Social CRM-Who got it right? Salesforce.com? Microsoft CRM? SAP CRM? SugarCRM?

All week I’ve been in San Francisco at Salesforce.com’s annual crowning event, Dreamforce. This year’s theme is “Welcome to Social Enterprise.” Indeed, if you are attending Dreamforce and managed to miss the focus on the social enterprise, then you were either sleeping or too busy touring San Francisco.

In yesterday’s keynote address, Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff, unveiled their latest social CRM tools and the concept of the “social enterprise.” Marc’s team demonstrated the ability to integrate social contacts with Saleforce.com’s winter 2012 release. Users will be able to bring in their Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter contacts directly into their Saleforce.com application and quickly see a snapshot of what they “like,” “dislike,” and follow in the social media world using the Radian 6 based social analytics. The Chatter application is enhanced to enable video conference calls, file sharing, screen sharing and both private and public groups. Salesforce.com added a Dun & Bradstreet data feed along with Jigsaw to provide users the most updated and accurate contact details. They also enabled crowd sourcing to improve the data accuracy of company and contact data feeds coming from Jigsaw and D&B.

Salesforce.com’s social media integration, crowd sourcing for data quality, and Chatter are not brand new concepts or functionalities, but their execution of these solutions is brilliant. Saleforece.com is the first CRM company that built a comprehensive and integrated social media CRM solution that will help enterprises go social without costing an arm and a leg. Social is no longer a new phenomenon in CRM and CRM vendors seem to be aware of this.

All the major players are involved. Microsoft tackled social media with their social media integrator for MS Outlook 2010. SAP introduced Facebook and Twitter integration with their CRM 7.0 release 24 months ago and released “SAP Stream Work” last year. SugarCRM was the first company to provide address update feature using Hoovers more than year ago. I personally liked that functionality a lot. Though each of these companies released these tools before or around the same time as Saleforce.com, they don’t give the same “warm and fuzzy” feeling that the latest Salesforce.com release. Let’s see why.

Microsoft understood the importance of social and delivered a social media integration tool early, but did not extend it to CRM. They introduced social media integration with Outlook 2010 but not with their CRM solution, MS Dynamics. As a result, MS Dynamics users don’t get a social view of their customers and contacts within Dynamics. Microsoft lost another CRM battle with Saleforce.com. I should note that some third party companies have developed applications to integrate social media with MS Dynamics, but they still lack the “slick” integration that Salesforce.com achieved.

SAP’s early social venture allowed their customers to get the Facebook and Twitter feed inside of their CRM system but lacked the Radian 6 based social analytics from Salesforce.com. This is particularly ironic because SAP owns Business Objects. SAP was an early adopter of social but fell short of delivering a comprehensive solution. Data alone doesn’t solve the sales or service executive challenges within the organization. Saleforce.com understood this fact and executed on their vision by acquiring Radian 6. That’s what l like about Marc’s team. They have an uncanny ability to understand what the customer wants.

Sugar CRM was a pioneer by providing functionality to pull address and other key contact data for a company or contact using real-time integration with Hoovers. Unfortunately, they did not include the crowd sourcing part of it. Saleforce.com understood the importance of crowd sourcing and carefully executed a plan to deliver that functionality. They first acquired Jigsaw, addressed existing data issues, roped in D&B and put crowd sourcing on top of it. Success comes with a vision and execution of that vision.

I’ve been following Marc Benioff since 2001. He is a great communicator and the market receives his messages well. It is in the genes of Saleforce.com. Marketo, a bay area based marketing company, released a white paper mentioning that Saleforce.com spent $25.4 million on sales and marketing between Feb 2000 to March 2001 and generated revenue of $5.4 million. That investment is clearly paying dividends now. All week I’ve seen and heard Marc’s team unveil their vision with such things as data.com, database.com, and siteforce.com. I will write more about these in future blogs. For now, it’s time to get back to Dreamforce!

For more information about how to make your business a "social enterprise,"

Part 2: SAP BCM in the Cloud – Solution Details

In the Part-I of the blog  I provided a broad overview of a few of the functional benefits to our cloud based SAP BCM solution. Today, we’ll get into the solution details. I will not only explain the functional tools but also the operational benefits. It will look like a bit of a laundry list but that is mainly because the functional tools within BCM are vast. At the conclusion of the blog I will highlight some of the actual business benefits from this solution.
SAP BCM rapid deployment solution provides a variety of tools to help any organization that is looking to streamline the manner in which it handles both inbound and outbound customer interactions. I will focus on the following:

· Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

· Inbound contact center

· Click to dial for outbound calls

· Supervisor and manager tools

· Operations and system management

· Monitoring and reporting

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
· Caller recognition service – Allows you to identify the customer
by the incoming phone number or by asking the customer to
enter the registered phone number via key pad (if that phone #
is already a part of the customer/contact person profile)
· Performs the CRM database search based on the customer id
· Allows you to provide voice menus for caller such as press 1 for
sales and press 2 for service etc...
· Voice self-service – Allows caller to do such things as check
their account balance via phone banking
· Info and off-hour services will allow you to play service
interruption messages to customers when dialing in
In-bound contact center
· Intelligent routing that increases first call resolution
· Routs calls to an appropriate agent based on skillset required
and agent availability (Ex: to resolve the customer problem
based on requested service type during IVR process)
· Provides special call handling tools such as recording the
conference, call back etc...
· Provides core call handling tools such as answer, hold, transfer,
consult, and hang-up
Click to dial and dialer for outbound calls
· Quickly dial the customer or prospect by clicking the phone
hyper link in the customer record without the need of entering
the number in the dial pad
· Utilize the dialer to make an outbound call
Supervisor and manager tools
· Powerful coach and control tools for contact center managers
and supervisors
· Supervisor tools are embedded in the softphone
· Enables supervisors or managers to control agent queues,
listen to agent calls, coach agents, barge in, intercept calls,
hang up calls, record calls, activate callbacks and a variety of
other administrative functions
Operations and system management
· Location independent browser based contact center tool
· Manage users and user groups
· Queue routing rules
· Mass update tools to update multiple users at one time
Monitoring and reporting
· Online monitoring tools provides real time statistics on the
given business day and at the given time
· Queue specific statistics
· Define thresholds and set alarms
· Compare statistics such as “this week” vs. “last week” or
“today” vs. “yesterday”
· View agent statistics such as average handling time (AHT)
· Monitor call statistics such as abandoned calls, terminated
calls, etc.
SAP BCM’s seamless integration with SAP CRM creates a comprehensive solution that empowers your service agents and managers. Through this integration, you will be able to utilize existing data within the CRM system to complement the agent and manger tools in BCM.
· Single user interface to manage incoming customer
interactions such as phone calls and emails
· Integrated BCM soft phone
· Quickly identify available subject matter experts (SME) and
transfer the call
So what does all this mean for your business? These tools can have an immediate impact on your bottom line and your ability to deliver quality customer service.
· Improve customer satisfaction - agent has 360 degree view of
the customer with multiple channels of contacts
· Reduce costs – both infrastructure and transmission
· Streamline resources – provision agents where and when
needed
· Increase sales – quality customer service results in repeat
business and referrals
· Quickly realize ROI with a fast deployment timeline of 5 to 8
weeks

Part 1: SAP BCM in the Cloud – Contact Center Solution to Enhance your Customer Service Capabilities

Before getting started, I think it’s important to set a context for what I will refer to as a “contact center” throughout this blog. When one first thinks of a contact center, huge centers dedicated to customer service operations come to mind. Contact centers do not just refer to these robust call centers. For purposes of this blog, a contact center is any base of operations used to manage inbound customer communication. Thus, contact center solutions are relevant for both the large company with multiple call centers as well and the small or midsized business with far fewer resources to dedicate to such operations.
iServiceGlobe recently unveiled a multichannel cloud based contact center solution. We are excited about this latest development because it is a natural extension of our already existing CRM solutions. Based upon SAP BCM (Business Communication Manager) Rapid Deployment Edition, this cloud based solution includes integration with SAP CRM 7.0 and is available in a subscription model.
We can get into the details of this integration later, but for now, I thought it would help to shed light on BCM. Towards the end of last year, in an effort to refine our solution offerings, we surveyed a variety of customers to get a better idea of some of their existing customer service issues. What we found was that many of our customers were struggling with their contact center operations. Below is a brief list of a few of the items that continually arose as difficulties:
· Routing calls to the proper agent or manager
· Managing contact center personnel
· Variability in service quality depending on service agent
· Failed call transfers
· Confused service agents from multiple user interfaces
To address these issues, we searched for a simple and easy to implement solution that could address these concerns.
After a few months of research and testing various contact center solutions, we landed on SAP BCM, an all software based contact center solution that comes with native integration to SAP business applications such as SAP ERP and CRM. SAP BCM proved to be a natural extension of our SAP CRM solution. To complement our cloud based SAP CRM offering, we developed a cloud based SAP BCM offering as well.
So it all sounds great, but how will this solution actually help your business?
· Intelligent routing of customer calls
· Email based Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and self-service
· Screen pop-ups providing a 360-degree view of customer to call
center agent (when integrated with an SAP business
application)
· Directory and presence services of onsite/remote/at home
based call center agents
· Real time recording, supervision and coaching of call center
agents by supervisors
· Centralized management, administration and monitoring
· Blended analytics
· Supports virtual contact center with diverse users (onsite
agents, remote agents and automated services)
· Supports a range of terminals such as IP desk phone, PC
desktops, and mobile terminals
As you can see, BCM provides a diverse set of functionalities that are useful for almost any organization. The benefit to our cloud based offering is that it integrates seamlessly with other SAP business applications and can scale with your business.

Part 2: Waste and Recycling - Customer Relationship Management Solutions

Prior to developing our own SAP CRM solution to meet the needs of the Waste and Recycling industry, I did a comprehensive study of other available software solutions to meet the demand and nature of this industry.  While I naturally think our homegrown solution is a great one, our philosophy at iServiceGlobe is to offer the best solution for a customer’s unique business processes and needs.  As a result, we never take a cookie cutter approach to our CRM solutions recommendations.  While there are naturally some “best practices” common to every industry, we recognize the subtle differences between every company out there.  That being said, since we offer both of the two most prominent Waste and Recycling CRM solutions out there, hopefully you can trust that my assessment is an unbiased one.    

Microsoft has a partner build solution for the Waste & Recycling industry’s back office operations.  The Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution includes tools to assist with such functions as:
·         Resource management and scheduling
·         Customer management and retention
·         Contract management
·         Business development
To date, I’ve found that SAP provides the most comprehensive and integrated back office and customer facing solution for waste and recycling companies.  SAP CRM provides:
·         Complete functionality to support end-to-end business processes
·         Simplified and unified experience for easy end user adoption
·         Available in both on-premise and on-demand
The solution covers the following end-to-end business processes
·         Account and Contact Management providing a 360 degree view on all accounts,

prospects, customers, etc.

·         Lead to W&R contract
·         ERP (Back office) Quote and Order in CRM interaction center (call center)
·         Service processing
·         Interaction center that provides complete view of an account factsheet that provides

business data overview (account, contacts, service address, container, services), object data overview (service address, container, services, contract and account) and list views for different objects

·         Interaction center provides credit and collections management
·         Waste & Recycling specific multi-channel (phone, email, chat) interaction center
·         Industry specific mobile solutions for service and sales
We’ve got some great examples of customer stories within the Waste and Recycling sector that we can share with you should there be any interest in considering how a CRM solution may assist you with your business processes.  Also, be sure to check out our CRM Knowledge Base where you can find some additional information.

Part 1: Waste and Recycling - Huge Opportunities in an Evolving Industry

The environment is a concern for us at iServiceGlobe.  In fact, it is one of the primary reasons we developed a unique CRM solution for the Waste and Recycling Industry… but more on that another time.  I decided to write this blog about waste and recycling because of my passion and interest in get some important information out in the public about some of the facts surrounding current waste and recycling efforts throughout the globe.  In conducting my research to supplement this blog with some hard data, I found that there is a great deal of relevant information out there to share.  As a result, rather than inundate our readers with too much data, I turned this blog is a two part series.    
Currently there is a cultural shift in societies throughout the world with people transitioning from lifestyles of consumption to lifestyles of sustainable consumption through conservation.  Despite this shift however, the world’s ability to manage this change is still limited.  Still, only 25% of the waste generated worldwide is recycled.  In the United States, we generate approximately .75 tons of waste per citizen.  Of the total waste generated in the country, we recycle about 33%.  Only 54% of all paper products are recycled in US.  While we may currently outpace the entire global average, there is literally “tons” of room for improvement.  Improving the percentage of waste that we recycle on an annual basis will be a strong statement in our efforts to be an example to the rest of the world as a leader in the environmental movement.
What we currently recycle
What we currently recycle can be broken down into two separate categories: 1.  Industrial/commercial materials and 2.  Household materials.
Most industrial/commercial recycling includes: construction material and demolition debris; electronic waste such as computers, printers, mobile phones, etc.; paper and newsprint; rubber tires (and other crushed rubber material); textiles; and ship breaking
Most household  recycling includes material such as glass, steel, aluminum, plastic and timber
Recycling facts
There is a direct correlation between increased recycling and energy conservation and decreased pollution.
·         Recycled aluminum used in remanufacturing saves 95% energy and produces 95% less

pollution

·         Recycled paper saves 40% energy and produces 73% less air pollution
·         Recycled plastics saves 70% energy
·         Recycled iron saves 60% energy
Waste & Recycling industry facts
In the United States, the recycling industry currently provides 1.1 million jobs, generates approximately $240 billion in revenue, and spends close to $40 billion in payroll. There are about 56,000 public and private companies of varying sizes within this industry.
In other words, there are some huge opportunities within the Waste & Recycling industry providing a unique opportunity to make money while keeping the earth green.  There are still some challenges to overcome before companies can fully take advantage of these opportunities, however, the upside is huge.
Strengths
·         Global demand for raw materials is driving the growth of the recycling industry
·         Rising commodity prices result in increased profitability in recycling
·         Increasing availability of new technologies for efficient and cost effective recycling
Weaknesses
·         The waste and recycling industry is fractured in and consolidation has just begun
·         Margins in the industry are currently low
·         Price fluctuations for recycled materials are high
Opportunities
·         Consolidation by Merger & Acquisitions
Threats
·         Rising cost of wages and fuel
·         Obsolete systems and software
·         Tougher regulations
As you can see, the Waste and Recycling industry is in an interesting space right now.  There is plenty of room for consolidation, growth and increased operational efficiency.  Coupled with the growing global demand for environmentally friendly business practices, companies in this space have a lot to be excited about.  Tomorrow, in part 2, I will share some of my research about how some industry specific CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems could give some Waste and Recycling businesses a competitive advantage.