Suite.

With this application, businesses can cull information from sources such as salesforce.com, Siebel Systems, corporate intranets, tech support emails, customer support databases, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Other features include content analytics that enables graphical viewing of customer data so that planning, forecasting, and resource management becomes easier.

The application is an interesting example of a mashup that could open the way for more such applications that will not only give us a unified view of the customer but also tell us about the most appropriate channels to reach out to them.

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insidecrm.com
June 24, 2008

::: Take CRM in your pocket :::

Most sales reps spend a good deal of time on the road doing business, so it makes sense for them to be able to update CRM data on-the-fly using a mobile device. That’s what Vaultus Mobile Technologies Inc., a Boston-based software company, is helping companies do. Vaultus helps large firms take CRM (and other applications) on the road. Its unique data compression enables users to view information even when they don’t have access to an Internet connection. “Our approach is that any mobile worker should not only have real-time access to CRM data, but if they are on a plane or a train, away from wireless coverage, they should have offline access to data as well,” Vaultus CEO David Birnbach said.

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crm.tmcnet.com
June 24, 2008

::: CRM Old-Timer EGain Hits Decade Mark :::

EGain Communications, a vendor of multi-channel customer service and knowledge management software, today marked the 10-year anniversary of EGain OnDemand, the hosted version of its EGain Service software suite. EGain officials say the company has been selling its set of deployment options for customer service software, including on-premise, on-demand, and managed service, since 1998. EGain OnDemand, which company officials refer to as “the industry’s first-ever hosted enterprise applications software,” is based on “the Power of One,” they say, “the concept of one unified platform for multichannel customer interaction and knowledge management.”

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pcworld.com
June 23, 2008

::: Salesforce offers toolkit for Google APIs :::

Taking its nascent relationship with Google one step closer, Salesforce announced Monday that it has released a toolkit for working with Google’s data services APIs. The move is a natural progression from Salesforce’s April announcement that it had integrated Google Docs into its CRM platform. The new toolkit lets developers tap Google APIs – including the ones for its calendar, spreadsheet and word processing applications – from within Salesforce’s Force IDE (integrated development environment) and use the data in new applications. The Force IDE is part of Force.com, Salesforce’s hosted “platform as a service” for software development.

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