A look at 2011

As 2010 winds down, it is time to look ahead to 2011. I have high expectations as the calendar turns, and I believe 2011 will be the year of adoption. I believe we’ve reached a point where cash will come off the sidelines and I expect to see technology investments focused on revenue generation and value creation. With that as a backdrop, I’ll Label 2011 as the year of collaboration and intelligence – the two areas that I believe align very well with pressing business priorities. So here are my thoughts on 2011.

Realizing the Benefits of CRM

This Press Release from Verint continues the Social Media and customer service drum beat. The recurring themes are:

1. A growing challenge to identify, collect and act upon data delivered through an expanding number of customer communications channels
2. The need for an aggregated and unified view of customer data across all channels
3. Analysis that delivers insight drives rapid and informed action
4. Companies are not equipped to analyze the interactions that occur via email, chat, social media, forums, etc.
5. There is a heightened need for text analytics. Solutions that mine interactions and feedback across multichannel customer communications – including email, chat, blogs, review sites, social media and other text-based channels – continue to emerge
6. Workflow delivers insight to the people that are best equipped to manage issues, address specific customer service concerns, or get ahead of negative sentiments in social media

The Future Call Center

Customer support is evolving to handle an ever-growing number of channels. Social media interaction is playing an expanding role in how companies provide support to their customers. I believe this Press Release from Attensity gives us a view into the future call center. As the press release points out, social media is quickly becoming a key component of customer care strategies.  

The Social Customer and the Call Center

Widely recognized CRM visionary Paul Greenberg just published a report titled Contact Center 2011 – Back to the Future. Mr. Greenberg has talked about Social CRM or CRM 2.0 for quite some time. In this report, he discusses the impact of the social customer on the contact center. Here is a summary along with my perspective.