CRM Reading

Author: Bill Price
The Founder and President of Driva Solutions and Co-Founder of the LimeBridge Global Alliance.

Review:

Those of us who have been in the customer service world for the past 15+ years have struggled mightily to apply new technologies such as intelligent call routing or automated speech analytics, identify and hold onto the best possible talent to answer email or handle phone calls, and implement better training, scheduling, and other systems to pull it all together. Unfortunately, for all of our efforts, billions of dollars, and blood, sweat and tears, customer satisfaction is essentially flat while operating, capital, and support budgets are under tremendous stress. Customers have more and more choice and are expressing their frustration by switching companies at the drop of a hat, often sharing their disquiet with thousands of others on Internet blogs.

Editorial Review:

Author: Jill Dyche.
As the thinkers have said, you should strive in all situations to know yourself and know your enemy. Most of history's great thinkers, however, were not in business. In business, you have to know your customer and understand how your company interacts with him or her. The current term for this is customer relationship management (CRM), and The CRM Handbook is the best textbook for managers on the mechanics of CRM. It's a standout in a field that's filled with squishy books that go on at length about how important CRM is, but which lack details. Jill Dyché provides lots of factual information, real case studies, carefully considered commentary, and reasoned criteria with which to evaluate CRM products and strategies. Though you'll certainly want to supplement Dyché's work with vendors' product literature and implementation proposals, you'll get a lot from her carefully researched book.

Editorial Review:

Author: Paul Greenberg
Updated to reflect the major changes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the last few years, this third edition of CRM at the Speed of Light: Capturing and Keeping Customers in Real Time is a must-read for executives looking to leverage the latest technologies on the market to reach and retain customers. Learn CRM concepts, discover what tools are available and which ones are suitable for your business, and get practical, expert advice on avoiding common pitfalls.

Editorial Review:

Author: C. K. Prahalad, Patrica B. Ramaswamy, Jon R. Katzenbach, Chris Lederer, Sam Hill.

This collection of cutting-edge articles will help organizations understand how to build customer loyalty through unique relationship-building strategies such as partnerships, branding, and superlative customer service.

Editorial Review:

Author: Janice Reynolds
In today's global economy the customer has more and better choices than ever before, bringing on one of the biggest challenges the business community faces today - customer loyalty and retention. To thrive in today's customer-driven economy a company need.

This book explores how to use CRM to integrate all channels and media of customer contact from the Internet through field sales into one system, and how to link CRM tools with sales partners both up and down the supply chain. The emphasis is on knowing the customers and focusing on their needs, in order to better deploy resources and achieve lower costs, higher revenue, and increased customer loyalty.

Editorial Review:

Author: John Freeland
A hands-on guidebook from Accenture for building a globally responsive, customer-driven enterprise

As the dust settles from the most recent round of CRM projects, companies are increasingly finding that their efforts have not delivered anticipated benefits. In The Ultimate CRM Handbook, influential thought leaders from Accenture discuss why CRM has failed to live up to expectations and what companies can do to improve the bottom-line return on CRM investments.

More than 30 chapters and in-depth case studies on many leading companies give managers and senior executives alike the high-level perspective needed to build lasting, profitable bonds with their customers. They also provide techniques companies can use to:

• Establish more effective interactions with their customers
• Build lasting brand loyalty
• Dramatically improve the efficiency of their sales, marketing, and customer service operations

Editorial Review:

Author: Michael Gentle
Once you have bought into the concept of customer relationship management (CRM), how do you separate the practical and useful from the pie-in-the-sky to plan, scope and implement a project that delivers tangible results? With CRM project failure rates running as high as 80 per cent, anyone unable to answer this question stands every chance of becoming yet another accident statistic.

Editorial Review:

Author: David Finnegan - Leslie P. Willcocks
Firms are continually seeking new ways to forge close relationships with their most valuable customers. With recent advances in networking and database management, firms have both the motivation and the means for improving their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies.

This book focuses on the actuality of implementing CRM. It is about the organization's ability to provide a seamless and personalized experience to each customer rather than a transactional or product-focused approach where the future of the relationship is not an over-riding consideration. This book connects CRM systems implementation with organizational change for the first time. It looks into the factors that distinguish firms which connect with their customers and gain customer loyalty with firms that are not as successful. It also describes the micro-processes that occur on a daily basis in a company and all the small decisions managers and employees take during the implementation of change and the creation of knowledge.

Editorial Review:

Author: Frederick Newell
There are at least eighty books available on customer relationship management (CRM), including three by Frederick Newell. Why does the world need one more? Because the old theories don't work anymore! Companies have spent millions developing CRM systems to target specific customers for specific product offerings. This approach has left customers feeling stalked and targeted like hunted prey. How do companies reach customers and find out what they want? How can companies make their customers' lives easier and less stressful? By turning CRM on its head and transitioning to the new CMR. Newell explains how great companies have shifted from the outdated, sales-oriented Customer Relationship Management to the bold solution of Customer Management of Relationships (CMR).

Editorial Review:

Author: V. Kumar - Werner Reinartz
Customer Relationship Management: A Databased Approach offers the promise of maximized profits for today's highly competitive businesses. This innovative book provides readers with the tools and techniques to effectively use CRM. It emphasizes the utilization of database marketing in order to build strong and profitable customer relationships. Kumar first describes how to implement database marketing and then looks at recent advances in CRM applications. Critical marketing issues like optimum resource allocation, purchase sequence, and the link between acquisition, retentions, and profitability are also examined on the basis of empirical findings.