We've
had quite a ride up to now. None of us ever realized that this
competition would get this important to the CRM and social markets. In
the 2 completed years, eight of the participants have been acquired,
several others gone on to a great deal of success and many others far
more visible than they had ever been before they began. Many have
ongoing relationships to the CRM community that wouldn't have been
possible without their participation.
This year we expect the largest group of applications in our history
and we expect that we will see innovations that will delight and excite
us and the market place at large. We expect some ups and downs as every
year and in the end we expect that we'll see companies from the customer
facing world emerge and flourish, which is the whole purpose of this
contest.
So, if you're interested in participating, welcome! Just follow three simple instructions.
Early in 2013 I had the oportunity to discuss the Social CRM market in Latin America with Robert Lavigne. We discussed different topics from the cultural aspects of implementing Social CRM to the nuances of working in Latin America. We also related Social CRM to the new "farmer's market".
The #CustomerService100 finalists are announced! Excellent list to influencers and practicioners of in the customer service industry. I am honor to be number 26 on the list compiled by ICMI Call Centre. Make sure you follow at least the Top 20.
Cloud
enables me to do things quickly and be more agile - both in terms of my
personal life as well as how I run my business. The more agile I can
be, the more effective and productive I am, which translates to higher
revenue.
In your opinion, what is the biggest advantage of cloud-based solutions?
The
key challenge my customers are asking me is “I need something faster
and I need it yesterday.” Based on that definition, when I gather the
requirements on their standard processes, cloud solutions are usually a
good option for them. Why? Because when you go to the cloud and start
using these technologies, you move into “one-click” consulting. That
means that with twenty clicks you can implement a system for twenty
users with a basic configuration (using best practices) and solve a
problem quickly.
What cloud-based solutions do you use?
I’m
a 100% user – everything from CRM, payroll, email, to applications and
more. The only things I use that are not in the cloud are some Microsoft
products.
I’ve had some experience with SAP Social OnDemand ,
I strongly believe it’s a collaboration tool that has CRM capabilities
verses a CRM application. It’s very interesting because you work based
on feeds and statuses – you’re collaborating and it’s very intuitive.
It’s like having Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare and Twitter combined.
The fact that you can deploy it with just one click and start using it
is very impressive.
In your opinion, what is the future of the cloud?
I
think everyone is using the cloud in some capacity – usually more on
the personal side. For example, using Facebook to organize a meeting
with your family, Twitter to communicate the details of a meetup,
viewing content on SlideShare, or doing a search on Google – those are
business functions too. People are already in the cloud, they just need
to figure out how to be more agile on the business side verses the
personal side.
Tim Wilson from Nearshore Americas interviews me about the impact of social media in call center and BPOs from Latin America. I had the opportunity to discuss my views around analytics, communities and managing process using different social crm technologies.
“The risk in Latin America is that many call centers promote ‘non-voice services’, but they don’t really know how to do social media,” says Jesus Hoyos, a principal with Solvis Consulting.
Hoyos says that companies can become victims of their own success. If businesses and their outsourcing partners do not have a technological model that can scale, then they can find themselves paying through the nose for what should be a social media bonanza that can deliver measurable ROI.
“If a call center wants to sell you seats, and they are charging you $20 an hour per rep to manage yoursocial media, then you could end up paying for more and more people,” says Hoyos. “That’s simply not scalable, which is why you need a technological solution. If you are a bank, for example, you can’t handle 30,000 or 50,000 conversations, with people suddenly jumping from social media and picking up a phone. This is why a workflow methodology is crucial to deflect traffic.”
CRM doesn’t reside solely in your CRM application. It’s actually global with service participants being anyone that you can connect with online, not just official customer service representatives at a call center, explained Jesús Hoyos, Principal of CRM in Latin America, in our conversation at the CRM Evolution 2012 conference in New York City.
We’re undergoing a global impact of CRM where we’re not beholden to a specific call center to get an answer. Instead you can reach out to your neighbor who is someone on YouTube, on Twitter, on Facebook. Companies that have bad service but a good product can’t hide anymore, said Hoyos.
Hoyos relayed two personal stories. One of circumventing an auto dealership to save himself $600 from a defect in his Jeep Commander and another story of fixing a glitch for free on his Samsung TV. In both cases, he reached out online to the open web and found the answer through another user that had experienced the same issue as him.
Unlike my conversation with Brent Leary at the same conference, Hoyos has a different definition of the “Amazon effect” which he refers to as the best service is no service. By creating communities on their site around products, with comments and reviews, Amazon users are able to help other users from within the Amazon site, not the open web. Amazon in turn analyzes the data within their communities and makes decisions based on that data. Hoyos negates social consultants that tell you to be on traditional social channels.
“You don’t have to be on Facebook or Twitter. You have to be where the data of the customer transaction tells you where you have to be,” said Hoyos.