Chordiant and BSkyB, Genesys Survey, CRM for CAM, Lasso for the Waldorf, Dominion's Dealer

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

Chordiant and BSkyB, Genesys Survey, CRM for CAM, Lasso for the Waldorf, Dominion's Dealer

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elton John's live album Here and There. Maybe you haven't listened to this album in a while. Maybe you don't own this album. Maybe you've never heard this album. Maybe you don't know who Elton John... nah. But maybe you can't understand why he's been around for, what, going on forty years now when the average life of the average pop music act is measured in months.
 
This album's a good intro to Elton's music - his best songs from his most fertile creative period, basically from the debut album to 1975's Captain Fantastic, played live with one of the more underrated backing bands ever, a crack professional outfit at the peak of their powers, especially on the Madison Square Garden cuts. His songwriting is solid as an oak and he's always a compelling live act, which is why he's weathered changing styles so well - he can always turn out a good tune and breathe life into them on stage, here he does both:
 
Chordiant Software has announced that British Sky Broadcasting has chosen Chordiant Decision Management, Recommendation Advisor, and Contact Center Advisor in its customer contact centers. The Chordiant product, called Merlin, is used Sky customer contact centers.
 
Possessing Next-Best-Action recommendation functionality, Merlin lets Sky reps personalize product propositions for individual customers. Chris Angell, head of real-time marketing at Sky, said the company is now "able to develop strategies covering our core sales and retention activity."
 
Chordiant Decision Management comprises a suite of predictive and adaptive decision applications designed to let users develop Next-Best-Action strategies. These strategies are composed of "models that predict and react to individual customer expectations, propensities and behaviors," said the company, "combined with intuitive, sophisticated business rules and segmentation schemes."
 
This combination forms "decision logic," centrally deployed in the run-time environment for batch decisioning, real-time decisioning or both, across any channel.
 
Basically, the product lets managers assess what is known about the customer from current and previous interactions and recommend the next best action to be taken. These actions can take the form of personalized product packages, advice, questions or explanations. "At no point during the contact do recommendations or actions need to be scripted," officials say, adding that the product "guides the conversation, determining and adapting actions in real-time based on customer responses and mood."
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Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel-Lucent company, has revealed in a new survey on performance management that businesses "need a new set of strategic metrics to retain customers and drive sales."
 
The research cited by Genesys officials shows that while British firms are more likely to adopt strategic metrics than other regions to better assess customer service delivery and retention, there is still work to be done. Contact centers are largely operational and use traditional metrics, such as call duration or average speed to answer, to assess the customer experience.
 
Only 30 per cent measure revenue per call, which survey officials say "would provide more useful customer intelligence."
 
Almost a third of UK businesses surveyed -- 31 per cent -- are taking actions to address performance management and reporting in the next 18 months, the survey found. The global survey was carried out for Genesys by independent research company, Equation, and polled employees ranging from CEOs to customer service professionals at 927 companies in 47 countries.
 
"A downturn can be an opportunity for an organization to gain a competitive advantage. Some companies will certainly have to close their doors, but those with more focused efficiency strategies, meaningful employee performance measurements and customer-related targets, have the potential to thrive in the current climate," commented Keith Pearce, Marketing Director, EMEA, at Genesys.
 
The research found that a large number of businesses still don't measure revenue from customer care interactions. Although 77 per cent of UK respondents said that the contact center plays a role in revenue generation, only 33 per cent of customer service professionals and 28 per cent of C-level executives said their customer service is measured on revenue per call.
 
Pearce said the research shows that a higher proportion of UK businesses (55 per cent) track customer expectations compared to only 48 per cent in other regions, with over 28 per cent of companies in the UK planning to link business drivers with customer behaviors.
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Lasso Data Systems, a vendor of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products for the real estate industry, has announced that Mariner Commercial Properties will deploy Lasso CRM to market and sell the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel & Residences Philadelphia.
 
Based in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Mariner Commercial Properties is a Philadelphia developer. Its latest high-profile project is the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel & Residences Philadelphia, a 58-story high-rise located in the heart of Philadelphia's Center City, scheduled for completion in 2012.
 
"In developing projects like the Waldorf-Astoria, our partnership with Lasso will help us accomplish our marketing and sales objectives," explained Timothy J. Mahoney III, President & CEO, Mariner Commercial Properties.
Standing at 670 feet tall, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel & Residences Philadelphia will be the city's sixth-tallest building as well as its tallest mixed-use hotel and residential project.
 
Lasso Data Systems sells on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for the worldwide real estate market. Lasso is a privately held company headquartered in Vancouver.
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Italian record company Creazioni Artistiche Musicali has chosen to implement Counterpoint Systems Customer Relationship Management.
 
The Counterpoint CRM system is designed to give record labels and music publishers the ability to provide their clients with Web-based royalty and summary statements, financial balances, label copy and other vital and timely information, according to the Counterpointers.
 
"Counterpoint is thrilled that C.A.M. have selected its CRM for Record Maestro to help the company interact with its artists online," said Amos Biegun, Counterpoint Systems' CEO.
 
Agostino Campi, Managing Director of C.A.M. said one of the reasons behind choosing CRM is that Counterpoint "have been supplying software to C.A.M. for many years. The two companies work closely together and think alike."
 
Counterpoint will showcase the latest versions of its industry-leading rights management and royalty accounting products from the 18th to the 22nd of January 2009 at Midem in Cannes, France.
 
C.A.M. is an independent music publisher and record label based in Rome specializing in film soundtracks. The company has produced over 2,800 scores to Italian and international motion pictures and TV films in its 45+ years of activity. C.A.M. works with more than 500 composers internationally.
 
Founded in 1987, Counterpoint Systems sells software products for rights management, royalty accounting and product licensing. It's headquartered London and has offices in Los Angeles, New York and Northern California.
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Dealer Specialties, a division of Dominion Enterprises and a vendor of data and photo collection, inventory management and data distribution services, has announced enhancements to its inventory management tools to support dealers who prefer on-demand online inventory updates.
 
The Dealer Specialties self-serve tool, available with its Platinum package, lets dealers collect their own data, upload their own photos, have full VIN decoding for complete and accurate online listing and label details, order and print window labels, change pricing with real-time impact, use the pricing analytics tool, add marketing messages and more.
 
If a dealer gets behind on data and photo collection, Dealer Specialties "can provide a full-service 'catch-up' to keep inventory current. We believe this 'catch-up' offering makes our self-serve product offering most unique in the marketplace," says Al Hess general manager of Dealer Specialties.
 
Dealer Specialties will continue its core business selling products to dealerships across the country to manage and market their vehicle inventory.
 
The company is a division of Dominion Enterprises, and has an Internet distribution channel including GetAuto.com, Cars.com, eBay Motors, Overstock.com, Craigslist, Vast.com, CarTango, Manheim and more.
 
Dealer Specialties is a designated supplier of certified window stickers for General Motors, Acura, Honda, Toyota and Lexus; is a Value Added Reseller for the National Automotive Dealers Association
 


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