Bob Thompson
Bob Thompson
Bob Thompson is CEO of CustomerThink, an independent research and publishing firm focused on customer-centric business management, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, the world's largest community dedicated to customer-centric business. Thompson is a popular international keynote speaker, blogger and author of Hooked On Customers: The Five Habits of Legendary Customer-Centric Companies.
Speech Analytics: Mining Business Insight from Customer Voices
Speech analytics can help enterprises listen to and act on the insight stored in the actual voices of customers. In big companies, finding and...
Unica Updates Brand, Pushes Interactive Marketing with Unica 8
The last time I took a close look at Unica was 2007, when CEO Yuchun Lee told me that his goal was to build...
Can SAP get back its CRM Mojo? (And beat Oracle in the Social Economy?)
SAP's strategy for cloud computing? Muddled. Social media? Few friends in sight. However, despite embarrassing missteps on strategy and execution, the software industry giant...
CRM Association in Japan Awards Leaders in Customer-Centric Relationship Management
CRM is alive and well in Japan, I was happy to learn after attending the CRM Association Japan Executive Forum in Tokyo on July...
KANA Partners with IBM, Launches “Service Experience Management”
As the second quarter came to a close yesterday, KANA announced a major new release that includes IBM technology. But it's more than just...
CrowdService: A Clear and Present ROI for Social CRM
Now here's the kind of problem a lot of companies would like to have, especially in this sour economy. Infusionsoft executives had set a...
Stop Making Excuses! Put Your Contact Center in the Cloud
Over the past few months I've been hearing more and more about contact center solutions "in the cloud." I think it's time for more...
Envision vs. Verint “Smackdown” on Speech Analytics for SMBs, but the Cloud is up Next
Speech analytics is a great way to mine insight out of recorded phone calls, so you can quickly identify and resolve issues that upset...
GM Files for Bankruptcy, Wipes Out Debt… But What About Building Better Cars?
When I was born in 1955, General Motors was a hugely successful car maker. So much so that that just two years prior, GM's...
RightNow Embraces “Social CRM,” Upgrades Analytics
As part of its May '09 release, available now, RightNow is introducing a new "cloud monitoring" feature that enables agents to enter search terms...
Executive Changes at Jive and Telligent: Start of “SoftWar” in Enterprise Social Software?
As I wrote in Web 2.0: The End of the Beginning, the market for "social business" applications is growing up. According to a July...
Can You Hear Me Now? Top Five Voice of Customer Pitfalls
An Open Letter to My Suppliers Hi there! I'm one of your customers. Sorry to interrupt, I know you're really busy, what with the down...
Parature Contends for Industry Leadership in SaaS Customer Service
Parature, which provides a SaaS-based customer service/support (CSS) solution, is a good example of a company that is "sneaking up" on the rest of...
Jigsaw Launches Bailout for CRM’s Subprime Data Problem
Now we know that the banks really can't package subprime loans together and magically make risk disappear. The CRM industry has a similar issue...
Genesys: Managing Cross-Channel Experience is Key to “Dynamic Customer Engagement”
Genesys has come a long way since it was founded in 1990. Initially focused on CTI, Genesys is now owned by telecom giant Alcatel-Lucent...
RightNow Secures a Cloudy Future in Government
You know a trend is maturing when the government jumps in. Not that there aren't forward thinking people in government, but let's face it,...
“CRM” and “SaaS” Not Familiar Terms to Most SMBs
We all know what "CRM" is, right? Well, most SMBs don't, according to a recent study by Avidian, fielded by MarketTools. As you can...
Salesforce.com Puts Sales/Service Cloud in Your Pocket
Seems like everyone is carrying some kind of mobile device these days. And enterprise applications are "mobilizing" to take advantage of the convenience. Research...
Communispace Private Communities Enlighten Social Marketing at InterContinental Hotel Group
InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), the world's largest hotel group with seven brands including InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn, is getting a strong return...
Web 2.0: The End of the Beginning
The recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco was an upbeat affair showcasing a lot of interesting technology. The initial consumer-focused hype is receding...