Dovetail Software

Upcoming Webinar: Simplified Infrastructure Upgrades for Clarify

2010-03-08T13:45:00Z

Webinar Announcement

Simplified Infrastructure Upgrades for Clarify

Dear %%First-Name%%,

Dovetail will be hosting a webinar that will highlight an alternative approach for completing Clarify infrastructure upgrades. This topic should be of interest to any organization running an older version of Clarify that needs to upgrade their CRM infrastructure. This method allows you to:

Avoid upgrading Clarify (the application itself) while upgrading the database and server OS/hardware
Avoid Amdocs maintenance back payments
Reduce upgrade complexity and cost
Improve performance and supportability system wide

Synopsis

Common amongst organizations that have implemented Clarify over the last 20 years is the tendency to lag behind on the Clarify version they are running. Companies have little incentive to undertake the often forebodingly complex process of a Clarify upgrade because most versions of the application are very stable and the features offered in new versions often don't fit their business.

This creates a problem after a time, of course, when the underlying infrastructure needs to be updated to improve supportability and performance. Since older versions of Clarify are not supported on the newer database versions, organizations are often forced into completing costly upgrades of Clarify just so they can upgrade the underlying infrastructure.

Dovetail believes there is a better way.

Join us to learn more about how your organization can achieve better performance and supportability of your Clarify system with far less effort and cost than the standard approach.

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Topic:

Simplified Infrastructure Upgrades for Clarify

Presenters:

Kent Valentine: Director of Sales
Gary Sherman: VP of Products

Date & Time:

Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 11:30 AM EST

Registration:

Register

Warm Regards,
Kent Valentine
Director of Sales
+1 (512) 610-5445

About Dovetail
Dovetail Software was founded in 1995 to create and market software applications & services for enhancing Clarify CRM. Since that time Dovetail's offerings have expanded to include a complete customer service and support CRM package. Dovetail solutions facilitate rapid responses to changing business needs while improving performance, reliability, and extensibility.

Upcoming CRM Events

2010-02-15T22:37:00Z

Dovetail is always staying on top of current events and conferences in the CRM world.

Below is a list of CRM industry events we find interesting. If you have attended any of these events in the past, or plan to attend this year, please add a comment below.

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Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit – March 16-17, 2010, London, UK

HDI Conference & Expo – March 16-19, 2010, Orlando, FL

Customer Experience Summit – March 22-24, 2010, Miami, FL

Customer Contact 2010, East – April 18-21, 2010, Marco Island, FL

Customer Executive Forum – April 19-20, 2010, Scottsdale, AZ

9th Annual Government Customer Support Conference & Expo – April 19-21, 2010, Alexandria, VA

Info360 – April 20-22, 2010 Philadelphia, PA

ICMI Symposium – April 20-23, 2010, San Diego, CA

Technology Service World 2010 – May 3-5, 2010 Silicon Valley, CA

CRMC 2010 – June 2-4, 2010, Chicago, IL

ACCE 2010 Conference & Expo – June 14-17, 2010, New Orleans, LA

Call Center Week – June 14-18, 2010, Las Vegas, NV

Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit – June 28-30, 2010, Los Angeles, CA

CRM Evolution 2010 – August 2-4, 2010, New York City, NY

Customer Experience Exchange 2010 – November 28-29, 2010, Amsterdam

Complimentary Webinar Reminder, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, 11:30AM EST

2010-01-12T23:33:00Z

Complimentary Webinar

Delivering Cost Effective Clarify Access Beyond the Support Center

Dear Friends,

Putting Clarify CRM™ in the hands of employees outside of the support center in a cost effective way has traditionally had its challenges: high software license costs, solution and architecture complexity, and difficulty in keeping pace with new technologies to name a few. Most companies have chosen to avoid the matter all together.

Over the past 14 years, more than 100 Clarify customers have come to Dovetail for help in leveraging their Clarify systems in new ways and segments of their businesses. This upcoming webinar details a few ways Dovetail has been helping our customers put valuable customer support information in the hands of anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

Specific topics to be covered are:

UI Considerations for various user profiles such as field service agents, managers, users with limited training, and other occasional users.
Traditional delivery methods and technologies
Using new technologies to improve utility and application life span
Business case examples

Join us to learn more about how it's easier than ever to expand access to your Clarify system and why it should matter to your business.

---

Topic:

Delivering cost effective Clarify access beyond the support center

Presenters:

Rusty Coleman: VP Sales & Marketing
Gary Sherman: CTO

Dates & Times:

Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, 11:30AM EST

Registration:

Register below by clicking on the date you would like to attend. You will receive an email confirmation with details on how to join the webinar.

Register for Jan. 13

Complimentary Webinar Delivering Cost Effective Clarify Access Beyond the Support Center

2009-12-11T18:03:00Z

Complimentary Webinar

Delivering Cost Effective Clarify Access Beyond the Support Center

Dear Friends,

Specific topics to be covered are:

UI Considerations for various user profiles such as field service agents, managers, users with limited training, and other occasional users.
Traditional delivery methods and technologies
Using new technologies to improve utility and application life span
Business case examples

Join us to learn more about how it's easier than ever to expand access to your Clarify system and why it should matter to your business.

---

Topic:

Delivering cost effective Clarify access beyond the support center

Presenters:

Rusty Coleman: VP Sales & Marketing
Gary Sherman: CTO

Dates & Times:

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010, 3:30PM EST
Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, 11:30AM EST

Registration:

Register below by clicking on the date you would like to attend. You will receive an email confirmation with details on how to join the webinar.

Register for Jan. 12

Register for Jan. 13

Warm regards,
Rusty Coleman
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
+1 (512) 610-5454

Join Dovetail for Happy Hour

2009-12-09T22:22:00Z

Drinks and appetizers are on us!

Dovetail's Gary Sherman is hosting a get-together for Dovetail and Clarify friends in the Boston area.

Join him at 5:30pm on December 16 at John Harvard's Brewpub in Framingham, MA. We will be welcoming customers, partners and friends for a informal evening, talking Dovetail and Clarify, technology, and meeting like-minded people, all while sharing a few pints.

RSVP here

Check out Gary's blog for more information on Dovetail and future events.

Industry Insight: Social media

2009-11-05T22:46:00Z

The impact of social media on business has far reaching effects and in all directions. Consumers around the globe share their opinions about products with anyone, anywhere. The popular digital playground Twitter recognized the impact of digital media on the marketplace so much that they now offer a vehicle for companies to see what consumers say about their products. This trend is not going to recede, but broaden and expand.

How does the influence of social media guide and direct the customer service and support industry? Are there ways to mitigate damaging “tweets”? How about capitalize on positive blog posts?

We'd love to hear what you think, so leave a comment below.

Free Your Customers from the Labyrinth of Customer Service with Social Media, Part II

2009-10-02T18:59:00Z

Yesterday, we pondered if it's time for companies to invest in a social media strategy. Now thanks to the Internet and sites like YouTube, more and more customers are making vengeance theirs with just a click. No more lines. No more phone trees. No more complaining to only 20 people about lousy customer service. In an instant customers can broadcast their complaints to 100's or even 1000's of people and there's very little that companies can throw in their way to keep them from taking a digital hammer to their corporate reputations. Basically, customers have figured out how avoid the Labyrinth of customer service by using the Internet to go around you instead of to you to complain.

So if customers can now complain so instantly and so publicly, you would think corporations would be ramping up their customer service and support to instantly answer every tweet, blog post and online video, right? Well, the customer centric companies are working hard to adapt to new consumer channels. But the customer antagonistic companies, not so much.

Last year, BusinessWeek published Consumer Vigilantes, with a subhead that warned, "Memo to Corporate America: Hell now hath no fury like a customer scorned." Regarding the "venom-spewed tales of woe" that customers publish online, PeteBlackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Strategic Services, told BW that, ""There's a certain degree of extremism that's popping up, [a sense of] I'm going to get results, whatever means necessary. Companies can brush these off as being atypical, mutant consumers, or they can say there's a very important insight in [their] emotions."

Other warnings abound:

The Tweet Is Mightier than the Sword: "Social CRM is about joining conversations between customers and prospects while resisting the urge to control those conversations. Customers today have more power over who they do business with, and how that business is conducted. And the Web is totally entrenched in their buying process. So if you’re not on the Web in ways to capture their attention, you won’t be able to compete."
Social CRM Showdown: "Change is occurring outside the enterprise whether businesses decide to embrace it or not. [Forrester analyst Dr. Natalie Petouhoff] took a stab at summing it up: 'Customer disdain, social media, and customer service ... have formed a perfect storm that is super charging change,' she said."
Social Customer Service Remains "A Breed Apart": "For the most part, very few companies are using formal contact center agents to handle customer service interactions via these emerging and new channels,' [Ian Jacobs, senior analyst for customer interaction technologies at Datamonitor,] says. 'Generally, there are social media specialist groups within companies. Some of them may have contact center experience or even physically sit in the same room with agents, but they are a breed apart.'"
CRM, Meet Your Future: "It is really difficult to discuss CRM today without addressing some component of social media. Web 2.0 and social media practices have created the Social Customer. Companies that are not in a position to embrace their customers through social CRM strategies will quickly lose touch. Social media is not a separate entity but a blend of CRM interactional tactics. The same issues that caused CRM failures in the past will rear their ugly head in social media if the fix is to simply throw technology at them."

So what's your social media strategy?

Dovetail Links 2009-10-01

2009-10-01T21:12:00Z

Seven Ways Companies Go Wrong with SOA

"A few years back, I put together a list of where companies appeared to be steering in the wrong direction in terms of SOA implementations. The list bears repeating, because the issues still keep getting in the way of SOA success. Many companies run the risk of jumping into the approach without looking at where they are leaping. Here are the most common pitfalls that could tie an SOA installation into knots."

Are You Customer Centric or Just Pretending?

"Your customers can then lead your company in new directions—if you let them. But that will require you to rethink the very nature of your organization. If you really want to listen to customers, give them personalized service, and reward them for loyalty, then you have to reorganize your entire company around customers. To do this requires an enterprisewide commitment to sharing customer data, and the reinvention of how every department in the company should interact with customers."

Customer Service Week 2009

"Fall is my favorite time of year. Football, cooler weather and…Customer Service Week. This year, Customer Service Week is October 5 – 9. For anyone making their first foray into Customer Service Week, this should get you started!"

Customer Service Week: What Makes Great Service?

"By great service, I mean the kind of service that makes us change our mind about a purchase or item; it's the kind that not only makes us feel good, but makes us want to tell people about the business, to spread the word, to become an advocate for that business. Anyone in marketing will tell you that this is the most valuable kind of advertising—and they can't get it from an agency."

Plan Now For Customer Service Week

"Yes, I think that every week should be customer service week. But for those of us who still have a ways to go when it comes to customer centricity, the week of October 5-9 has been designated as Customer Service Week. Of course, there's a Web site. I remember driving past a fast food outlet last year where the marquee read, 'It's Customer Service Week!' I was amused at that since the sign gave the impression that service would be better that week than others."

Free Your Customers from the Labyrinth of Customer Service with Social Media, Part I

2009-10-01T18:52:00Z

Before the Internet and YouTube existed, angry customers had to be angry enough to keep fighting to have their problem fixed, despite all the obstacles in their way. If traffic on the way to the payment center didn't cool an aggrieved customer, then the waiting in line did. Then there was the hassle of calling customer service and figuring out the Labyrinth of phone trees only to face a Minotaur of a customer service rep at the end.

All of these obstacles, it seems, were created so only the truly angry could get satisfaction. If you're weren't devoted and passionate enough to the point of gnashing your teeth and rending your garments, then phone trees worked like an anger management technique -- if forced the customer to count to ten (more like ten thousand) and calm down.

Still, even with all these obstacles to customer satisfaction, there is a small percentage that refuse to quit fighting and they will work their way through customer service with a vengeance. Some have taken to paying their bills in pennies, like the gentleman at PayWithPennies.com who writes:

"In today's society, it is all too common to hassle the consumer or the taxpayer. More and more we are asked to 'hold,' 'wait in line,' 'fill out complex or time consuming forms,' or give up confidential information. I'm not against utilities (I like not having to maintain a generator or pump my own water). I'm not against taxes (our taxes here in the U.S. are very competitive with other nations who have similar standards of living). But I am against systematic hassle. I should not have to take off an entire day of work to pay my tax bill or renew my driver's license. I should not have to wait on hold for an hour to get a billing error corrected. As a customer of government, I think we deserve better."

And remember Mona Shaw, the 76 year-old, AARP secretary who took a hammer and tore up a Comcast office? After the incident she told reporters, "I smashed a keyboard, knocked over a monitor ... and I went to hit the telephone. I figured, 'Hey, my telephone is screwed up, so is yours.'" She was fined and given a suspended three-month sentence for disorderly conduct. Then she made sure she had the last word and switched her phone and cable service to Verizon and DirecTV.

But now that customers are figuring out how to avoid the Labyrinth of customer service by using the Internet to go around you instead of to you to complain, is it really necessary to suggest that it's time for your company to invest in a social media strategy?

Come back tomorrow for part two of this post to hear what the experts say.

Dovetail Links 2009-09-29

2009-09-29T20:38:00Z

Driving Response Through Customer Care

"There are only a handful of opportunities to build your brand outside of advertising -- point of sale, point of use, or when a customer has an issue are a few. Each of these instances creates a make-or-break moment. Provide a truly fantastic customer experience and your brand will flourish; provide a subpar experience and watch it flounder. So, how do you assure your customers (and potential customers) will have extraordinary experiences every time?"

Do You Really Know Your Customers?

"What is needed is a single view of the truth, not multiple replicated versions. Customer intelligence optimises CRM by providing the creation of a single view of a customer or data consolidation, customer analytics, integration across customer-facing systems. That in turn leads to the transformation of customer information into revenues. An effective customer intelligence strategy will begin with basic reference data – name, rank, location, etc. Then throw into the mix transactional data such as commercial information, customer activity and so on. Then you might add subjective and qualitative factors, such as customer satisfaction levels."

Marketing Automation: Unique Kid on the CRM Block

"CRM systems are supposed to comprise everything that touches the customer relationship. Through native functionality or integration across systems, CRM systems are supposed to achieve the holy grail of the 360-degree view. But all the good books on CRM were written before the current wave of internet marketing techniques (Twitter anyone?), and marketing automation apps continue to evolve rapidly. Marketing automation systems interact deeply with leads, and may even trigger the conversion of leads into contacts. So there's definitely overlap with the front end of the CRM pipeline. Before we talk about the overlap, though, we need to talk about where sales and marketing automation are different."

Customer Centricity: Let Your Customers Lead You

"High-performance businesses eventually outperform the pack —even through a down economy. One tactic they employ to sustain performance is to remain customer-focused, and marketing has taken a lead role in driving a new focus on customer retention and acquisition. What can we learn from these leaders about the new role of the frontlines of marketing play in addressing operating costs and capturing new revenue waves?"

Why CEOs Must Tie CIO Pay To Customers And Growth

"If 40% of your compensation were tied to customer experiences, wouldn't that tend to sharpen your focus on customer outcomes? It's an idea whose time has come."