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Bring yourself up to speed with our introductory content.
voice recognition (speaker recognition)
Voice or speaker recognition is the ability of a machine or program to receive and interpret dictation or to understand and carry out spoken commands. Continue Reading
What do GDPR principles mean for CRM data management?
Avoiding General Data Protection Regulation penalties means getting your CRM compliance program in order before the sweeping regulation goes into effect late this spring. Continue Reading
market intelligence (MI)
Market intelligence is the monitoring of specific data streams in order to provide stakeholders with a holistic view of an industry segment or customer base. The term market, in this context, is a specific category of potential buyers and ... Continue Reading
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Artificial intelligence technologies a boon for customer insights
AI can help companies shrink the gap between customer data and actionable insight by feeding intelligence into CRM, marketing automation and other operational tools. Here's how. Continue Reading
CRM analytics
CRM (customer relationship management) analytics comprises all programming that analyzes data about customers and presents it to help facilitate and streamline better business decisions. Continue Reading
virtual assistant (AI assistant)
A virtual assistant is an application program that can understand natural human language, speak natural language and complete electronic tasks for the end user.Continue Reading
Compare top CRM systems: SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle
The 'CRM platform wars' aren't as hot as, say, the tech battle between smartphone OS vendors. But Oracle, SAP, Salesforce and Microsoft want your business.Continue Reading
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based business applications platform that combines components of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), along with productivity applications and artificial intelligence tools.Continue Reading
social CRM
Social CRM, or social relationship management, is customer relationship management and engagement fostered by communication with customers through social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.Continue Reading
customer engagement
Customer engagement is the means by which a company creates a relationship with its customer base to foster brand loyalty and awarenessContinue Reading
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Salesforce Solution Architect
A Salesforce Solution Architect is someone who has been certified for demonstrating the capabilities to build and design solutions across Salesforce platforms.Continue Reading
martech (marketing technology)
Martech is the area of customer relationship management (CRM) concerned with creating, managing and using digital tools that make it possible for marketers to automate tasks and make data-driven decisions.Continue Reading
programmatic marketing
Programmatic marketing is best defined in two parts. In this case, 'programmatic' refers to a non-human decision-making process that can be initiated in real time.Continue Reading
RFx
RFx (request for x) encompasses the entire formal request process and can include any of the following: request for bid (RFB), request for information (RFI), request for proposal (RFP), request for quotation (RFQ) and request for tender (RFT).Continue Reading
churn rate
Churn rate is a measure of the number of customers or employees who leave a company during a given period. It can also refer to the amount of revenue lost as a result of the departures.Continue Reading
contact center software
Contact center software is a technology tool that increases the effectiveness and efficiency of a contact center, with specific focus on interactions between customers and contact center agents.Continue Reading
Salesforce DX
Salesforce DX is a Salesforce product in the App cloud that allows users to develop and manage Salesforce apps throughout the entire platform in a more direct and efficient way.Continue Reading
Top five benefits of speech analytics tools for contact centers
Learn the top benefits of speech analytics technology for contact centers, and how speech analytics tools can lead to a better customer experience.Continue Reading
marketing campaign management
Marketing campaign management is the planning, executing, tracking and analysis of direct marketing campaigns.Continue Reading
sales forecast
A sales forecast is a projection of achievable revenue. The terms sales forecast and sales budgets are sometimes used as synonyms, but budgets are projected before the fiscal year begins and forecasts take place once the fiscal year is underway.Continue Reading
viral marketing
Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect.Continue Reading
Amazon Go
Amazon Go is an e-commerce mobile application that enables consumers to purchase items in physical stores without waiting in lines or checking out with registers.Continue Reading
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is a cloud computing and social enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider based in San Francisco. It was founded in March 1999, in part by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff.Continue Reading
account-based marketing (ABM)
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a business-to-business (B2B) strategy that focuses sales and marketing resources on targeted accounts within a specific market.Continue Reading
Oracle Commerce Platform
Oracle Commerce Platform is omnichannel technology that integrates customer data into a 360-degree customer view. Find out more in this definition.Continue Reading
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Salesforce Commerce Cloud, formerly called Demandware, is a cloud-based service for unifying the way businesses engage with customers over any channel or device.Continue Reading
Salesforce Einstein
Salesforce Einstein is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that has been developed for the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. Salesforce's AI product, Einstein, is now available across the company's core cloud products, as part of its ...Continue Reading
Salesforce Knowledge Sidebar
A Knowledge Sidebar in a Salesforce Console displays titles of Salesforce Knowledge articles that are related to the specified subject. The sidebar only displays for Salesforce Knowledge users after administrators set it up.Continue Reading
Four features of contact center evolution
Contact center evolution is explored through four key features, identifying how contact centers have changed through the past, present and future.Continue Reading
buying signals
Buying signals are behavioral cues that indicate the intentions of prospective or existing customers in terms of their readiness to buy.Continue Reading
Salesforce Sales Cloud closes the data sharing gap
Salespeople live and die by the close. Closing a sale can be an art form, but there's far more to sealing a deal than artistry. Purchase decisions are based increasingly more on customer experience than product and price. And as competition for ...Continue Reading
phygital
Companies are seeking to combine physical and digital (phygital) communication channels and provide customers with a seamless experience.Continue Reading
Salesforce1 Platform
Salesforce1 enables the building of applications in the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, in conjunction with the Lightning development platform. The combination also allows for third-party applications to be built on top of Salesforce apps for ...Continue Reading
Salesforce App Cloud
The Salesforce App Cloud offers developers a series of frameworks and tools to create applications within the Salesforce platform or to create third-party apps on top of it.Continue Reading
Salesforce Customer Success Platform
The Salesforce Customer Success Platform is the official name of the Salesforce portfolio of products.Continue Reading
Aura framework
Aura is a user interface framework for developing dynamic Web apps for mobile and desktop devices.Continue Reading
SAP Customer Experience Suite (CEC Suite)
The SAP Customer Engagement and Commerce (SAP CEC) suite is a collection of cloud-based applications that provide tools for CRM, marketing, sales and analytics, e-commerce and more.Continue Reading
Salesforce Service Console
The Salesforce Service Console is the centralized interface in the Salesforce Service Cloud with which agents can view all relevant customer information related to a case, as well as their call queue and more.Continue Reading
Wave Analytics Cloud not yet at its crest
Analytics is such a fundamental part of doing business today that even providers not known for the service are jumping into the game. That's what customer relationship management provider Salesforce did when it announced the Wave Analytics Cloud in ...Continue Reading
high-touch customer service
High-touch customer service refers to the idea that some customer service issues are complex or high value and thus require human interaction to resolve, not just digital technologies -- such FAQ sections or online customer communities -- to solve.Continue Reading
FinancialForce.com
FinancialForce is a cloud applications company that makes enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for Force.com, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from Salesforce.com.Continue Reading
Salesforce Journey Builder
Salesforce Journey Builder is a feature of the company's Marketing Cloud that manages the customer life cycle: the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using, and maintaining loyalty to a product or service.Continue Reading
Visualforce
Visualforce is a component-based user interface (UI) framework that enables the creation of dynamic, reusable user interfaces.Continue Reading
Salesforce Data.com
Data.com is the sales and lead generation component of Salesforce.com's Sales Cloud customer relationship management (CRM) platform.Continue Reading
Thunder (Salesforce Thunder)
Salesforce Thunder is a big data pipeline and rules engine designed to capture, filter and respond to events in real time; the platform was created to operate in streaming scenarios such as machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) ...Continue Reading
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for sales, marketing and customer support in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) contexts.Continue Reading
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for marketers that integrates email, social media and advertising communications and collaboration.Continue Reading
Chatter (Salesforce Chatter)
Chatter is an enterprise collaboration platform from Salesforce, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) vendor.Continue Reading
SalesforceIQ
SalesforceIQ is customer relationship management (CRM) software from Salesforce.com that is designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB).Continue Reading
Salesforce Wave Analytics (Analytics Cloud)
Salesforce Wave Analytics, also called Analytics Cloud, is a business intelligence (BI) application that is optimized for mobile access and data visualization.Continue Reading
Salesforce Community Cloud (Community Cloud)
Community Cloud is a social platform from Salesforce.com that is designed to connect and facilitate communication among an organization's employees, partners and customers.Continue Reading
IoT Cloud (Salesforce IoT Cloud)
IoT Cloud is a platform from Salesforce.com that is designed to take in the massive volumes of data generated by devices, sensors, websites and software applications and initiate responses in real time.Continue Reading
lead-to-revenue management (L2RM)
Lead-to-revenue management (L2RM) is a collection of sales and marketing processes that aims to maximize the income gained from each stage of the customer journey.Continue Reading
CPQ software (configure price quote software)
CPQ (configure, price, quote) is programming that helps sales representatives and self-service customers quickly generate accurate quotes for configurable products and services.Continue Reading
sales-qualified lead (SQL)
A sales-qualified lead (SQL) is a prospective customer that has been handed off to sales teams for further nurturing after showing enough interest in a company's products.Continue Reading
lifestyle center
A lifestyle center is a shopping center, or mixed-use commercial development that combines retail with other services, such as medical services, home rental units, movie theaters and other leisure or other activities.Continue Reading
Keep consumers close with mobile location-based services
When stores first began setting up websites, customers suddenly had more flexibility. They could compare prices and make purchases without ever leaving the house. But the online experience didn't replace the in-store experience. And now tools like ...Continue Reading
Cloud-based CRM enters new territory for Salesforce partners
Channel partners are pursuing increasingly sophisticated Salesforce implementation projects, helping customers integrate and optimize complex systems.Continue Reading
customer lifetime value (CLV)
The customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric that represents a customer's monetary worth to an organization.Continue Reading
integration
Integration is the act of bringing together smaller components into a single system that functions as one.Continue Reading
CRM documentation paves way to successful release management
As companies use a CRM system in the wild, they need to be able to make tweaks, and those changes need to be well-documented.Continue Reading
360-degree view of the customer quiz
Companies constantly chase the "360-degree view of the customer," aiming to merge different data sources to provide timely, consistent service.Continue Reading
CRM platforms alone won't give total customer picture
Some CRM vendors have started to demonstrate the power of unified CRM platforms, enabling companies to manage customer data, analytics, financials and more from a single application and get a unified view. But many companies still struggle with ...Continue Reading
The Multichannel mandate: Ready, set, automate
The need to connect with customers across multiple channels has made it harder than ever to analyze customer data and provide much-needed services that improve the customer experience. This e-book series helps organizations navigate knotty ...Continue Reading
customer-centric
Customer-centric is an approach to doing business that focuses on providing a positive customer experience both at the point of sale and after the sale in order to drive profit and gain competitive advantage.Continue Reading
CRM skills training essential for system management
The right CRM training is crucial to the management and development of a CRM system. Make sure your staff has the right CRM skills to survive.Continue Reading
big data CRM (big data customer relationship management)
Big data CRM (big data customer relationship management) refers to the practice of integrating big data into a company's CRM processes with the goals of improving customer service, calculating return on investment on various initiatives and ...Continue Reading
digital marketing
Digital marketing involves the various efforts by a company to connect with customers through digital and online communication channels, including email, geolocation and mobile marketing, social media, online customer communities, webinars and other...Continue Reading
360-degree customer view
The 360-degree customer view is the idea that companies can get a complete view of customers by aggregating data from the various touch points in which consumers interact with companies.Continue Reading
The double-edged sword of location-based technologies
Location-based technologies like personalization are yielding valuable consumer data, but companies need to be careful stewards of the information.Continue Reading
Want to get into mobile marketing? Know your customer
In this book excerpt, author and industry watcher Chuck Martin shows how customers' mobile behaviors should dictate companies' marketing strategies.Continue Reading
online customer community
Online customer communities are Web-based gathering places for customers, experts, and others to discuss problems, post reviews, brainstorm, and engage with one another.Continue Reading
age of the customer
Age of the customer is the concept that consumers are more empowered than ever because they can access information about products and services over the Internet in real time. Continue Reading
law of diminishing returns
The law of diminishing returns is an economic principle that states that as investment in a single goal increases, while all other variables remain constant, the return on investment will eventually decline.Continue Reading
inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on attracting customers, or leads, via company-created Internet content, thereby having potential customers come to the company rather than marketers vying for their attention.Continue Reading
outbound marketing
Outbound marketing is a traditional form of marketing and in which a company initiates contact with potential customers, or leads.Continue Reading
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric for assessing customer loyalty for a company's brand, products or services.Continue Reading
location-based marketing (LBM)
Location-based marketing (LMS) is a direct marketing strategy that uses a mobile device's location to alert the device's owner about an offering from a near-by business. Continue Reading
Call center operations quiz
Call center operations are working hard to keep up with the technology revolution. Find out why the call center is not just for telephones anymore.Continue Reading
Salesforce AppExchange
Salesforce AppExchange is Salesforce.com's cloud computing marketplace, through which end users can access, download and install custom software applications.Continue Reading
Force.com
Force.com is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) product designed to simplify the development and deployment of cloud-based applications and websites.Continue Reading
Heroku
Heroku is a cloud-based development platform as a service (PaaS) provider.Continue Reading
gamification
Gamification is the application of game theory concepts and techniques to non-game activities. Game theory is a branch of mathematics that seeks to understand why an individual makes a particular decision and how the decisions made by one individual...Continue Reading
CRM user interface guide
This guide provides an at-a-glance look at Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and Salesforce.com’s user interfaces for their mobile client, Outlook integration and sales dashboards.Continue Reading
Web self-service
Web self-service is a type of electronic support (e-support) that allows customers and employees to access information and perform routine tasks over the Internet, without requiring any interaction with a representative of an enterprise. Web ...Continue Reading
Workforce management (WFM) software
Workforce management (WFM) software is an umbrella term for desktop and mobile programs that help a business manage staff scheduling. The term originated in contact centers and other service businesses that employ a large number of workers who are ...Continue Reading
coalition loyalty program
A coalition loyalty program is a loyalty card system that offers incentives to customers of two or more businesses in return for allowing those businesses to collect user data. Such a program packages customer benefits into a single customer loyalty...Continue Reading
Hosted CRM
Hosted CRM is an arrangement in which a company outsources some or all of its customer relationship management (CRM) functions to an application service provider (ASP). The hosted CRM model is said to increase return on investment (ROI) by ...Continue Reading
straw man
In general, a straw man is an object, document, person, or argument that temporarily stands in for and is intended to be "knocked down" by something more substantial.Continue Reading
chief customer officer (CCO)
A chief customer officer, or customer experience officer, is generally responsible for customer research, communicating with company employees and taking charge of customer experience metrics. The position typically reports one level below the chief...Continue Reading
call center shrinkage
Call center shrinkage is a measure of how much time is lost in the call center because agents are unavailable to receive calls.Continue Reading
workforce optimization (WFO) software
Workforce optimization (WFO) software is a program suite that combines recording, quality management (QM) and other call center technologies into one console with the purpose of optimizing call center performance.Continue Reading
Five call center sales tips and techniques
In difficult economic times, ramping up sales in the call center can provide another outlet to help companies meet sales quotas and drive sales effectiveness. We've gathered these five tips for companies looking to improve call center sales and ...Continue Reading
loyalty card program
A loyalty card program is an incentive plan that allows a retail business to gather data about its customers. The goal of a loyalty card program is to build repeat business by offering participating customers something that isn't available to ...Continue Reading
transactional marketing
Transactional marketing is a business strategy that focuses on single, "point of sale" transactions. The emphasis is on maximizing the efficiency and volume of individual sales rather than developing a relationship with the buyer. (Continued)Continue Reading
Quality of Experience (QoE or QoX)
Quality of Experience (QoE or QoX) is a measure of the overall level of customer satisfaction with a vendor. QoE is related to but differs from Quality of Service(QoS), which embodies the notion that hardware and software characteristics can be ...Continue Reading
Call center metrics quiz answers
With answers from the Call Center Metrics School quiz, learn about call center metrics like average handle time, occupancy and schedule adherence.Continue Reading
market leadership
Market leadership is when an individual or company owns the largest market share or highest profitability margin in a given market for goods and services. Market share may be measured either the volume of goods sold or the value of those goods. (...Continue Reading
Web 2.0 and CRM quiz answers
Test yourself on Web 2.0 and social networking and how this technology is impacting CRM, with the answers to SearchCRM.com's quiz.Continue Reading
Web 2.0 and CRM quiz
This quiz on Web 2.0 and CRM was designed to test your knowledge of Web 2.0 technology and social networking and open your eyes to how this technology can help advance CRM initiatives.Continue Reading