• Blog
• Articles
• Books
• Training
• Consulting

Customer Experience & VOC

• Salesforce.com Service Cloud Winter ’13

  Cross-Channel Case, Knowledge, Account, and Social Network Management

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Salesforce CRM Winter ’13 offers a broad and deep array of customer service capabilities anchored by the Ser-vice Cloud. Read our in-depth evaluation.
  Jan. 24, 2013

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Amazon Takes on Apple in Digital Music

  Combined CDs and AutoRip Make Amazon Cloud Player More Enticing

  by Patricia Seybold

  Amazon’s AutoRip feature surprised and delighted some customers and annoyed others. We like the fact that we now have digital access to MP3 files of the music we bought on CDs for free and without doing anything!
  Jan. 24, 2013

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Being Creative on Zazzle.com

  How Easy Is It to Create (and Sell) Your Own Customized Products?

  by Ronni Marshak

  Zazzle.com makes it easy for people to create and sell customized products. Here’s our review of Zazzle’s tools for customizing products, creating storefronts, and merchandising custom designs.
  Jan. 17, 2013

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Amazon’s Next Moves

  It’s a Customer Ecosystem Poised to Become an Increasingly Important Part of Our Lives

  by Patricia Seybold

  Amazon isn’t “just” an online retailer; it’s a vibrant and layered customer ecosystem designed to help you get things done faster and cheaper. Amazon phones will bring added convenience. Amazon’s ads will be more relevant than Google’s or Facebook’s.
  Jan. 3, 2013

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Tips for Interviewing Customers, Partners, and Stakeholders

  How to Most Effectively Find Out what Customers Want and Need

  by Ronni Marshak

  In over 25 years of interviewing customers, we have some insights to share about what makes an interview valuable. This report provides tips and techniques.
  Dec. 20, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Customer Service Supplier and Product Update 3Q2012

  3Q2012 Was a Quiet Quarter for Customer Service

  by Mitchell Kramer

  3Q2012 was a mixed quarter for customer service--mixed across customers, products, company activity and fi-nancial performance: two suppliers had very good customer growth; four had good financial performance; two new products; two M&A announcements.
  Dec. 13, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• VOC: Using Customers’ Interviews to Inform Decision-Making

  How the Residents of a Small Community Are Shaping the Future of Healthcare

  by Patricia Seybold

  We used interviews of residents on the Boothbay peninsula to help keep cherished St. Andrews Hospital, which Maine Health wants to turn into a walk-in clinic. I interviewed 48 patients and published verbatims. The result: a stay of execution.
  Dec. 13, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Next IT ActiveAgent

  Virtual Agents that Deliver Sophisticated Answers to Complex Questions

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Next IT ActiveAgent’s virtual agents can deliver sophisticated answers to complex questions on web, mobile, and social channels. Read our evaluation.
  Nov. 29, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Assigning Emotions to Moments of Truth

  Enhancing Customer Scenario® Mapping by Capturing Feelings

  by Ronni Marshak

  Capturing how customers might feel depending on how well you help them achieve their goals can enhance a line of site from customer priorities through your bottom-line opportunities based on how they are feeling while doing business with you.
  Nov. 15, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• The Emotional Rollercoaster within Customer Scenarios

  Most Customer Scenarios Bring Out Mixed Customer Emotions; Are You Prepared to Respond to Them?

  by Ronni Marshak

  What emotions are customers feeling as they get things done? How can you anticipate and respond to customers’ negative emotions?
  Nov. 1, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Creating Customer Advisory Boards that Your Customers Will Love!

  How to Design a Successful “Outside In” CAB Program for Your Customers and Top Executives

  by Patricia Seybold

  The most successful CABs follow a customer-empowered model in which customers’ issues and priorities are the focal point for the meeting. Don’t show off your ideas; let customers strut their stuff and see how well it meshes with your roadmap.
  Oct. 25, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• How B2C Customers Are Similar to B2B Customers

  The Roles Consumers Play as They Interact with Your Firm

  by Ronni Marshak

  Regardless of what hat your customers are wearing when they do business with you—parent, employee, soccer coach—they all want a great customer experience. Consumers have more in common with business customers than you might think.
  Oct. 4, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Getting at Customers’ Moments of Truth

  The New CSM Guidebook: Part 6: Identifying and Measuring Moments of Truth

  by Ronni Marshak

  Understanding your customers’ scenarios and the potential showstoppers to customer success should be part of your customer experience strategy. Learn how we identify these “Moments of Truth” as a part of Customer Co-Design.
  Sep. 20, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Creative Virtual V-Person

  An Offering from a Virtual Assisted-Service Pioneer

  by Mitchell Kramer

  Creative Virtual V-Person can help deliver very good virtual assisted-service on web, mobile, and social channels through strong knowledge management and reporting. Read our evaluation.
  Sep. 20, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• The Mobile E-Wallet Customer Ecosystem

  What Types of Players Need to Partner and What Do They Need to Do to Gain Customers’ Trust?

  by Patricia Seybold

  The mobile e-wallet landscape is a 6-layered ecosystem of players, with e-wallet providers at the top and payment and financial institutions at the bottom. If all players aligned around customer-critical issues, mobile e-wallet adoption would accelerate.
  Sep. 14, 2012

  Strategies

  0 comments

  

• Customer Service Supplier and Product Update 2Q2012

  2Q2012 Was Another Mixed Quarter for Customer Service

  by Mitchell Kramer

  2Q2012 was another mixed quarter for customer service--customer growth and financial performance were mostly flat or down.
  Sep. 6, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Adobe Recommendations: Personalizing the Customer Experience

  Harnessing the Power of the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite

  by Susan Aldrich

  Adobe Recommendations should be on the short list of marketers in retail ecommerce, B2B ecommerce, media, financial services, high tech, or publishing who seek to personalize their customer experience and drive higher revenues.
  Aug. 16, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Measure What Matters to Customers

  The New CSM Guidebook: Part 5: The Vital Importance of Metrics

  by Ronni Marshak

  Measuring things is easy. Figuring out what to measure is hard! Here are guidelines for defining metrics that matter to customers and how you should measure your organization's performance and bottom-line opportunities based on these measurements.
  Aug. 9, 2012

  All Members

  0 comments

  

• Alaska Airlines’ Evolves Its Mobile Strategy

  Catering to Frequent Flyers Pays Off

  by Patricia Seybold

  Alaska Airlines has been delivering mobile apps since 2010. They chose to focus first on the functions needed for “day of travel” rather than online booking.
  Aug. 3, 2012

  Strategies

  0 comments

  

• VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent

  Powerful and Flexible Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Virtual Assisted-Service

  by Mitchell Kramer

  VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent can help deliver excellent virtual assisted-service, delivering direct or guided answers to customers’ questions or performing tasks in case management and CRM systems on behalf of customers. Read our evaluation.
  Jul. 26, 2012

  Technologies

  0 comments