Ask Wendy - Service and Support

• A Dozen CRM Best Practices

  Wendy Close Aug 10, 2006

  Whether you’re just starting out in customer relationship management (CRM) or you’re a seasoned CRM veteran looking for a boost, these 12 CRM best practices can get you off on the right foot or into the next generation. From justifying a CRM investment, to measuring and improving customer loyalty, these short and easy to read CRM best practice whitepapers answer some of the most common CRM questions today.

  1. Download Eight Ways To Justify an Investment in CRM.doc
  2. Download Building the Case for CRM in Your Organization.doc
  3. Download Four Strategies for Creating Successful Customer-Centric Organizations.doc
  4. Download Five Secrets for Building the Customer-Centric Small or Mid-sized Business.doc
  5. Download Business Process Automation.doc 
  6. Download Cleaning Up Dirty Data-Choosing the Right Approach.doc
  7. Download Leveraging the Salesforce On-Demand Platform.doc
  8. Download Managing Strategic Customers.doc
  9. Download Improve the Customer Experience with Self-Service.doc
  10. Download Leverage Professional Service Automation for Success.doc
  11. Download How to Select Mobile Apps for Your Workforce.doc
  12. Download How to Measure and Increase Customer Loyalty.pdf

  To learn more about the on-demand CRM and business applications offered by Salesforce.com you can visit our CRM software as a service applications area on www.salesforce.com.

  Have a CRM question? AskWendy@CRMSuccess.com

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• Finding the On-Demand Applications You Most Want in the AppExchange: #1 Customer Satisfaction Surveys

  Jamie Grenney Jun 22, 2006

  For the second quarter in a row, customer satisfaction surveys remained the number one on-demand application of most interest to our customers. It’s not surprising as most often, the first step toward improving the customer experience is to start surveying customers. Can you tell your CEO what percent of your customers are loyal and what percent are likely to defect?  And, better yet, what your strategy is to acquire and retain loyal customers? For best practices in measuring customer loyalty and all kinds of advice on finding the on demand solutions you most want to solve your top business issues, Download finding_the_apps_you_most_want.pdf

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• Best Practices in Selecting Applications in the AppExchange

  Jamie Grenney Jun 22, 2006

  With the AppExchange, Salesforce customers now have an easy way to address dozens of business needs through the world's first on-demand application-sharing service. The AppExchange directory gives Salesforce customers an easy way to find and install hundreds of on-demand applications designed to solve a wealth of common business challenges. With hundreds of pre-integrated, on-demand applications now available on the AppExchange, you may be wondering where to begin.  For some good advice, 

  Download best_practices_in_selecting_applications_in_the_appexchange.pdf

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• Best Practices in Business Process Automation and CRM

  Jamie Grenney May 16, 2006

  Business process automation (BPA) is a big part of CRM and for good reason. Winners in CRM analyze and redesign customer-facing processes that provide real value to the customer.

  Truly customer-centric enterprises will redesign and automate customer processes as necessary, even when they cut across business functions and/or the back office. The goal is to examine all customer-related processes, remove those that are not needed, and rework those that could be improved with technology.

  The challenge, according to Scott Nelson, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner (and our recent Secrets of Successful CRM Practitioners Webcast guest), is that most organizations have 600 to 1,000 processes that need to be examined.

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• Improving Customer Self-Service: Analyst Research and On-Demand Webcast

  Jamie Grenney May 8, 2006

  Are you creating great customer experiences? According to research firm Yankee Group, customer service is one of the few differentiators that a company possesses. And, self-service is increasingly the customer's first choice for interacting with your business. Join us for a complimentary on-demand Webcast ‘Five Steps to Improving the Customer Self-Service Experience' including myself as host, Wendy Close, Salesforce.com CRM Success Expert; Yankee Group Director of Customer-Centric Strategies Sheryl Kingstone; and salesforce.com customer Steve Petrofsky, VP of Support Services at m-Qube. Learn 5 key steps for creating great customer self-service experiences from auditing your current service and support operations to developing a 360-degree, real-time, cross-channel view of the your customer. And, hear how m-Qube deployed Salesforce Service & Support to immediately scale its support center to handle more than 10,000 inquiries a week without adding any new staff. View the Five Steps to Improving the Customer Self-Service Experience Webcast now and get Latest On-Demand Software Eases Self-Service Experience, a Yankee Group research report by Sheryl Kingstone, compliments of salesforce.com.  The Webcast is about 50 minutes of easy listening packed with actionable advice. It is well worth the time for all those with a keen interest in improving customer self service. As always, comments and questions welcome. Have a CRM question? Askwendy@crmsuccess.com.

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• Improving the Customer Experience with Self-Service

  Jamie Grenney Apr 27, 2006

  Based on the  American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores, we were amazed to discover for the fourth year in a row, the online retail industry within the ecommerce sector (companies such as Amazon and eBay) continued to satisfy customers better than any other industry --- including the traditional offline retailers.

  This means customers are getting a better customer experience online then they are in stores with live human help. This shocking statistic certainly makes a strong case for organizations to provide really great web self-service sites for their customers. Want to know how? Read on.

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• How to Calculate SLA Response Times and Report on Compliance

  Jamie Grenney Mar 1, 2006

  Here are instructions for how to use Salesforce to calculate service level agreement (SLA) response times and report on your compliance. Special thanks to David Holmes, of Salesforce.com's EMEA Consulting organization for contributing this work to the community.

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• Returning the Goods: Managing RMAs in Salesforce

  Jamie Grenney Jan 10, 2006

  If you're like me, you are still trying to return gifts bought and received over the holidays. The challenge is some suppliers just don't have good customer processes for exchanging goods and fixing order errors like the gift I ordered on-line that came elegantly wrapped but empty. May I suggest now is an excellent time to review how your organization handles returned goods for repair, exchange, or refund. If you find your organization could use some improvements in this area, read on.

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• Improving Service & Support Operations

  Jamie Grenney Dec 7, 2005

  Lots of organizations use salesforce.com for managing sales operations. However, a rapidly growing number have integrated their sales and service operations by using Salesforce Service & Support (formerly named Supportforce). We have about 1700 customers using Salesforce Service & Support to improve their customer service and support operations and more. For example, they're using the solution to manage a total of 12 million cases.

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