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• 10 Requirements for Personal Information in Health & Fitness Apps and Patient Portals

  Personal Health Records Will Flip Control in the Healthcare Industry from Payers to Patients

  by Patricia Seybold

  Customers want control over their health and medical information. What’s needed for a new wave of health & fitness apps? 
  Sep. 11, 2019

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• Oracle Service Cloud Virtual Assistant

  A Good Solution for Oracle Service Cloud Subscribers

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Here’s our evaluation of Oracle Service Cloud Virtual Assistant. It bundles good virtual agent/virtual assistant capabilities “in the box” with the Web Customer Service offering.
  Feb. 20, 2015

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• Salesforce Service Cloud

  Capabilities for Self-Service, Assisted-Service, and Social Customer Service

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Salesforce Service Cloud provides a broad and deep collection of customer service capabilities across self-service, assisted-service, and social customer service channels, earning an excellent evaluation. Read the specifics in our 50-page evaluation.
  Dec. 19, 2014

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• How Good Is Apple Pay’s Ecosystem?

  How Well Does Apple Pay’s Ecosystem Meet Consumers’ and Partners’ Critical Needs?

  by Patricia Seybold

  How viable is the Apple Pay ecosystem? Will all 15 categories of players required to support mobile payments play together nicely? Will all of these partners align to support consumers’ four critical moments of truth for mobile payments?
  Oct. 31, 2014

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• Framework for Evaluating Customer Service Software

  Delivering Answers and Solutions; Creating and Resolving Cases

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Use this new version of our Framework for Evaluating Customer Service Software Products to produce actionable evaluations, comparisons, and selection. It’s adaptable to every type of customer service application.
  Oct. 15, 2014

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• How Apple Pay Stacks Up

  How Well Does Apple Pay Meet Consumers’ Critical Needs?

  by Patricia Seybold

  Our preliminary Customers.com report card on the Apple Pay customer experience focuses on consumers’ four customer-critical moments of truth. Apple Pay Mobile E-Wallet earns grades from B+ in security to D in where you can use it.
  Oct. 11, 2014

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• Desk.com from Salesforce.com

  Customer Service for Small and Growing Businesses

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Desk.com, from Salesforce.com, provides case, account, and knowledge management capabilities across assisted-service, self-service, and social customer service channels for very-small, small, and mid-sized businesses. Read our evaluation in this report.
  Aug. 22, 2014

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• The CaringBridge Customer Ecosystem

  Millions of People and Hundreds of Companies Align around Patients’ Health Journeys

  by Patricia Seybold

  CaringBridge.org’s apps and tools help to provide emotional support during a health crisis. Using an online journal and guest book, each patient can provide updates for friends and family to track.
  Aug. 8, 2014

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• Apple/IBM Enterprise MobileFirst Partnership

  Will Enterprise IT Execs & Mobile App Developers Embrace IBM’s MobileFirst iOS Offerings?

  by Patricia Seybold

  This partnership to support mobile devices and apps in the enterprise is significant.  IBM will sell, support, and manage iDevices and apps that can integrate into back-end systems.
  Jul. 24, 2014

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• IBM Watson Engagement Advisor

  Addressing Customer Support Using Cognitive Technology

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Through its use of cognitive technology, IBM Watson Engagement Advisor is an innovative and visionary virtual assisted-service offering, an offering that can (almost) think and learn.
  Jul. 10, 2014

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• We’ll Get Back to You

  Callback Technology Can Give Customers Back the Time They Spend Waiting to Talk to You

  by Ronni Marshak

  We all hate waiting on hold. With automated callback technology, we may never have to again! But you have to make sure that you manage your implementation well so customers are never stuck waiting for a call that never comes.
  Jul. 3, 2014

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• Clarabridge 6.1

  Social Customer Service with Powerful Monitoring and Filtering, Deep Analysis, and Alert-Driven Customer Interaction

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Clarabridge Analyze and Clarabridge Act monitor and analyze customer conversations on internal and social channels and provide mechanisms to interact with customers. Filtering, analysis, and classification are the strengths. Read our in-depth evaluation.
  May. 9, 2014

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• IBM’s MobileFirst “Customer Cloud” Strategy

  Will Enterprise IT Execs Entrust Their Customer Data to IBM’s Cloud & Mobile Tools?

  by Patricia Seybold

  How do IBM’s MobileFirst and CodeName: BlueMix PaaS initiatives help corporate information technology executives and developers? Consider using these services to develop your company’s “Customer Cloud.”
  Mar. 28, 2014

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• Where Are Your Clouds? Location Matters!

  Why Your Customer Data Belongs in the Cloud and Why You Need to Control Jurisdiction

  by Patricia Seybold

  Companies of all sizes are taking advantage of cloud computing. A lot of customer information is hosted in clouds. But personally identifiable information needs to be housed in the customer’s home country. Customer clouds should be country-specific.
  Mar. 7, 2014

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• Priorities for Microsoft’s New CEO

  Focus on Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development & Customer Clouds

  by Patricia Seybold

  Open Letter from Patty Seybold to Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s new CEO, about what Microsoft’s strategy should be to save Microsoft’s bacon.
  Feb. 14, 2014

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• Cloud Computing in 2015

  End-Customers’ Priorities Will Drive Companies’ Customer Cloud Implementations

  by Patricia Seybold

  Customers want access to their information from anywhere and from any device. The best way to provide that access is via the cloud. By 2015, we predict that customer clouds will abound. Will you be ready?
  Dec. 13, 2013

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• Next IT Alme

  Virtual Agents that Can Answer Complex Questions in Any Language

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Alme (All me) is the virtual agent product from Next IT. Use Alme to deploy virtual agents on web and mobile channels. Its virtual agents can deliver answers in any language, can speak answers, and can integrate application data into their answers.
  Dec. 13, 2013

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• Customer Service Supplier and Product Update 3Q2013

  Review of Ten Social Monitoring, Case Management, Self-Service, and Virtual Agent Suppliers

  by Mitchell Kramer

  3Q2013 was a good quarter for customer service. Customer growth and financial performance were up. Product activity was light. Four companies expanded into new markets. Moxie and Salesforce.com earned Customer Service Stars for 3Q2013.
  Dec. 5, 2013

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• Why the Healthcare.gov Insurance Exchange Bombed

  Policy Makers Insisted on a Customer-Unfriendly Workflow

  by Patricia Seybold

  The long-awaited U.S. government Federal health insurance exchange, healthcare.gov, went live on October 1, 2013 and quickly proved impossible to use. Would-be customers were subjected to long delays. Here’s why.
  Nov. 7, 2013

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• Oracle Service Cloud Social Experience

  Built-In Social Monitoring, Analysis, and Interaction

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Oracle Service Cloud Social Experience provides social customer service by monitoring and analyzing social posts and interacting with social posters. Social Experience is an integral component of Oracle Service Cloud in packaging, pricing, and functionality. See the details in the full report.
  Sep. 27, 2013

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