CRM tools and strategy
Customer relationship management combines various tools -- like marketing and sales force automation software -- and strategies to help organizations maintain, manage and learn from customer interactions. Find out the latest news and expert advice for your CRM approach.
Top Stories
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Podcast
17 Jun 2025
Pegasystems founder and CEO Alan Trefler on future of GenAI
The tech pioneer is optimistic about generative AI -- as long as users are aware of its capacity for mistakes. Continue Reading
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News
27 May 2025
Salesforce to acquire Informatica in $8 billion deal
A rumored $11 billion was too much last year, but $8 billion this year was too good to pass up. Continue Reading
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Tip
22 May 2025
Compare the top 20 CRM software options
With the right CRM software, CX leaders can improve customer interactions and enhance their support strategies. Top providers include HubSpot, Microsoft and Salesforce. Continue Reading
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Video
06 May 2025
An explanation of customer relationship management (CRM)
CRM systems combine data, strategies and technology to manage customer interactions. Features include automation, lead tracking, and analytics to improve service and drive sales. Continue Reading
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News
10 Apr 2025
HubSpot users get more Breeze generative AI agents
HubSpot users get agents for sales, service and marketing. Continue Reading
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News
24 Mar 2025
OpenAI targets customer service with new audio models
The models build on GPT-4o and 4o mini architecture. With it, developers can control tone so that contact center agents can effectively help customers on the other end of the call. Continue Reading
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News
20 Mar 2025
Oracle launches new AI Agent Studio in Fusion suite
The studio is designed for Oracle customers that already have most of their data situated in the Fusion suite. It includes new libraries and a trust and security framework. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 Mar 2025
What are the pros and cons of a CRM platform?
CRM platforms can improve CX, but they often require significant investment. CX leaders should understand the pros and cons of these platforms before purchasing. Continue Reading
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Tip
14 Mar 2025
How to choose the right CRM software for your organization
Choosing the right CRM software can be daunting for organizations. These seven steps and best practices ensure the search, adoption and deployment processes go smoothly. Continue Reading
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Definition
13 Mar 2025
What is quality of experience (QoE or QoX)?
Quality of experience (QoE or QoX) is a measure of the overall level of a customer's satisfaction and experience with a product or service and the vendor that's providing that product or service. Continue Reading
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News
05 Mar 2025
Salesforce banking on autonomous agents with Agentforce 2dx
Salesforce keeps up torrid pace for agentic AI development. Continue Reading
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News
05 Mar 2025
Microsoft rolls out sales agents, connector to Salesforce
Microsoft joins the autonomous sales agent fray. Continue Reading
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News
27 Feb 2025
Data, training complexities make DIY AI agents difficult
Agentic AI is complex, so choose your development path carefully. Continue Reading
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News
25 Feb 2025
Salesforce, Google ink $2.5B deal to bring Gemini to Agentforce
The deal gives Salesforce customers multi-cloud and LLM flexibility. Continue Reading
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Definition
25 Feb 2025
What is voice of the customer? A guide to VOC Strategy
Voice of the customer (VOC) is the component of customer experience (CX) that focuses on customer needs, wants, expectations and preferences. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Feb 2025
Understanding the 3 types of CRM systems
To get the most out of a CRM system, organizations must decide whether an operational, analytical or collaborative CRM system is right for them. Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Feb 2025
What is CRM (customer relationship management)?
CRM (customer relationship management) is the combination of practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. Continue Reading
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Definition
10 Feb 2025
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map is a visual depiction of the stages customers go through when interacting with a company -- from buying products online to accessing customer service on the phone to airing grievances on social media. Continue Reading
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News
31 Jan 2025
Oracle Cloud Sales users get GenAI agents at no extra cost
The new AI features provide sales force automation and time-savers similar to what competitors have added. Continue Reading
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Podcast
08 Jan 2025
Reshaping UX with behavioral data and AI
Companies are using AI to strengthen insights from behavioral data, transforming how they understand and respond to customer interactions. Continue Reading
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Infographic
06 Jan 2025
Salesforce's 2024 acquisitions reveal a mature M&A strategy
After two years of minimal big or small purchases, 2024 was the year of Salesforce's most cohesive and mature mergers and acquisitions strategy so far. Continue Reading
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Feature
26 Dec 2024
Generative AI in CX promises benefits, but obstacles remain
Generative AI promises to boost efficiency in CX, but businesses face adoption and compliance hurdles. Continue Reading
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Tip
18 Dec 2024
7 customer experience trends to know in 2025
Customer experience trends like generative AI, proactive outreach and agent assist can all help organizations ensure they can attract and keep customers. Continue Reading
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News
18 Dec 2024
With Agentforce 2.0, Salesforce closer to autonomous AI
Agentforce 2.0 is here as Salesforce pushes for Slack to be its foundation. Continue Reading
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Definition
11 Dec 2024
What is an AI assistant?
An AI assistant, or digital assistant, is software that uses artificial intelligence to understand natural language voice commands and complete tasks for the user. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Dec 2024
The top 15 event marketing tools
Marketers rely on a combination of tools, such as CRM systems and marketing automation platforms, to manage events. Top tools include Salesforce, ActiveCampaign and Eventbrite. Continue Reading
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News
25 Nov 2024
Salesforce CIO: How agents change internal workflows
In this Q&A, Salesforce CIO and Executive Vice President Juan Perez discusses the company's internal Agentforce rollout, among other topics. Continue Reading
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Definition
20 Nov 2024
What is contact center infrastructure?
A contact center infrastructure (CCI) is a framework composed of the physical and virtual resources that a contact or call center facility needs to operate effectively. Continue Reading
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Definition
20 Nov 2024
What is a cloud contact center?
A cloud contact center is an internet-hosted service, typically managed by a third party, that handles all inbound and outbound customer communications for an organization. Continue Reading
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Definition
07 Nov 2024
What is customer profiling?
Customer profiling is the detailed, systematic process of constructing a clear portrait of a company's ideal customer by gathering and analyzing information about their demographic, psychographic and behavioral attributes. Continue Reading
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Definition
07 Nov 2024
What is mindshare (share of mind)?
Mindshare, also known as share of mind, is an approach to marketing that involves attempting to make a company, brand or product the first one that comes to mind when a customer thinks of a particular market. Continue Reading
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Feature
05 Nov 2024
Salesforce Agentforce: An answer in search of a question?
They used to be named Einstein Copilots. Now they're Agentforce autonomous agents. Salesforce's latest upgrade might be more than words. Continue Reading
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Definition
29 Oct 2024
What is market segmentation?
Market segmentation is a marketing strategy that uses well-defined criteria to divide a brand's total addressable market share into smaller groups. Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2024
Microsoft adds Copilot agents, design tools for 365, Dynamics
Microsoft hopes the new tools will be enough to convince enterprises to move beyond testing and fully adopt Copilot. Continue Reading
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Definition
16 Oct 2024
What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) and digital marketing platform that enables marketers to generate better marketing outcomes and ROI. Continue Reading
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Definition
15 Oct 2024
What is IoT Cloud (Salesforce IoT Cloud)?
IoT Cloud is a Salesforce platform designed to store and process internet of things (IoT) data. Continue Reading
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Definition
11 Oct 2024
What is Salesforce Work.com?
Salesforce Work.com is a set of solutions from Salesforce that enable organizations to simplify return-to-work processes, maintain safe workplace operations, assess and promote employee health, safety and well-being, and communicate with customers in an open, honest, trustworthy manner. Continue Reading
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Definition
10 Oct 2024
What is Salesforce Journey Builder?
Salesforce Journey Builder is a campaign planning tool in Salesforce Marketing Cloud to build personalized customer journeys and deliver unique campaigns and content that enhance customer experiences and secure their loyalty. Continue Reading
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Definition
01 Oct 2024
What is customer intelligence (CI) and how does it help business?
Customer intelligence (CI) is the process of collecting and analyzing detailed customer data from internal and external sources to gain insights about customer needs, motivations and behaviors. Continue Reading
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Definition
01 Oct 2024
What is Epicor Software Corp.?
Epicor Software Corp. is a global business software vendor that sells enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other software to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises. Continue Reading
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Definition
27 Sep 2024
What is lead scoring?
Lead scoring is a methodology sales and marketing departments use to determine the worthiness of leads, or potential customers, by attaching values to them based on their behavior relating to their interest in products or services. Continue Reading
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Definition
27 Sep 2024
What is 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
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News
23 Sep 2024
Salesforce Agentforce, Microsoft Copilot AI battle heats up
After rebranding Einstein copilot products as 'agents,' Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff likened Microsoft Copilot AI to Clippit, also known as Clippy, the original intelligent agent. Continue Reading
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Opinion
23 Sep 2024
Benioff’s Agentforce gambit might just work
At Dreamforce 2024 in San Francisco, Salesforce announced the potential for its customers to embed virtual agents on its platform, so avoiding what the supplier dubs DIY GenAI. Will it work? Continue Reading
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Definition
19 Sep 2024
What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to support sales, marketing and customer support in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts. Continue Reading
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News
17 Sep 2024
Salesforce's ambitions for Agentforce platform come to light
Salesforce aims for the stars with its Agentforce platform; it remains to be seen how far it will get at a time when many companies still need to get their data ready. Continue Reading
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News
12 Sep 2024
Salesforce reveals more on Agentforce autonomous AI agents
Salesforce seizes on the concept of agentic AI to automate sales and service processes. The company holds fast to the idea the AI agents will assist humans -- not replace them. Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Sep 2024
What is Salesforce Platform (formerly Force.com)?
Salesforce Platform (formerly known as Force.com) is a platform as a service (PaaS) product that simplifies the development and deployment of cloud-based applications and websites. Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Sep 2024
What is Salesforce Developer Experience (Salesforce DX)?
Salesforce Developer Experience (Salesforce DX) is a set of software development tools that lets developers build, test and ship many kinds of applications on Salesforce Platform (formerly called Force.com). Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Sep 2024
What is SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences)?
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), also known as IBM SPSS Statistics since 2009, is a user-friendly software package used for the analysis of statistical data and to make data-driven decisions. Continue Reading
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News
11 Sep 2024
Oracle focuses on CX platform as it exits ad business
Oracle rolls out generative AI tools for sellers, beefs up CDP to reinforce B2B buying and selling team interactions, and adds industry-specific features. Continue Reading
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Definition
10 Sep 2024
What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based suite of products that enable e-commerce businesses to set up e-commerce sites, drive more automation and provide customers with seamless shopping experiences. Continue Reading
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News
09 Sep 2024
Salesforce Industries clouds for verticals adds 100 AI features
A new AI toolkit for Salesforce's industry-specific clouds delivers more than 100 features for companies in 15 industries to automate common tasks, each with their own data model. Continue Reading
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News
06 Sep 2024
In $1.9B deal, Salesforce buys data backup company Own
In the lead-up to its annual user conference, Salesforce buys Own Company for $1.9 billion, its second acquisition of the week and its third for 2024. Continue Reading
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Definition
06 Sep 2024
What is multichannel marketing?
Multichannel marketing refers to the practice of companies interacting with customers via multiple direct and indirect channels to sell them goods and services. Continue Reading
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News
05 Sep 2024
Salesforce Foundations opens up marketing, ecomm features
Enterprise Salesforce users will get Foundations, a basic set of tools and Data Cloud functionality to complement their Sales and Service modules. Continue Reading
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News
29 Aug 2024
Salesforce and Genesys discuss CX strategy, coopetition
Competing tech companies are partnering up to give customers what they need faster. Salesforce and Genesys share how they're doing just that in the contact center market. Continue Reading
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Definition
28 Aug 2024
What is voice recognition and how does it work?
Voice or speaker recognition is the ability of a machine or program to receive and interpret dictation or to understand and perform spoken commands. Continue Reading
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News
22 Aug 2024
Salesforce GenAI, data tools likely major Dreamforce themes
We read the tea leaves of Salesforce's summer product releases, executive interviews and Winter '25 release notes to figure out what's coming at Dreamforce. Continue Reading
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Definition
16 Aug 2024
What are buyer personas?
A buyer persona is a composite representation of a specific type of customer in a market segment. Continue Reading
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Definition
16 Aug 2024
What is call management?
Call management is a process in which inbound telephone calls are routed to call center agents. Continue Reading
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Definition
16 Aug 2024
What is machine learning? Guide, definition and examples
Machine learning is a branch of AI focused on building computer systems that learn from data. Continue Reading
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Tip
09 Aug 2024
10 tips to improve customer retention
Organizations that properly gather consumer feedback, get to know their customers and offer rewards to loyal shoppers can improve their customer retention rates. Continue Reading
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Definition
05 Aug 2024
What is a 360-degree customer view?
The 360-degree customer view is a comprehensive approach to understanding customers by compiling their individual data from various touchpoints into a single view. Continue Reading
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Definition
17 Jul 2024
What is relationship marketing?
Relationship marketing is a facet of customer relationship management (CRM) that focuses on customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement rather than shorter-term goals like customer acquisition and individual sales. Continue Reading
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News
25 Jun 2024
Gong adds GenAI conversational intelligence for sales insights
Generative AI tools in Gong's Smart Trackers provide deeper analysis into sales reps' communications with customers. Continue Reading
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Definition
14 Jun 2024
digital marketing
Digital marketing is the promotion and marketing of goods and services to consumers through digital channels and electronic technologies. Continue Reading
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News
11 Jun 2024
RingCentral pushes AI deeper into sales tech, integrates Teams
Among other new features, RingCentral pushes its RingSense conversational intelligence deeper into the sales market with new integrations, where it meets a crowd of tech competitors. Continue Reading
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Definition
07 Jun 2024
Eloqua
Eloqua is a marketing automation platform that follows a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Continue Reading
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News
06 Jun 2024
Slack lists drops, edging it ever closer to project management
Slack isn't a full-fledged project management platform. But new features help users organize, assign and track tasks as they would in more sophisticated clouds. Continue Reading
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News
04 Jun 2024
SAP brings CX apps under one platform, debuts CX AI Toolkit
SAP releases a CX-specific AI toolkit that enables a digital 'personal shopper' and custom deployments of generative AI throughout the customer experience. Continue Reading
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Definition
31 May 2024
Pardot
Pardot is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing automation platform by Salesforce that offers email automation, targeted email campaigns, and lead management for business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing organizations. Continue Reading
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News
07 May 2024
Sprinklr's AI digital twin for CX emulates whole companies
Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas 'bets the company' on its moonshot digital twin technology that emulates a whole customer's organization, with AI assistance, to complete CX tasks. Continue Reading
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Podcast
06 May 2024
Salesforce open model AI strategy aims for trust, automation
The CRM and CX giant is leaning on generative AI for sales and customer service applications and is aiming to ensure that users can trust the output of large language models. Continue Reading
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News
02 May 2024
With Tribble, RFP writers get their own shot of generative AI
Some large enterprises' sales organizations respond to a hundred or more requests for proposals daily. A new GenAI tool from ex-Salesforce execs could ease the workload. Continue Reading
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Definition
29 Apr 2024
Marketo
Marketo is a comprehensive marketing software-as-a-service platform designed to automate and streamline marketing tasks across multiple digital channels. Continue Reading
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News
25 Apr 2024
Oracle expands generative AI across its CX applications
Oracle beefs up its Fusion Cloud Customer Experience applications with GenAI tools for users of its sales, field service, marketing and contact center. Continue Reading
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News
24 Apr 2024
HubSpot embraces GenAI with Service Hub updates and more
A reimagined, generative AI-infused Content Hub leads the way for a passel of HubSpot updates for users of its sales, service, marketing and digital payment platforms. Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Apr 2024
An overview of Microsoft Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 unites various CRM and ERP tools into one platform. CRM apps include Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, and ERP tools include Finance and Commerce. Continue Reading
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News
05 Apr 2024
Why Alphabet might acquire HubSpot: Data, data and more data
If Alphabet were to buy HubSpot, it would come with a hefty price when interest rates are high. Experts discuss what HubSpot assets might interest Google's parent company most. Continue Reading
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Opinion
12 Mar 2024
Salesforce TDX reveals how consumer and enterprise AI differ
The soaraway success of GenAI chatbots has obscured how enterprise AI differs from consumer AI. Salesforce's TDX developer conference threw those differences into some relief. Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Mar 2024
Oracle E-Business Suite
Oracle E-Business Suite is one of Oracle Corporation's major product lines. Oracle E-Business Suite applications run on top of the vendor's flagship Oracle Database software. Continue Reading
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News
11 Mar 2024
Salesforce AI a work in progress for customers
While eager to embed AI in Salesforce software, customers acknowledge that planning, time and work are needed to make AI useful in the company's applications. Continue Reading
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News
06 Mar 2024
Salesforce users empowered to build no-code Einstein Copilots
Salesforce admins and developers can build custom generative AI assistants for workflows across the platform for sales, service, marketing and e-commerce. Continue Reading
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Tip
13 Feb 2024
Top 6 marketing automation certifications and courses
With the right marketing automation certifications, SMBs and small marketing teams can gain the skills and expertise needed to compete with larger companies in their markets. Continue Reading
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Tip
09 Feb 2024
Microsoft Dynamics 365 vs. Salesforce: How do they differ?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce both help organizations streamline sales, service and marketing processes. Yet, they differ in architecture and integration capabilities. Continue Reading
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Tip
01 Feb 2024
How to get started with marketing automation for SMBs
Marketing automation can help SMBs, which may lack marketing budgets and resources. With certain processes automated, an SMB's marketing team can spend more time creating. Continue Reading
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News
19 Jan 2024
Salesforce unveils retail shopping and marketing AI tools
The CRM vendor brings generative AI to analytics and management tools for businesses' marketing teams and Copilot for Shoppers for swifter product discovery and purchase. Continue Reading
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Definition
18 Dec 2023
holistic (holistic technology)
Holistic technology is an approach to IT management that considers the infrastructure as a whole instead of as a collection of individual systems. Continue Reading
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Feature
15 Dec 2023
Overview of RingCentral's RingCX AI-powered CCaaS platform
RingCentral's new contact center-as-a-service offering, RingCX, is poised to shake up the CCaaS market. Explore its benefits and features to see if it works for your organization. Continue Reading
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Feature
15 Dec 2023
Meta Threads explained: Everything you need to know
Meta Threads had record user sign-ups in its first week but needs to sustain engagement to challenge Twitter. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Dec 2023
Microsoft Dynamics 365 best practices for implementation
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers business apps to help organizations boost efficiency. Best practices for implementation include creating the right team and designing a simple UX. Continue Reading
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Tip
14 Nov 2023
7 Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation issues
Microsoft Dynamics 365 presents unique implementation challenges for organizations, like data migration and customizations. Explore these challenges and strategies to solve them. Continue Reading
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News
08 Nov 2023
Zendesk unveils tools for agents to improve customer service
The customer service and CRM vendor unveiled no-code tools, including a layout builder to let teams customize agent interfaces for specific roles and workflows. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Nov 2023
5 benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 offers a comprehensive set of cloud-based business apps to help organizations eliminate data silos, improve decision-making and automate workflows. Continue Reading
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Definition
11 Oct 2023
Salesforce
Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud computing and social enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider based in San Francisco. Continue Reading
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News
19 Sep 2023
Oracle's CX GenAI tools consolidate data, manage knowledge
The cloud platform vendor unveiled GenAI tools to increase productivity for marketers, sales teams and customer service agents by creating content and retrieving information. Continue Reading
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News
13 Sep 2023
Pegasystems releases new GenAI tools for Pega Infinity '23
The vendor is out with new GenAI features for Pega Infinity '23. It also renews its business process management focus and makes other updates generally available. Continue Reading
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Definition
12 Sep 2023
omnichannel
Omnichannel -- also spelled omni-channel -- is an approach to sales, marketing and customer support that seeks to provide customers with a seamless and unified brand experience, regardless of which channel they use. Continue Reading
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News
12 Sep 2023
Einstein 1 Data Cloud fuels Salesforce's AI, analytics
The CRM giant's new metadata management layer is capable of processing more data than previous versions to better enable customers' artificial intelligence and analytics needs. Continue Reading
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News
12 Sep 2023
Salesforce unveils Einstein 1 to embed AI in every app
The CRM vendor unveils a suite of new capabilities for its revamped AI platform, including a genAI Copilot in every app, and a way to customize the Copilot's functions. Continue Reading
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News
06 Sep 2023
HubSpot unveils AI-based Campaign Assistant, LinkedIn tie-in
The CRM vendor unveiled a virtual assistant tool, Campaign Assistant, to help marketers build campaigns and an integration between HubSpot and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Continue Reading