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The solution will help the company strengthen its brands while minimizing the time spent on administration. <span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">Absalon Consumer Goods – For the Sales Rep</span> Sales representatives’ main focus is to spread information about the various products and brands that their company offers the market. An important task is to report received feedback acquired during the meeting so that the brand can be strengthen even further in the future. With Absalon add-on, we combine a solid database of CRM with efficient processes to report sales meeting, limiting the time spent on administration, and all this is achievable through mobile devices and computers. <span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">Absalon Consumer Goods – For the Sales Manager</span> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Microsoft Dynamics CRM</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Manage products, product groups, brands, price lists and discounts</li> <li>Use the built-in marketing lists to reach accounts and contacts</li> <li>Take advantage of Microsoft CRM dashboards, views and charts to track the progress of sales work day by day</li> <li>With Microsoft Social Engagement, you can monitor social media activities and gather information based on keywords, such as the company's brands</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Absalon add-on data setup</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Organize and guide your sales force by creating business plans, t&nbsp; erritory plans and action plans</li> <li>Prepare materials for each brand so that the sales team works effectively at each sales meeting, and report back meetings directly</li> <li>Understand how the business develops by following up on the data that the sales representative reports after meetings</li> <li>Add up the presentation materials, CLM, that the sales representative can present on their mobile devices or laptops, at sales meetings. Smoothly report feedback back into the system immediately after the meeting</li> <li>Keep track of the distribution of your products on the shelves at your customers</li> <li>Track awareness for your brands at organizations and contacts</li> <li>Manage expenses and product samples to customers</li> <li>Use Absalon add-on to create events and invite contacts</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Absalon add-on facilitates for the sales reps</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Plan a week effectively using Absalon Sales Cockpit as a visual tool for sales meetings&nbsp;</li> <li>Find your way to customers with help of the map of Absalon add-on that creates the best route</li> <li>Plan for distribution materials and samples ahead and check so sales representatives have what they need for the week</li> <li>Set up the data so that the sales process is made more uniform and streamlined, and time spent on administration is limited</li> <li>Use pre-defined messages, feedback and CLM for each brand</li> <li>The recurring user interface for reporting sales meetings accelerates the reporting process</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">Absalon Consumer Goods – For the Sales Rep</span> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Microsoft Dynamics CRM</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Use the built in marketing lists to contact organizations and contact persons with similar features</li> <li>Microsoft CRM dashboards, views and charts helps you following the sales work day by day and see what needs to achieve to reach the set goals</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Absalon add-on data setup</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Use the built-in map function to locate your contacts and plan the best possible route&nbsp;</li> <li>Plan your week using Absalon Sales Cockpit, which gives you a good overview of the week's various sales meetings</li> <li>Evaluate how your message has been received by the various contact persons</li> <li>Set up action plans with predefined messages and feedback, CLM and hand-out materials</li> <li>Copy an action plan and recycle the data that is already available in the system</li> <li>Create sales meetings on an action plan to auto generate the data that you will use in your sales meeting, and report the meeting in the system afterwards</li> <li>Check contribution margin ratio for each contact in your plan so that you reach your goals</li> <li>Invite your contacts to events with a few simple steps</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Consumer Goods Sales Rep App</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Absalon Sales Rep App works both online and offline, which allows you to report the meetings no matter where you are</li> <li>The user experiences that the app is easy to understand and easy to use</li> <li>Filtering data in the app to match the needs you have as a sales rep and makes it easier to report meetings</li> <li>Get the contact person's signature on the location of the samples that you handed out</li> <li>Switch between the laptop and the app to find the most efficient way to work</li> </ul>","shortDescription":"Absalon CRM for consumer goods is based on the most widely used processes in sales within the industry. The solution will help the company strengthen its brands while minimizing the time spent on administration.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Absalon CRM for Consumer Goods","keywords":"sales, Absalon, that, your, Sales, meetings, data, report","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">Absalon Consumer Goods – For the Sales Manager</span> Absalon CRM for consumer goods is based on the most widely used processes in sales within the industry. The solution will help the company s","og:title":"Absalon CRM for Consumer Goods","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">Absalon Consumer Goods – For the Sales Manager</span> Absalon CRM for consumer goods is based on the most widely used processes in sales within the industry. The solution will help the company s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Absalon_CRM.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":799,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"amazon-simple-email-service":{"id":1232,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/content/csm_Amazon_WorkSpaces_b988ebfad6.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Amazon Simple Email Service","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"alias":"amazon-simple-email-service","companyTitle":"Amazon Web Services","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":176,"companyAlias":"amazon-web-services","description":"Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a cloud-based email sending service designed to help digital marketers and application developers send marketing, notification, and transactional emails. It is a reliable, cost-effective service for businesses of all sizes that use email to keep in contact with their customers. You can use our SMTP interface or one of the AWS SDKs to integrate Amazon SES directly into your existing applications. You can also integrate the email sending capabilities of Amazon SES into the software you already use, such as ticketing systems and email clients. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">High Deliverability</span> \r\nContent filtering technologies, dedicated IP addresses, and a reputation dashboard help protect and enhance your sender reputation. Maintaining a good reputation ensures that your messages reach your customers' inboxes. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cost-Effective</span> \r\nPay as you go, and pay only for what you use. There are no upfront fees, no time-consuming pricing negotiations, no fixed expenses, and no minimum charges. And, if you send from an application hosted in Amazon EC2, the first 62,000 emails you send every month are free. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Configurable</span> \r\nUse configuration sets to create rules that are applied to the emails you send using Amazon SES. Send email metrics to Amazon CloudWatch for further analysis, or receive notifications through Amazon SNS. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliable</span> \r\nAmazon SES runs on the highly reliable Amazon Web Services infrastructure. Multiple datacenters and redundant systems ensure the highest levels of availability. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Amazon SES Product Details</span> \r\nBuilding a large-scale email solution can be a complex and costly challenge for a business: you have to build your infrastructure, configure your network, warm up your IP addresses and protect your sender reputation. Many third-party email solutions require contract negotiations and significant up-front costs. Amazon SES eliminates these challenges, allowing you to start sending email in minutes. You benefit from the years of experience and the sophisticated email infrastructure Amazon.com built to serve its own large-scale customer base. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Key Features</span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">High Deliverability</span> \r\nThe deliverability of your email—that is, the likelihood that the email you send will arrive in your recipients' inboxes—is based on the reputation of the IP addresses that the email is sent from. Reputation is determined largely by historical trends; if an address has a history of sending low-quality content, it will have a poor reputation. Amazon SES maintains a strong reputation among mailbox providers by actively filtering spam and malicious content. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Content Personalization</span> \r\nGeneric, one-size-fits-all emails tend to have lower engagement rates than those that are personalized. With Amazon SES, you can create email templates that contain replacement tags for content personalization. When you send an email, you specify a template and the values of the replacement tags for each recipient. Amazon SES automatically removes the replacement tags from your messages and replaces them with the unique values you specified. Your customers receive highly-personalized messages that they are more likely to engage with.&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Authentication</span> \r\nWhen an internet service provider (ISP) receives an email, they check to see if it is authenticated before attempting to deliver it to the recipient. Authentication demonstrates to the ISP that you own the email address you are sending from. Amazon SES supports all industry-standard authentication mechanisms, including DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC). For more information about authentication, see Authenticating Your Email in Amazon SES in the Amazon SES Developer Guide. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Dedicated IP Addresses</span> \r\nBy default, Amazon SES sends email from IP addresses that are shared with other Amazon SES customers. Shared addresses are a great option for many users: they are included in the base Amazon SES pricing, and their reputations are carefully monitored to ensure high deliverability. Amazon SES customers who send large volumes of email can lease dedicated IP addresses reserved for their exclusive use. When you send email using dedicated IP addresses, the sender reputation of these addresses is based solely on your email sending practices. If you have leased several dedicated IP addresses to use with your Amazon SES account, you can use the dedicated IP pools feature to create groups (pools) of those IP addresses. You can then associate each pool with a configuration set; when you send emails using that configuration set, those emails will only be sent from the IP addresses in the associated pool. See the Amazon SES Developer Guide to learn more about requesting dedicated IPs and creating dedicated IP pools. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Monitoring</span> \r\nAmazon SES provides several methods of monitoring your email sending activity, helping you fine-tune your email sending strategy. Amazon SES can capture information about the entire email response funnel, including the numbers of sends, deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, complaints, and rejections. This data can be stored in an Amazon S3 bucket or an Amazon Redshift database, sent to Amazon SNS for real-time notifications, or analyzed using Amazon Kinesis Analytics. To learn about monitoring methods for Amazon SES, see Monitoring Your Amazon SES Sending Activity in the Amazon SES Developer Guide. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Sender Reputation Management</span> \r\nAmazon SES includes a reputation dashboard that you can use to track issues that could impact the delivery of your emails. This dashboard tracks the overall bounce and complaint rates for your account, and can inform you when other deliverability-impacting events occur, such as spamtrap hits, references to blocklisted domains in your emails, and reports from reputable anti-spam organizations. The bounce and complaint metrics from this dashboard are automatically published to Amazon CloudWatch. You can use CloudWatch to create alarms that notify you when your bounce or complaint rates reach certain thresholds. With this information, you can take immediate action on issues that could impact your sender reputation. To learn more about the Amazon SES reputation dashboard, see Monitoring Your Sender Reputation in the Amazon SES Developer Guide. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Flexible Email Receiving</span> \r\nWhen you use Amazon SES to receive incoming emails, you have complete control over which emails you accept, and what to do with them after you receive them. You can accept or reject mail based on the email address, IP address, or domain of the sender. Once Amazon SES has accepted the email, you can store it in an Amazon S3 bucket, execute custom code using an AWS Lambda function, or publish notifications to Amazon SNS For more information about receiving email with Amazon SES, see Receiving Email in the Amazon SES Developer Guide. To get started now, see Set up an Email Receiving Pipeline in the AWS Getting Started Resource Center. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Multiple Email Sending Interfaces</span> \r\nAmazon SES offers several methods of sending email, including the Amazon SES console, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) interface, and the Amazon SES API. You can access the API using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or by using an AWS Software Development Kit (SDK). To get started sending email, see Getting Started in the Amazon SES Developer Guide or the 10-Minute Email Sending Tutorial in the AWS Getting Started Resource Center. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Mailbox Simulator</span> \r\nThe Amazon SES mailbox simulator makes it easy to test how your application handles certain scenarios, such as bounces or complaints, without impacting your sender reputation. Using the mailbox simulator is as easy as sending a test email to a specific address. You can use the mailbox simulator to simulate successful deliveries, hard bounces, out-of-office responses or complaints. For more information about the mailbox simulator, see Testing Email Sending in the Amazon SES Developer Guide. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">AWS Integration</span> \r\nAmazon SES integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, including Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon SNS, Amazon Route 53, AWS IAM, Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, AWS KMS, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, Amazon Kinesis Firehose, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon WorkMail. For information about how Amazon SES works with other AWS services, see Amazon SES and other AWS services in the Amazon SES Developer Guide.&nbsp;","shortDescription":"Amazon Simple Email Service - Powerful, and highly-scalable email sending and receiving platform for businesses and developers. Integrates with your applications and with other AWS products.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":true,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Simple Email Service","keywords":"Amazon, email, your, that, reputation, sending, addresses, with","description":"Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a cloud-based email sending service designed to help digital marketers and application developers send marketing, notification, and transactional emails. It is a reliable, cost-effective service for businesses of all","og:title":"Amazon Simple Email Service","og:description":"Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a cloud-based email sending service designed to help digital marketers and application developers send marketing, notification, and transactional emails. It is a reliable, cost-effective service for businesses of all","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/content/csm_Amazon_WorkSpaces_b988ebfad6.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1232,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"binary-mlm-software":{"id":6858,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/content/mlm-software-logo_footer.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Binary MLM Software","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"0.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"binary-mlm-software","companyTitle":"Neo MLM Software","companyTypes":["vendor"],"companyId":9621,"companyAlias":"neo-mlm-software","description":"<p>https://neomlmsoftware.com/demo/binary</p>","shortDescription":"Are you searching for best binary MLM companies from India? We are here to provide various features binary MLM software for your business plans. Call us for more.\r\n","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Binary MLM Software","keywords":"","description":"<p>https://neomlmsoftware.com/demo/binary</p>","og:title":"Binary MLM Software","og:description":"<p>https://neomlmsoftware.com/demo/binary</p>","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/content/mlm-software-logo_footer.png"},"eventUrl":"https://neomlmsoftware.com/demo/binary","translationId":6858,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"cloze-crm":{"id":1124,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Cloze.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Cloze CRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"cloze-crm","companyTitle":"Cloze","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4028,"companyAlias":"cloze","description":"\r\n<ul> <li>Automatic - Everything about the people you know in one place, pulled together for you.</li> <li>Smart - We learn who is important to you and remember things when you don’t.</li> <li>Proactive - Cloze prompts you to keep in-touch, with the right context at your fingertips.</li> <li>No more data entry - Cloze automatically keeps track of your email, phone calls, meetings, documents, Evernote, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. And everything from dozens of other services.</li> <li>Never miss a follow-up - Cloze’s learning algorithm knows who is important to you and automatically prompts you when it is time to reach out, so you’ll always be on top of your customers and pipeline.</li> <li>You're always prepared - Cloze is like having a personal assistant that keeps you on top of your relationships.</li> <li>Heading into a meeting? Cloze tells you exactly where you left off — with the context from Evernote, email, calls, social, documents and past meetings for every attendee.</li> </ul>","shortDescription":"Cloze CRM is a Smarter Relationship Management. The no-work way to see everything about your contacts in one place. Email, phone calls, meetings, notes, follow-ups and social.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":5,"sellingCount":1,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cloze CRM","keywords":"Cloze, your, automatically, prompts, context, keeps, with, meetings","description":"\r\n<ul> <li>Automatic - Everything about the people you know in one place, pulled together for you.</li> <li>Smart - We learn who is important to you and remember things when you don’t.</li> <li>Proactive - Cloze prompts you to keep in-touch, with the right con","og:title":"Cloze CRM","og:description":"\r\n<ul> <li>Automatic - Everything about the people you know in one place, pulled together for you.</li> <li>Smart - We learn who is important to you and remember things when you don’t.</li> <li>Proactive - Cloze prompts you to keep in-touch, with the right con","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Cloze.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1125,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"egain-mail":{"id":1314,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/eGain.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"eGain Mail","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"egain-mail","companyTitle":"eGain","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4106,"companyAlias":"egain","description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and monitoring.</li> <li>Intelligent parsing of the content of all inbound email queries. Ability to send auto-responses and recommend responses to agents.</li> <li>Tracking of all customer queries.</li> <li>Complete customer information and interaction history, across channels, available to email customer service agents, enabling informed interactions.</li> <li>Access to the centralized knowledge base that enables contact center agents to accurately resolve complex inquiries and processes. The agents can also contribute to the knowledge base thereby capturing invaluable expertise on the fly.</li> <li>Varied collaboration options with experts within and outside the system.</li> <li>Comprehensive analytics and real-time alarms for operational performance management</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Administrator</span>\r\n<ul> <li>100% web-based email management software enables remote and easy administration</li> <li>Fine grained control over user access, role, and permissions</li> <li>Immediate, scheduled, and out-of-the-box reports</li> <li>Multichannel and channel-specific analytics</li> <li>Widest range of deployment options — inhouse implementation, subscription-based hosted delivery, and managed services for remote administration of licensed software</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email Agent</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Complete customer information and interaction history, across channels, available to email customer service agents, enabling informed interactions</li> <li>Automated service processes for the email channel, such as auto-replies, auto-suggestions, and auto-acknowledgements improve productivity</li> <li>Web-based consoles for a range of users: Agents, supervisors and managers, business analysts, knowledge authors, programmers, and system administrators</li> </ul>","shortDescription":"eGain Mail, the leading email management solution, helps companies manage large volumes of customer emails and webforms responsively and effectively.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":4,"sellingCount":9,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"eGain Mail","keywords":"email, customer, service, agents, software, management, knowledge, across","description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and m","og:title":"eGain Mail","og:description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and m","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/eGain.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1315,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"eptica-customer-engagement-suite":{"id":1324,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Eptica.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"eptica-customer-engagement-suite","companyTitle":"Eptica","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4125,"companyAlias":"eptica","description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of information across sales and customer service channels. The Eptica Knowledge Base learns from the way it is used which content is best for answering a specific question. Every interaction with the knowledge base continues to refine and enhance the relevance of content. The system combines knowledge with the multichannel customer contact history, which together enable agents to optimize the effectiveness of their customer interactions. Using search and query histories from customers and agents, content is automatically and dynamically prioritized and made available where it is needed. Agents can also highlight content gaps as they work, simply by selecting a tick box which puts questions that need answers into the content management workflow.&nbsp; Information to answer questions need only be created once to be available to all customer service channels. Different departments can be responsible for information and incorporated into the content workflow. Every interaction with the knowledge base continuously enhances and refines the relevance of content, helping to keep the knowledge base up-to-date. Eptica enables organizations to build upon a centralized knowledge base that can be rolled out across multiple contact channels with ease. For example, it can be searchable by customers online and it can also be integrated with workflow to ensure contact center responses are consistent and efficient via email, calls and chat. A centralized knowledge base delivers relevant, accurate and consistent knowledge across channels for agents, back office staff and for customers, creating competitive advantage and delivering the best possible customer experience. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Eptica Linguistic Services</span> Winner of International Expo CRE Innovation Award for ‘CRE Innovative Digital Linguistics EngineUnderstand what customers really mean Delivering consistent, rapid and personalized responses to consumers, based on understanding the tone and style of the language they use is critical to Customer Service excellence. Linguistics helps by automatically analyzing incoming interactions, prioritizing them based on tone, forwarding to the most relevant agent or department and suggesting relevant answers. This not only increases efficiency but provides unparalleled insight into customer behavior that can link into Big Data and Voice of the Customer initiatives. At Eptica, linguistics is at the heart of our entire product set. Eptica Linguistic Services™ is the engine that powers all of our linguistic capabilities, driving service excellence by embedding it across every channel: Our advanced Natural Language Processing automatically analyses incoming interactions to detect key message elements, language and sentiment, enabling queries to be quickly routed to the right agent, along with recommended responses. Sentiment analysis of the language used in incoming communications gives immediate insight into how happy an individual customer is - and allows you to prioritize resources accordingly. By understanding the context of questions asked, our Linguistic Search feature delivers faster, more accurate answers to customers, whatever type of language they use, as well as providing powerful insight into customer behavior, which feeds into Voice of the Customer programs. Eptica Linguistic Service is supported by Eptica's in-house team of linguists, ensuring it continues to develop and evolve as language changes now and in the future. <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Benefits:</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Achieve Higher First Contact Resolution (FCR) rates</li> <li>Deliver high quality answers, faster to increase efficiency</li> <li>Listen to the Voice of your Customers to best meet their needs</li> </ul>\r\nOrganizations need an innovative approach to deal with their increasing customer service challenges without having to sacrifice cost, quality or speed of response. Applying techniques based on linguistics will enable you to tackle your challenges by closer, more automated understanding of what your customers are saying. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Interaction Workflow</span> Eptica’s workflow is designed to support the processing and management of all inbound and outbound customer requests and interactions that take place across multiple channels. For example, when a customer sends an email or submits a web form Eptica captures the inbound message and create a workflow item to manage that interaction. Eptica automatically profiles each inbound message in order for it to be visible to the appropriate team and given an appropriate level of priority. Eptica also uses the results of the computational linguistic analysis to be able to push to agents highly relevant knowledge articles which will assist the agent in correctly handling and responding to the inbound request.\r\n","shortDescription":"The Eptica Customer Engagement Suite platform is designed around a central Knowledge Base and Eptica Linguistic Services, an advanced linguistics technology system.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":15,"sellingCount":3,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","keywords":"customer, Eptica, knowledge, into, with, content, that, customers","description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of infor","og:title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","og:description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of infor","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Eptica.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1325,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"microsoft-dynamics-crm":{"id":629,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Microsoft_Dynamics_CRM.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Microsoft DYNAMICS CRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.80","implementationsCount":5,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":272,"alias":"microsoft-dynamics-crm","companyTitle":"Microsoft","companyTypes":["vendor"],"companyId":163,"companyAlias":"microsoft","description":"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft focused on enhancing the customer relationship for any organization. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service sectors, though Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it. In recent years, it has also grown as an Analytics platform driven by CRM.\r\nThe CRM Solution can be used to drive the sales productivity and marketing effectiveness for an organization, handle the complete customer support chain, and provide social insights, business intelligence, and a lot of other out-of-the-box functionalities and features. As a product, Microsoft Dynamics CRM also offers full mobile support for using CRM apps on mobiles and tablets.\r\nAs of writing this tutorial, the latest version of CRM is CRM 2016. However, in this tutorial we will be using CRM 2015 Online version as it is the latest stable version as well as frequently used in many organizations. Nevertheless, even if you are using any other versions of CRM, all the concepts in the tutorial will still hold true.\r\nMicrosoft Dynamics CRM is offered in two categories −\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">CRM Online</span>\r\nCRM Online is a cloud-based offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where all the backend processes (such as application servers, setups, deployments, databases, licensing, etc.) are managed on Microsoft servers. CRM Online is a subscription-based offering which is preferred for organizations who may not want to manage all the technicalities involved in a CRM implementation. You can get started with setting up your system in a few days (not weeks, months or years) and access it on web via your browser.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">CRM On-Premise</span>\r\nCRM on-premise is a more customized and robust offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, where the CRM application and databases will be deployed on your servers. This offering allows you to control all your databases, customizations, deployments, backups, licensing and other network and hardware setups. Generally, organizations who want to go for a customized CRM solution prefer on-premise deployment as it offers better integration and customization capabilities.\r\nFrom the functional standpoint, both the offerings offer similar functionalities; however, they differ significantly in terms of implementation. The differences are summarized in the following table.\r\n\r\nSource:&nbsp;https://www.tutorialspoint.com/microsoft_crm/microsoft_crm_overview.htm","shortDescription":"Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. CRM can help reduce costs and increase profitability by organizing and automating business processes that nurture customer satisfaction and loyalty.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":14,"sellingCount":7,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Microsoft DYNAMICS CRM","keywords":"Microsoft, Dynamics, Online, your, offering, databases, version, will","description":"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft focused on enhancing the customer relationship for any organization. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service secto","og:title":"Microsoft DYNAMICS CRM","og:description":"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft focused on enhancing the customer relationship for any organization. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service secto","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Microsoft_Dynamics_CRM.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1016,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"netsuite":{"id":1903,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/NetSuite.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"NetSuite","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":150,"alias":"netsuite","companyTitle":"Oracle","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":164,"companyAlias":"oracle","description":"NetSuite features include:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Customer Relationship Management</span>\r\n- Sales Force Automation\r\n- Marketing Automation\r\n- Customer Support and Service\r\n- Incentive Management\r\n- Offline Sales Client\r\n- Partner Relationship Management\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Financials/ERP</span>\r\n- General Ledger\r\n- Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable\r\n- Advanced Financials\r\n- Revenue Recognition\r\n- Budgeting\r\n- Multi-currency\r\n- Order Management and Fulfillment\r\n- Time and Billing\r\n- Purchasing\r\n- Inventory Management\r\n- Drop Shipment/Special Order\r\n- Integrated FedEx® Shipping Functionality\r\n- Integrated UPS OnLine® Shipping Tools\r\n- Standard, Customizable Reports\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Ecommerce</span>\r\n- Database Driven Web Site/Web Store\r\n- Front- and Back-Office Integration\r\n- eBay Integration\r\n- Credit Card Processing, PayPal\r\n- Affiliate Marketing\r\n- Customer Acquisition\r\n- Customer, Partner Self-Service\r\n- Web Site Analytics\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Employee Management and Productivity</span>\r\n- Role-based Dashboards\r\n- Group Calendaring and Collaboration\r\n- Employee Records\r\n- Expense Reporting, Purchase Requisitions\r\n- Employee Self-Service\r\nNetSuite is the first solution to deliver on the promise of intelligent, integrated and simpler applications for growing and midsize businesses.\r\nNetSuite is intelligent. The system holds all corporate data in a single database, giving you access to your key performance metrics on a customizable, real-time dashboard. As a result, NetSuite enables you to make better, faster decisions.\r\nNetSuite is integrated. Within a single, powerful application, it combines complete customer-facing CRM and Ecommerce capabilities with back-office Accounting/ERP and self-service portals for partners. As a result, it allows companies to unite fragmented data and automate processes from end to end.\r\nNetSuite is simple. With NetSuite, implementations are both faster and less expensive than traditional business applications. Modularity enables phased implementations according to your company’s need. In addition, click not code and advanced customization supports business as you define it. As a Web-based on-demand solution, NetSuite significantly reduces your total cost of ownership (TCO).\r\nWhy NetSuite?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unify Business Processes across the Enterprise</span>\r\nWith a single, integrated platform for CRM, Accounting/ERP and Ecommerce, you can automate key business functions across all departments, including sales, marketing, service, finance, inventory, order fulfillment, purchasing, and employee management. Your employees no longer have to re-enter data in different systems, rectify inconsistent or inaccurate data, or wait for batch updates. Instead, all your employees view and share accurate data in real time, leading to greater collaboration among departments and increased productivity across your business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Increase Visibility for Better Decision Making</span>\r\nCustomizable Dashboards offer real-time access to key performance metrics, supporting intelligent, timely business decisions. In addition, full visibility into unified customer records results in more efficient and highly personalized sales, fulfillment, and service processes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Extend Processes to Customers, Suppliers, and Partners</span>\r\nGiven today’s need to work closely with partners through an extended enterprise, NetSuite offers selfservice portals that enhance both B2B and B2C collaboration. In addition, proactive notification of partner-specific events accelerates process cycles and improves responsiveness, ensuring your position as a preferred partner.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customize and extend NetSuite with SuiteFlex</span>\r\nNetSuite is the world’s most customizable ASP. Click not code configuration and modular implementations jumpstart your business on NetSuite. Advanced customization with simpler, industry standard tools allows you to tailor business practices and processes to meet your specific company and industry requirements.\r\nBecause our customization carries forward seamlessly with upgrades, we actually encourage you to highly customize NetSuite—make it your one-of-a-kind software application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Get Superior Value with an Affordable Solution</span>\r\nBuilt from the ground up for growing and midsize businesses, NetSuite offers affordable pricing, accelerated implementation, and comprehensive support packages that results in unbeatable TCO. Plus, you eliminate the costly and time-consuming integration often associated with using a patchwork of disconnected systems. NetSuite also provides leading-edge professional services and educational programs that ensure efficient implementation and continued, long-term success.","shortDescription":"NetSuite offers the industry’s first and only:\r\n• Built-in, customizable dashboards\r\n• CRM and Accounting/ERP with integrated e-commerce\r\n• SuiteFlex Customization and extension","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":13,"sellingCount":2,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"NetSuite","keywords":"","description":"NetSuite features include:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Customer Relationship Management</span>\r\n- Sales Force Automation\r\n- Marketing Automation\r\n- Customer Support and Service\r\n- Incentive Management\r\n- Offline Sales Client\r\n- Partner Relationship Mana","og:title":"NetSuite","og:description":"NetSuite features include:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">•Customer Relationship Management</span>\r\n- Sales Force Automation\r\n- Marketing Automation\r\n- Customer Support and Service\r\n- Incentive Management\r\n- Offline Sales Client\r\n- Partner Relationship Mana","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/NetSuite.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1904,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":68,"title":"Human Capital Management","alias":"human-capital-management","description":"Human capital management (HCM) is a business philosophy that emphasizes the enhancement of employees while viewing them as a quantifiable asset whose future value can be increased through investment.\r\nEmployees are perceived as assets that can be provided with clear performance expectations, against which they can be rated and rewarded based on their progress over time.\r\nHuman capital management involves providing employees with the tools and training needed to accomplish stated performance goals, as well as metrics for monitoring and assessing the progress made toward these goals. HCM is also typically a key component of a company’s comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.\r\nHuman capital management is crucial for business success as workforce trends and laws add more complexity to recruitment, retention, legislative compliance and employee management. In today's workplace, workforce management success requires that HR managers act proactively rather than reactively, and HCM helps them to do so by bringing HR functions together in one accessible place, such as an HCM software suite.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is HCM software?</span>\r\nHCM (Human Capital Management) is a set of practices designed to help organizations manage, develop and acquire employees, and which regards employees as a business asset. HCM software focusses on both the administrative side of Human Resources (HR) and the strategic side of the business, helping organizations to maximize business value through its people. HCM software uses a series of applications to help automate and streamline HR processes. It is typically considered an enterprise software that is able to scale up or down depending on the size and the needs of the organization. It offers features such as time management and payroll as well as more advanced solutions such as performance management and employee engagement monitoring.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main sides of HCM?</span>\r\n<ol><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Transactional:</span> Including processes such as payroll, absence management, time management, benefits management, and onboarding.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Transformational:</span> Including processes such as talent management (recruiting, learning, performance) and business intelligence (big data, employee data management, HR analytics, and workforce planning).</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of HCM software?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Improved visibility over the workforce</li><li>Consolidated HR systems</li><li>Advanced analytics</li><li>Improved reporting</li><li>Attracting and retaining top talent</li><li>Lower HR costs</li><li>Automated manual processes</li><li>Increased employee satisfaction</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who uses HCM Software?</span>\r\nEvery company with a forward-looking HR strategy uses HCM software. Since companies invest in people (starting with their salaries), it makes sense for any organization to invest in Human Capital Management software.\r\nIn practical terms, there are five different categories of users:\r\n<ul><li>Employees</li><li>Managers</li><li>The HR department</li><li>The C-suite</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Human_Capital_Management.png"},{"id":69,"title":"Business Analytics","alias":"business-analytics","description":"Business Analytics is “the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results to customers, business partners, and college executives.” Business Analytics requires quantitative methods and evidence-based data for business modeling and decision making; as such, Business Analytics requires the use of Big Data.\r\nSAS describes Big Data as “a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.” What’s important to keep in mind about Big Data is that the amount of data is not as important to an organization as the analytics that accompany it. When companies analyze Big Data, they are using Business Analytics to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves.\r\nCompanies use Business Analytics (BA) to make data-driven decisions. The insight gained by BA enables these companies to automate and optimize their business processes. In fact, data-driven companies that utilize Business Analytics achieve a competitive advantage because they are able to use the insights to:\r\n<ul><li>Conduct data mining (explore data to find new patterns and relationships)</li><li>Complete statistical analysis and quantitative analysis to explain why certain results occur</li><li>Test previous decisions using A/B testing and multivariate testing</li><li>Make use of predictive modeling and predictive analytics to forecast future results</li></ul>\r\nBusiness Analytics also provides support for companies in the process of making proactive tactical decisions, and BA makes it possible for those companies to automate decision making in order to support real-time responses.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does Business Analytics (BA) mean?</span>\r\nBusiness analytics (BA) refers to all the methods and techniques that are used by an organization to measure performance. Business analytics are made up of statistical methods that can be applied to a specific project, process or product. Business analytics can also be used to evaluate an entire company. Business analytics are performed in order to identify weaknesses in existing processes and highlight meaningful data that will help an organization prepare for future growth and challenges.\r\nThe need for good business analytics has spurred the creation of business analytics software and enterprise platforms that mine an organization’s data in order to automate some of these measures and pick out meaningful insights.\r\nAlthough the term has become a bit of a buzzword, business analytics are a vital part of any business. Business analytics make up a large portion of decision support systems, continuous improvement programs and many of the other techniques used to keep a business competitive. Consequently, accurate business analytics like efficiency measures and capacity utilization rates are the first step to properly implementing these techniques.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business_Analytics.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":75,"title":"ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning","alias":"erp-enterprise-resource-planning","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise resource planning (ERP)</span> is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology.\r\nEnterprise resource planning system is usually referred to as a category of business management software — typically a suite of integrated applications—that an organization can use to collect, store, manage, and interpret data from these many business activities.\r\nERP provides an integrated and continuously updated view of core business processes using common databases maintained by a database management system. \r\nEnterprise resource planning solutions track business resources— cash, raw materials, production capacity—and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll. The applications that make up the system share data across various departments (manufacturing, purchasing, sales, accounting, etc.) that provide the data. \r\n<p class=\"align-left\">ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions and manages connections to outside stakeholders.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">You can think of an enterprise resource planning system as the glue that binds together the different computer systems for a large organization. Without an ERP application, each department would have its own system optimized for that division's particular tasks. With ERP software, each department still has its own system, but all of the systems can be accessed through one application with one interface.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">ERP applications also allows the different departments to communicate and share information more easily with the rest of the company. It collects information about the activity and state of different divisions, making this information available to other parts, where it can be used productively.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">ERP systems typically include the following characteristics:</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>An integrated system</li><li>Operates in (or near) real time</li><li>A common database that supports all the applications</li><li>A consistent look and feel across modules</li><li>Installation of the system with elaborate application/data integration by the Information Technology (IT) department, provided the implementation is not done in small steps</li><li>Deployment options include: on-premises, cloud hosted, or SaaS</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Enterprise resource planning programs have traditionally been used by the big players in the market that have thousands of employees spread out over the world. However, software developers are now marketing business ERP solutions to small- and medium-sized companies. </p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">There are different types of ERP software ranging from industry-specific ERP solutions to web-based, or cloud ERP software; to small business ERP.<br />The type of ERP system that will work best for your business depends on the size of your organization and the functions of the ERP solution that can best support your business requirements.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Industry Specific ERP.</span> ERP systems for large corporations are often built from the ground up to suit the organization's specific and unique needs. For a small business like yours, an off-the-shelf model will work fine. Most are grouped into three categories to service manufacturing, finance or logistics based companies.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web-Based ERP system.</span> ERP software services tend to be complex, requiring high-end computers to run them. However, instead of purchasing the software to run on your computer in your office, many suppliers offer Software as a Service, or SaaS. In this case, you pay a subscription to access the software and your data over the internet. Because the program is running on a remote server, you are free to access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ERP software for small business.</span> Although ERP systems can cover everything from supply chain management to accounting solutions as well as customer relations management, your business may not need to automate all these functions. Therefore, software developers offer scaled-down models at a lower, more cost-effective price. For instance, your operation may work fine with a system that offers sales and order management, but leaves out the module for warehouse management.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What does an ERP do?</span></h1>\r\nThe purpose of an ERP management system is to improve efficiency (and thereby profitability) through improving how company resources are spent, whether those resources be time, money, staff or something else.<br />If you can reduce how many resources are being used, without sacrificing quality/performance, then you can grow your business more efficiently and appropriately.\r\nERP software combines a number of different reports and metrics across various departments into the same environment. This makes it easier to get a full view of what’s going on and how resources are being spent.<br />From this vantage point of the business, you can discover key insights into how processes might be improved or resources better spent to generate higher growth. \r\nWithout an ERP system and proper planning of how resources should be spent to maximize growth and the bottom line, it is much easier to invest resources in tactics that underperform.\r\nConversely, a great ERP software platform allows a business to allocate resources away from underperforming tactics and into those that are generating good returns.\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">An ERP system also makes it faster to find the information or report you’re after because everything is in the same place. You don’t have to search through spreadsheets or look through different business applications to find that kernel of data you need; it’s all available and accessible right from the ERP interface.</p>\r\n<header><h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the different features of ERP software?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"></p></header>\r\nERP software can differ depending on the package you purchase and the provider. That being said, there are some key features that you should look for when researching ERP software providers. Your software should, at the bare minimum, offer the following modules:\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Accounting:</span> Manage all of your financial reports in the same interface, such as purchase orders, expenses, sales reports, payroll, etc. This makes it easier to monitor your cash flow and revenue and determines how money might be better spent or how you can reduce your burn rate.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Inventory and warehousing</span>: If your business has inventory or warehouse processes, your ERP business software needs to be able to integrate those operations to better track and manage goods. This makes it easier to see how much inventory is available, what inventory is going out for delivery, what inventory is coming in from which vendors and more. Carefully monitoring and tracking these processes helps protect a business from running out of stock, mismanaging a delivery and other potential issues.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">eCommerce and web</span>: It’s essential for a business to be able to see the eCommerce side of their business separate from physical, retail sales. After all, the tactics you leverage to encourage online sales are different than the ones you use for your physical stores. An excellent ERP system will enhance your existing web offerings to include better purchase options for customers to choose from.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Human resources</span>: As much as a business strives to keep customers happy and retained, it is equally important that your employees remain happy as well. The HR module of your ERP system contains all of the employee management processes, including payroll expenses, recruitment, performance evaluations, attendance, scheduling and more. It’s a one-stop module for all employee management and communication efforts.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM and marketing</span>: Your brand-customer relationships are ultimately going to drive repeat business. It’s important to know how effectively your marketing tactics are working at engaging and re-engaging customers, whether those tactics are email marketing campaigns, social media offers, surveys, follow-up phone calls and others. The CRM module will better express what’s working and what isn’t and how marketing is translating into added revenue.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project management:</span> The last should-have feature of your ERP software product is a project management tool, which allows you to communicate productively across your organization to plan and execute projects internally. This helps ensure company cohesion by getting every involved stakeholder or employee on the same page and in-the-know as to the most current business objectives and goals.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Benefits of ERP software and why to build it</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In today’s business environments, it’s hard to move on without an ERP system. Among the main benefits of ERP implementation is automatization of manual tasks staff spends hours on and thus improves the overall business performance. So the staff can focus on more important initiatives. At the same time, you can collect real-time data for improving performance management and making data-driven decisions.<br />ERP&nbsp; planning software comes handy in lots of areas due to its in-built modules and flexibility. Here are a few advantages of ERP software tools:</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><br />1. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce operating cost</span>. The company starts gaining profit as soon as the ERP system is implemented. Prepare to face the reduction of marketing expenses, inventory maintenance, production cost and so on. Also, if you’re aimed at combining all business processes within a unified system, ERP is the right choice. By using the software, it’s easy to improve cross-department cooperation and increase staff’s efficiency.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">2.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> Instant data access.</span> With ERP systems, employees soon forget about hours spent on collecting necessary details. Instead, they can be accessed in just a few minutes. Works great for busy executives and department managers that need to access data quickly.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Defined planning process.</span> It’s easy to understand the business objectives, targets and aims when you have a full list of business needs, outcomes, and assets all in one place.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Sure, ERP systems also have some disadvantages. The most common issue is the price. It’s almost impossible for small companies to develop an ERP suite for their own needs, only middle and large-sized corporations can afford it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ERP_-_Enterprise_Resource_Planning.png"},{"id":150,"title":"Workforce Performance Management","alias":"workforce-performance-management","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Workforce_Performance_Management.png"},{"id":164,"title":"Billing","alias":"billing","description":"Billing is a complex set of programs that allows you to calculate the number of services provided, while the calculations are carried out in a variety of units of measurement. Services are charged and as a result, the client receives a ready invoice, which additionally takes into account all promotions and discounts. The billing covers three main functions: settlement operations, provision of information, financial services.\r\nTypes of billing:\r\n<ul><li>Convergent billing is a carrier-class subsystem that provides mutual settlements with the customer of any network and an arbitrary informative application.</li><li>Automatic billing is a broad definition, including a variety of phenomena: from bank statements to making a payment with a plastic card.</li><li>Deferred billing is called billing, in which the calculation is made on the basis of the calls made.</li><li>Using hot billing reduces the delay in debiting funds, i.e. the speed of interaction with the service provider increases.</li><li>Mobile billing (SMS billing) is a method of electronic payment, in which payment for services is made using a telephone.</li></ul>\r\nCurrency calculation unit between the bank and the world payment system is called the billing currency. When the billing currency is different from the currency of the account, automatic conversion of funds occurs at the bank exchange rate.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Billing tasks:</span>\r\nThe main task of the billing is to provide a full account to the subscriber, information about which is available in this billing network. The billing system is responsible for the transfer of funds from the client’s account to the organization’s account for the services provided.\r\nBilling systems allow complete accounting of each consumer’s account.\r\n<ul><li>revenues;</li><li>costs;</li><li>used services;</li><li>personal tariff plans;</li><li>the amount of funds on the balance sheet;</li><li>discounts and promotions;</li><li>other information of an informative plan.</li></ul>\r\nEffective billing is needed to save time for both operators and consumers. With all this, the billing system should be as transparent as possible, that is, the client must know exactly what services he uses and how much he pays for it. The billing system should be as simple and understandable as possible to consumers, but it should take into account all the parameters set by the service.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer billing options:</span>\r\n<ul><li>automated calculation of the cost of services;</li><li>the ability to quickly receive services;</li><li>automatic debiting of funds (monthly fee and/or payment for services);</li><li> instant receipt of bill details;</li><li>the ability to receive timely information about new services, discounts and so on;</li><li>automatic crediting of bonuses and calculation of discounts.</li></ul>\r\nA properly functioning billing system provides an opportunity for employees of an organization using it to quickly receive information about the use of services and automatically invoice consumers. With the help of billing, it becomes easy to serve customers with bills and coupons, get a quick payment for services. The billing also produces an estimate of consumption, based on this information, the organization can draw conclusions about the demand for various types of services. Thanks to billing, providing clients with advertising information about new promotions, services, and tariffs is automated.\r\nMembers of the billing process:\r\n<ul><li>organizations that produce the necessary resources for the billing process - billing providers;</li><li>organizations that are the primary consumer of billing - cellular operators, Internet telephony operators, Internet providers, providers of digital television and so on;</li><li>ordinary users.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Billing1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"},{"id":351,"title":"Financial Accounting Applications","alias":"financial-accounting-applications","description":" Financial accounting (or financial accountancy) is the field of accounting concerned with the summary, analysis and reporting of financial transactions related to business. This involves the preparation of financial statements available for public use. Stockholders, suppliers, banks, employees, government agencies, business owners, and other stakeholders are examples of people interested in receiving such information for decision-making purposes.\r\nFinancial accountancy is governed by both local and international accounting standards. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) is the standard framework of guidelines for financial accounting used in any given jurisdiction. It includes the standards, conventions and rules that accountants follow in recording and summarizing and in the preparation of financial statements.\r\nOn the other hand, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a set of passionate accounting standards stating how particular types of transactions and other events should be reported in financial statements. IFRS are issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). With IFRS becoming more widespread on the international scene, consistency in financial reporting has become more prevalent between global organizations.\r\nWhile financial accounting is used to prepare accounting information for people outside the organization or not involved in the day-to-day running of the company, managerial accounting provides accounting information to help managers make decisions to manage the business.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is accounting?</span>\r\nAccounting is the recording of financial transactions along with storing, sorting, retrieving, summarizing, and presenting the results in various reports and analyses. Accounting is also a field of study and profession dedicated to carrying out those tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the examples of Financial Accounting?</span>\r\nOne part of accounting focuses on presenting the financial information in the form of general-purpose financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, etc.) that are distributed to people outside of the company. These external reports must be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles often referred to as GAAP or US GAAP.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the difference between financial accounting and management accounting?</span>\r\nFinancial accounting has its focus on the financial statements which are distributed to stockholders, lenders, financial analysts, and others outside of a corporation or other organization. Because of the many users, the financial statements must comply with the generally accepted accounting principles, known as GAAP or US GAAP.<br />Managerial accounting is focused on assisting management in the operation of the company. This will include analyzing a company's costs, assisting in financial decisions, profit planning, calculating break-even points, capital budgeting, and calculating the costs of existing products in order to value the company's inventory and to determine the cost of goods sold (both to be used on the financial statements).","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Financial_Accounting_Applications.png"},{"id":355,"title":"Payroll Accounting","alias":"payroll-accounting","description":"The accounting for payroll involves all aspects of paying compensation and benefits to employees. The outcome of this process is precise records regarding the expenses associated with all types of compensation, as well as timely payments to employees.\r\nThough some systems that incorporate more or less automatic payroll systems may not include all of these steps, the general process flow will apply to most payroll systems:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Set up new employees.</span> Have new employees fill out payroll-specific information as part of the hiring process, such as the W-4 form and medical insurance forms that may require payroll deductions. Set aside copies of this information in order to include it in the next payroll.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Collect timecard information.</span> Salaried employees require no change in wages paid for each payroll, but you must collect and summarize information about the hours worked by non-exempt employees. This may involve having employees scan a badge through a computerized time clock.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Verify timecard information.</span> Summarize the payroll information just collected and have supervisors verify that employees have correctly recorded their time.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Summarize wages due.</span> Multiply the number of hours worked by the pay rate for each employee, also factoring in any overtime or shift differentials.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enter employee changes.</span> Employees may ask to have changes made to their paychecks, usually to the number of tax exemptions or pension withholdings. You may need to record much of this prior to calculating taxes, since it impacts the amount of wages to which taxes are applied.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Calculate taxes.</span> Use tax tables to determine the amount of taxes to be withheld from employee gross pay.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Calculate wage deductions.</span> There may be a number of additional deductions to take away from employee net income, including deductions for medical insurance, life insurance, garnishments, and union dues. You must also track the goal amounts for these deductions, so that you stop deducting once the goal totals are reached.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deduct manual payments.</span> If manual payments have already been made to employees, such as advances, then deduct these amounts from the remaining net pay.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Create a payroll register. </span>Summarize the wage and deduction information for each employee in a payroll register, which you can then summarize to also create a journal entry to record the payroll. This document is automatically created by all payroll software packages.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Print paychecks.</span> Print employee paychecks using the information in the payroll register. You normally itemize gross wages, deductions, and net pay in a remittance advice that accompanies the paycheck.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay by direct deposit.</span> Notify your direct deposit processor of the amount of any direct deposit payments, and issue remittance advices to employees for these payments.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Issue paychecks.</span> Have a paymaster issue paychecks to employees, requiring employee identification if there are a large number of employees.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deposit withheld taxes.</span> Deposit all withheld payroll taxes and employer matched taxes at a bank that is authorized to handle these transactions.\r\nPayroll administration is one of the most important business processes your company performs, yet one of the most cumbersome and time-consuming daily activities. It doesn’t generate direct revenues, so keeping this process to a bare minimum in time and cost means savings and more efficiency to your business. This is why you need <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">payroll software</span>, so you can focus on income-generating strategies and daily core tasks.\r\nPayroll management software can be classified by: deployment (cloud vs. enterprise), business size (small business vs. enterprise) and target market (general vs. industry-specific). There is another way to distinctly classify payroll software, one that may impact on your workflows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated payroll management system.</span> Payroll, accounting and HRM have overlapping processes.; thus, often, payroll management is integrated as a module in accounting software, HRM or an organization-wide business system like ERP. It can be a standard feature or separately charged as an add-on. Integrated payroll management covers the core tasks like payroll processing, income tax calculations and paycheck printing.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dedicated payroll management.</span> These are standalone apps that go beyond core features of payroll and tax software with specialized functions as time-tracking &amp; attendance,&nbsp; customized reporting, benefits management and even a tax planner. A good dedicated payroll application should easily integrate with other HRM and accounting systems. This type of payroll system is popular among payroll services and small businesses.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the must have features for a payroll software?</span></h1>\r\nThe essential part of any organisation is payroll. Every worker’s salary compensation is based on the payroll system. Now the features of payroll software are used to streamline and handle the payments of the employees. From automating several tasks such as depositing the salaries, to taking care of taxes, a payroll management software is highly helpful. \r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated Accounting.</span> The human resources team and the accounting department can save time for managing every payroll detail manually. Thus, payroll programs can eliminate the scope of miscalculation and placement of the critical data in a wrong file. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Recording Files and Payslips.</span> The software can generate reports including leave summary, salary benefits, and salary statements. By using the digital platform, the software can print payslip. Moreover, you can even download and print the regulatory payroll.&nbsp; Acting as the sole repository of employment record and document, this software can be handy for any business. This software includes essential features like experience letter, organisational chart, employees profile, occupational safety and tax, and offer letter.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting in Payroll Processing Software. </span>Through the software, you can customise the report criteria and follow the reporting tasks taken care of:<br /><ul><li>Timesheet reports</li><li>Balancing audit reports</li><li>Wage and liability audit-related reports</li><li>Unemployment wage reports</li></ul>Several reports and inquiry output formats which include email, XML, text file and printed report. As different teams use the reports, the software can restrict the allocation of essential resources. The features make the best out of the reporting operation. Before purchasing the software, you need to make sure that the essential reporting functions are available in your software.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Keeping Track of Earning.</span> One of the best payroll software features is that it manages the earnings of the employees. </li></ul>\r\n<br /> \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Tax Management Done Easily.</span> The features of the payroll software solutions&nbsp; execute the task of tax filing and computing. With the features the employee taxes are filed within the deadline. This way, the chances of facing penalties are avoided.&nbsp; The payroll program software stores pay calculating records every hour. It also pays attention to tax benefit purposes.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Depositing Directly to Account.</span> One of the best features of payroll soft is that the payroll is deposited to the bank account directly. The software saves huge expense on the annual supplies and processing. It can also take care of any fraudulent activities related to the employee’s salary. The funds are transferred within no time directly from the company account to the employee account.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customisation at its best.</span> Among all the key features personalisation plays an integral role. Through customising every check and form, the whole system of payroll software is managed. You can customise the tables and menus here. You can also customise the reports, screens, and fields to offer the best kind of service. The software can print logos of the organisation for attaching them to the reports and checks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">High Level of Security.</span> The primary security feature required in the software is that the database encryption. For restricting the highly valued resources like the tax files, employee personal details, and payroll information, the software has password protection. With the comprehensive audit trails, the security feature also focuses on the control access. This takes care of sensitive information to the highest degree. The addition of record level security can save the company form fraud cases at an optimal level.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Know about Streamlining.</span> The worker can get access to the records or printed pay stubs through the automatic generation of the payroll system. There is an option for getting in touch with the third-party administrator and track in-house bookkeeping.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Zero Error, High Level of Accuracy.</span> The best thing about payroll automation software is that every work is carried out by following a high level of skill. By installing the latest updates on the application, the features of payroll software remain upgraded. And the system does not have to pay the price of manual error. With the help of soft, there is less chance of human error. Also, the tax forms are pre-filled following the worker’s payroll details. The unbiased third-party app can keep the records up-to-date every hour even if you outsource the operations.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Payroll_Accounting.png"},{"id":359,"title":"Order Management","alias":"order-management","description":" Order management is the administration of business processes related to orders for goods or services. Order management is the order-to-cash sales process that sits at the heart of any goods-based B2C and B2B company. Put simply, it’s the end-to-end cycle of receiving and processing a customer order through to fulfillment. \r\nOrder management is not conducted in isolation; it relies upon almost every department in a company: from a customer service team to the warehouse staff, the accounting department through to delivery partners. When mastered effectively, order management ensures a business’s workflow runs smoothly by establishing efficient processes to keep it moving forward; maintaining customer satisfaction and protecting a company’s reputation.\r\nOrder management involves a series of interconnected touchpoints and stakeholders who work collaboratively together to enable customers to order the right products, for the right price and receive them at the right time. The order fulfillment system (as it is also known) not only secures that order-to-cash (O2C) processes run smoothly, but also gives businesses the opportunity to build customer profiles and keep track of inventory volume and sales records.\r\nWhen scaling your business, it’s important to automate and streamline this process — otherwise, you’ll eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer number of orders coming in. An ordering system gives you a one-stop shop to view and manage all customer orders in one place.\r\nSome systems offer a two-way sync that makes sure order information is passed between your order management system and your ecommerce platform while providing you with visibility into the entire process. This can help automate the flow of sales order information to every piece of the supply chain. That means you can track the entire journey of a customer order, from the “Buy” button to delivery — and even returns.\r\nOrder processing is the process or work flow from order placement to delivery. This is a key element of order fulfillment, where reliability and accuracy lead to customer satisfaction. Steps in order processing include picking, sorting, tracking and shipping. Order processing can range from manual (hand written on an order log sheet) to highly technological and data driven (through online orders and order processing software) depending on the operation.\r\nIn order to establish a fast-moving, cost-effective and accurate order management cycle, both B2C and B2B companies are choosing to use an integrated and responsive order management system (OMS). The OMS integrates directly with a business’s ERP and is set up to work alongside the human workforce in order to obtain the most productive and profitable order management cycle possible.\r\nAn integrated order management system may encompass these modules:\r\n<ul><li>Product information (descriptions, attributes, locations, quantities)</li><li>Inventory available to promise (ATP) and sourcing</li><li>Vendors, purchasing, and receiving</li><li>Marketing (catalogs, promotions, pricing)</li><li>Customers and prospects</li><li>Order entry and customer service (including returns and refunds)</li><li>Financial processing (credit cards, billing, payment on account)</li><li>Order processing (selection, printing, picking, packing, shipping) </li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is OMS software?</span></h1>\r\nAn order management system is a software system that facilitates and manages the execution of trade orders. An order management system is any tool or platform that tracks sales, orders, inventory, and fulfillment as well as enables the people, processes, and partnerships necessary for products to find their way to the customers who bought them. \r\nAn order processing system software should provide one centralized place to manage orders from all sales channels. Centralizing this in one system is critical to delivering a superior customer experience by providing order status, on-time deliveries and meeting customer expectations for buy, fulfill and return anywhere. \r\nThe right solution gives you a foundation for consistent and seamless execution across all customer, financial, inventory and supply chain touch points that drives customer satisfaction, repeat business and long-term loyalty. Additionally, order management systems can improve sales visibility and reduce delays and back orders by giving you a single view of demand, inventory and supply.\r\nAn effective order management system software lets you seamlessly orchestrate the fulfillment of products and services across virtually all your customer touch points. Without a centralized order management system, realizing a comprehensive view of demand, transactions and customers across all channels and fulfillment locations can be extremely difficult.\r\nOrder management software equips you to think beyond the inventory on hand to focus on what's available to promise to your customers. It eliminates costly and rigid inventory segmentation across channels and business units with a single, real-time, consolidated view of inventory across the enterprise, from your suppliers and manufacturing facilities to your warehouse and stores.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">How to choose the right OMS software?</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Define your system objectives and priorities of each.</span> By doing so and discussing with your internal stakeholders, you’ll clearly understand features that are “absolute requirements” vs. ones that are “nice to have.” Don’t forget to factor in scalability and future thinking.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Draft a request for proposal (RFP)</span>. This will help your team get organized and both you and the vendor(s) understand the technical requirements and limitations of the system you’re hoping to implement. Don’t forget to include order volumes, number of SKUs, current vendor landscape, existing software, hardware, and networks, a timeline for the systems acquisition process, and details on training &amp; enablement.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Research systems options</span>. It’s unlikely that you’ll find an ideal fit for your business with your first contact (but how amazing would that be), so compile a list of 4-6 vendors to evaluate and reach out to for demos or trails. </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Review trade-offs.</span> It’s unlikely you’ll find a vendor that is a 100% fit and your final selection will be based on a number of trade-off criteria. Feature &amp; function alone shouldn’t be your sole selection criteria as you’ll want to take into account the entirety of the business relationship you’re getting into.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">How do your customers benefit from an online order management system?</span></h1>\r\nAn online ordering software doesn’t just benefit you, though. It also benefits your customers. The system will give them a quick, convenient, and 24/7 way to place orders without having to call or email your staff, or fill out old-fashioned Excel or Word order forms. They'll have instant, online updates on the status of their orders, and they’ll have greater confidence that their orders will arrive on-time and with the correct items. An online order management system also makes your company look more professional in the eyes of your customers.Here are three ways they benefit:\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They can place orders on their schedule.</span> Between managing employees, servicing customers, and marketing their business, most business owners are working on a very tight schedule. Taking the time to call or email your sales staff or meet with a sales rep can be challenging. Using an online product ordering system that allows customers to log on at their convenience and quickly choose the items they want to order goes a long way for customer service. If they place the same order on a regular basis, they can use a reorder feature which duplicates previous orders. The whole process takes a matter of seconds. So alleviate this challenge by implementing a system that allows your customers to place an order anytime.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They can check their order status at any time.</span> One of the biggest challenges a business faces is managing their inventory. On one hand, they want to have enough inventory available to service their customers. On the other hand, they don’t want to have inventory piling up on their shelves. There’s a critical need to know with confidence when inventory will arrive.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They have a higher probability of receiving the correct order in a timely manner. </span>Nothing will erode your customers' trust more than making errors on their shipments and invoices. If it happens once, that may be forgiven as a simple mistake. However, if it happens repeatedly, your customer is likely to start looking for alternative options. An online order management system with warehouse integration can send the order directly to your third party warehouse. This reduces the probability that an error will be made. The less people who handle the order information, the lower the likelihood for human error.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Order_Management.png"},{"id":361,"title":"Financial Performance and Strategy Management Applications","alias":"financial-performance-and-strategy-management-applications","description":" Strategic financial management means not only managing a company's finances but managing them with the intention to succeed—that is, to attain the company's goals and objectives and maximize shareholder value over time. However, before a company can manage itself strategically, it first needs to define its objectives precisely, identify and quantify its available and potential resources, and devise a specific plan to use its finances and other capital resources toward achieving its goals.\r\nStrategic financial management is about creating profit for the business and ensuring an acceptable return on investment (ROI). Financial management is accomplished through business financial plans, setting up financial controls, and financial decision making.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is financial performance management?</span>\r\nAlso known as corporate performance management, financial performance management refers to the ways that a company manages and monitors financial results across an organization. The primary purpose of financial performance management is to compare actual results to budgets and forecasts and make adjustments accordingly. The result? Companies are better equipped to meet their business goals.\r\nVentana Research describes financial performance management as a specific set of capabilities that includes &quot;defining their company's key performance indicators, formulating strategic plans and forecasts, handling performance reporting, and increasing finance operational efficiency and execution company-wide.”\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is financial performance management software?</span>\r\nFinancial performance management software, also known as corporate performance management software, streamlines financial management processes. This software connects budgeting, planning, close, consolidation, reporting, and disclosure to a single data source. It enables users to complete these tasks in one software system, as opposed to many separate systems.\r\nIn essence, financial performance management software consolidates information, formats it to meet compliance requirements, and provides automated tools that enable finance to create regulatory reports and disclosures. In addition to a central data repository and workflow tools, financial performance management software has features to create, manage, validate, and publish financial statements and reports. Best-in-class financial performance management software even has a robust suite of communication tools that foster collaboration and improve audit controls.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of corporate performance management?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies become more agile when faced with unexpected business events.</span> With features like KPI dashboards, real-time data, and responsive plans that change as actuals do, CFOs and finance executives can understand what’s happening and take action faster.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies make better decisions.</span> CPM systems often have automated features like scenario modeling, rolling forecasts, and what-if scenarios analysis. Using these in combination with a single version of automated data, executives can better analyze performance, respond to change, and make more informed decisions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies focus on analysis.</span> Using corporate performance software, users spend less time on manual tasks like data collection and data entry. Instead, they can focus their time on value-added activities like analyzing profitability, reducing costs, business partnering with executive decision-makers, and developing a strategy.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies interpret large amounts of data quickly.</span> CPM as we know it is evolving. Once CPM was purely financial management. Today, organizations are sitting on a treasure trove of information, that if adequately managed, could provide telling insights about the state of business and the direction decision-makers should take next. Modernized CPM solutions help financial users identify these underlying trends, unearth insights, and interpret large amounts of data quickly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management aligns the entire organization, from corporate to subsidiaries to divisions to LoBs, departments, and individual contributors all in a single solution.</span> CPM software aligns every part of the organization to a central data source, so collaborators make all decisions, create reports, and perform analysis with financial truth top of mind and with finance at the heart of every decision.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Financial_Performance_and_Strategy_Management_Applications.png"},{"id":363,"title":"Project and Portfolio Management","alias":"project-and-portfolio-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Portfolio Management (PPM)</span> is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals, while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. The International standard defines the framework of the Project Portfolio Management.\r\nPPM provides program and project managers in large, program/project-driven organizations with the capabilities needed to manage the time, resources, skills, and budgets necessary to accomplish all interrelated tasks. It provides a framework for issue resolution and risk mitigation, as well as the centralized visibility to help planning and scheduling teams to identify the fastest, cheapest, or most suitable approach to deliver projects and programs. Portfolio Managers define Key Performance Indicators and the strategy for their portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Pipeline Management.</span> Pipeline management involves steps to ensure that an adequate number of project proposals are not generated and not evaluated to determine whether (and how) a set of projects in the portfolio can be executed with finite development resources in a specified time. There are three major sub-components to pipeline management: ideation, work intake processes, and Phase-Gate reviews. Fundamental to pipeline management is the ability to align the decision-making process for estimating and selecting new capital investment projects with the strategic plan.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Resource Manager.</span> The focus on the efficient and effective deployment of an organization’s resources where and when they are needed. These can include financial resources, inventory, human resources, technical skills, production, and design. In addition to project-level resource allocation, users can also model ‘what-if’ resource scenarios, and extend this view across the portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Change Control.</span> The capture and prioritization of change requests that can include new requirements, features, functions, operational constraints, regulatory demands, and technical enhancements. PPM provides a central repository for these change requests and the ability to match available resources to evolving demand within the financial and operational constraints of individual projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Financial Management.</span> With PPM, the Office of Finance can improve their accuracy for estimating and managing the financial resources of a project or group of projects. In addition, the value of projects can be demonstrated in relation to the strategic objectives and priorities of the organization through financial controls and to assess progress through earned value and other project financial techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Risk Management.</span> An analysis of the risk sensitivities residing within each project, as the basis for determining confidence levels across the portfolio. The integration of cost and schedule risk management with techniques for determining contingency and risk response plans, enable organizations to gain an objective view of project uncertainties.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s the difference between Project Management and Project Portfolio Management?</span>\r\nProject management is focused on an individual project, making sure it achieves its objectives and adheres to cost schedule baselines and performance standards. Project portfolio management, on the other hand, takes into consideration all the projects within a portfolio. The primary objective here is to select and maintain the appropriate mix of projects and to assess the costs, risks, and returns of running these projects in relation to how they match with organizational goals. Simply put, project management is about doing the project right, project portfolio management is about doing the right projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Problems Can Project Portfolio Management Address?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management helps companies avoid project overload and work on projects that are not aligned with the ultimate vision. In other words, project portfolio management helps companies to work towards their goals without getting sidetracked by too many shiny pennies (ie. projects that appear to be enticing but actually drain their resources for little return).\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does Project Portfolio Management help with new product development?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management supports companies in assessing, evaluating and ranking new product ideas before they become projects, so that time, money and human resources can be spent working on projects that support strategic objectives. This becomes increasingly important and relevant for companies that receive dozens if not hundreds of project proposals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the key elements of successful portfolio management?</span>\r\nGoals, objectives, governance, approval processes and monitoring portfolio performance.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Project_and_Portfolio_Management.png"},{"id":371,"title":"Compensation Management","alias":"compensation-management","description":" Compensation management is a critical part of talent management and employee retention. It uses financial and nonmonetary benefits to attract recruits, reduce turnover, spur performance and boost employee engagement. It is responsible for ensuring that salary and bonuses remain competitive and benefit programs change with the needs of the workforce. The people in this role not only work with data but are also keen to understand the complexity of benefits administration.\r\nCompensation management software is standard in human capital management software suites. It is used to budget employee salaries and provides information about how salary changes with a job role. Although HR has charge of compensation management systems, it can be accessed by managers in a firm.\r\nThe software is typically configured to give supervisors a departmental view of the employee data they need to make salary offers, the issue raises and grant bonuses. An employee's performance management data may be displayed along with compensation information.\r\nEnsuring that salaries are competitive is a major benefit of compensation management systems. Compensation data that's in tune with the market gives hiring managers critical data they need when making an offer to a candidate. This applies as well to raises and bonuses to the incumbent workforce. Employees today have opportunities to find out about their peers' salaries and benefits. A good compensation management system is alert to the market, and this can help motivate employees and reduce turnover.\r\nCompensation management requires the use of external data. Managers gather salary market data by industry, company size, job role and geography. They can use government data, information from publicly available sites that gather user reported salary data, as well as purchase data from third-party firms that conduct ongoing surveys of salary and benefits.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why is Compensation Management so important?</span>\r\n<ol><li>Compensation management makes a company vigilant. It drives managers to be on the lookout for star performers who must be given rewards for their efforts, which ultimately decreases the risk of losing a valuable employee.</li><li>It is positive reinforcement. Yes, money doesn’t make the world go round and if line managers are not friendly, helpful and supportive retention is difficult. But cash prizes and consistent monetary perks in conjunction with a great work environment allow companies to grow by leaps and bounds through motivated, hard-working employees.</li><li>Compensation management enhances the company’s reputation. When workers are satisfied with their monetary and intangible rewards, they attract better prospects for vacant positions, bringing new, fresh talent to the organization.</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of Compensation Management for your Organization</span>\r\n<ul><li>One of the most significant benefits associated with compensation management is that it helps the organization achieve employee satisfaction. A happy employee will be more productive while contributing to the overall profit of the business. This makes employees realize that they are getting equal returns for the time and effort they are dedicating to the organization. The practice of compensation management exerts a positive impact on the employees by influencing them to perform better and increasing their overall efficiency.</li><li>This stabilizes the labor turnover rate as employees get compensated for their work at a competitive market rate.&nbsp; They do not feel the need of leaving the organization. It can then be concluded that compensation management helps to increase the loyalty of the employees towards the organization.</li><li>Compensation management is an important aspect of the job evaluation process. It augments the whole process by setting up standards for the company that are realistic as well as achievable, as far as the compensation practices of the organization are concerned.</li><li>It is a practice which helps to improve the relationship of the company with the labor union, as it allows the compliance of different labor laws and acts. If the organization is following the compensation practices same as that of the market, there will be no dispute to settle between them and the labor union.</li><li>It helps the professional growth of employees, as their efficiency increases, when there is a reward present for achieving a certain level of production. This also means that the deserving employees are fairly compensated for the efforts they are putting into their work, thus helping the organization to retain the best talent.</li><li>Compensation Management is the practice that if followed properly, will turn the organization into a hub of talent. This means that more human capital will get attracted to the company when they will view the compensation package that it will be offering. Also, the organization must keep in mind that monetary rewards are not something that only derives the motivation of the workforce. The overall compensation package must also include the non-monetary rewards, where the employees should be appreciated for the effort they are putting in their work. Therefore, the organization must ensure that its compensation package is based on monetary as well as non-monetary rewards.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How to Manage Compensation</span>\r\nVery small businesses may use multiple spreadsheets to track and calculate different aspects of their employees’ compensation. This isn’t an efficient system, but when you only have a few employees, it may suit your needs. However, as your business grows and you hire more staff, your old spreadsheets just won’t do the job anymore.\r\nSpreadsheets take a lot of time to update. For a growing workforce, they can become unmanageable. When employee data is spread between multiple sheets, finding and tracking information is time-consuming and you could misplace important data.\r\nIn some cases, the compensation data that gets misplaced can have serious, negative impacts on your business. For example, if your new employee is mistakenly not added to your benefits plan and then they become seriously injured, they won’t have any coverage. This is devastating for the affected employee and can damage morale for the rest of the team.\r\nThis is why businesses turn to compensation management software as they grow. With this software, all the information your HR department needs are in one place. Since the information is in one place, you can quickly and efficiently analyze your employees’ compensation and make any necessary changes.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Compensation_Management.png"},{"id":373,"title":"Workforce Management","alias":"workforce-management","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Workforce_Management.png"},{"id":421,"title":"Digital Commerce Applications","alias":"digital-commerce-applications","description":"E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.\r\nModern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail. Typical e-commerce transactions include the purchase of online books (such as Amazon) and music purchases (music download in the form of digital distribution such as iTunes Store), and to a less extent, customized/personalized online liquor store inventory services. There are three areas of e-commerce: online retailing, electric markets, and online auctions. E-commerce is supported by electronic business.\r\nE-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the followings:\r\n<ul><li>Online shopping for retail sales direct to consumers via Web sites and mobile apps, and conversational commerce via live chat, chatbots, and voice assistants;</li><li>Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales;</li><li>Business-to-business buying and selling;</li><li>Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media;</li><li>Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange;</li><li>Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for example, with newsletters);</li><li>Engaging in pre-retail for launching new products and services;</li><li>Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">5 Reasons Why E-commerce Is So Important For Your Business</span>\r\nFrom startups to small businesses right through to huge brands, there are a huge number of companies that can benefit from their own e-commerce website, where they can sell their own products or services. In today's competitive and convenience-focused society, no longer do consumers want to venture to the high street in order to buy items, instead, consumers want to shop from their own homes, making e-commerce a flexible solution for both businesses and buyers.\r\nIf you’re still on the fence about launching an e-commerce store then look no further, here are the top 5 reasons e-commerce is so important for your business and just how you can benefit from moving online this year!\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Can Broaden Your Brand</span>\r\nE-commerce is an ideal way you can take your brand from a traditional brick and mortar store to an innovative, well-loved brand. By offering great products 24 hours a day along with online customer service, blogs and social media, no longer is your business one singular store, with an online presence your business can be the home of your products and the general home of your business, allowing you to fully expand your product ranges without having to worry about moving locations or worrying about not being able to expand your business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">It’s More Convenient</span>\r\nAn online store is available all day, every day meaning your customers can visit your store at all times, no matter what their schedule might be. These days people don’t always have the time to physically go shopping, instead more and more people are choosing to shop online to find the items they want or need and if your business can offer this for your customers there’s no you shouldn't appeal to a wider range of customers all looking for a convenient and flexible experience.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Increase Your Reach</span>\r\nDue to the internet’s accessibility, millions of people across the world can view your website at any time, meaning that for those looking to expand their businesses and reach out to a larger audience, you have many more opportunities to do so. Compare the number of people you can reach through a website to the amount you can reach through a high street store or local advertising, there’s no reason you shouldn’t look at taking your business online if you’re looking to improve your reach.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Gives You Marketing Opportunities</span>\r\nYour website is one of the best marketing tools your business has, not only can the use of SEO when building your site lead to more chances of your business getting found in search engines, but a huge number of marketing techniques can also work alongside your website, including pay per click advertising, your social media marketing, and your email marketing, all of which can include links back to your website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Scalable</span>\r\nAs your business grows it’s very likely you’ll want to grow your product range and your target audience, as well as develop your business for customer requirements and consumer demand. An e-commerce site lets you scale your business accordingly, allowing you to add more lines, add more payment options and even grow when you choose to ship to, without having to worry about changing your location or moving to larger premises as you might with a brick and mortar store.\r\nE-commerce offers the business a whole range of opportunities, from marketing opportunities to increase your products ranges to generating more sales and with an optimized and well-developed website, you can not only achieve these goals but also offer your customers around the clock, convenient service, that can boost your business.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Digital_Commerce_Applications.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"pipedrive":{"id":1146,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Pipedrive.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Pipedrive","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"pipedrive","companyTitle":"Pipedrive","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4051,"companyAlias":"pipedrive","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Plan your activities</span>\r\nBecause you cannot control outcomes, only your activities, Pipedrive helps you plan your actions so that no deal falls through the cracks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Track everything</span>\r\nPipedrive will track everything about your deals, from the conversations you’ve had to all the people involved in them.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easily manage deals</span>\r\nOur visual pipeline lets you intuitively understand where all your deals are and move them forward toward a win.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work smarter</span>\r\nWith plans in place and your sales organised, you can execute with confidence, knowing that you’re working smarter, not just harder.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What makes us different</span>\r\nActivity-based sales\r\nWe’ve built our activity-based selling methodology right into the software. You’ll always know which actions need your attention next, as you focus on the aspects of selling that are under your control.\r\nSimple to use\r\nOur software may be complex, but using it certainly isn’t. We focus on intuitive interfaces, clean layouts and a simple user experience, which is why 9 out of 10 people claim to actively enjoy using Pipedrive.\r\nEasy to customise\r\nWe know all businesses are not the same, which is why we give users complete freedom to customise Pipedrive. Make our software serve your needs exactly, with an ever-growing list of integrations to explore.","shortDescription":"Pipedrive gets your sales organised\r\nThe leading sales management tool sales teams love to use\r\nPipedrive is an easy to use sales CRM","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":2,"sellingCount":12,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Pipedrive","keywords":"your, Pipedrive, software, deals, that, which, them, know","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Plan your activities</span>\r\nBecause you cannot control outcomes, only your activities, Pipedrive helps you plan your actions so that no deal falls through the cracks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Track everything</span>\r\n","og:title":"Pipedrive","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Plan your activities</span>\r\nBecause you cannot control outcomes, only your activities, Pipedrive helps you plan your actions so that no deal falls through the cracks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Track everything</span>\r\n","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Pipedrive.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1147,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"workbookscom":{"id":1135,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Workbooks.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Workbooks.com","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"workbookscom","companyTitle":"Workbooks","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4036,"companyAlias":"workbooks","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Workbooks CRM helps you run campaigns and generate more quality leads.&nbsp;</span>\r\nWe give you the tools you need to execute your marketing strategy and measure ROI.\r\nFeatures to support Marketing Success\r\nData Management, Profiling &amp; Targeting\r\nGather business intelligence on your target accounts/market. Manage all your accounts/contacts within your CRM. Target your ‘ideal’ customer, based on their profile.&nbsp;\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Email Campaigns</span>\r\nSegment your database. Use templates to send targeted email messages or integrate directly with leading email marketing providers such as MailChimp or dotmailer. Gain visibility of all prospect/customer interaction and track key metrics (such as open and click rates) against relevant marketing campaigns.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Event Management</span>\r\nPlan, organise and promote live events, webinars or training courses from within Workbooks CRM. Allow delegates to self-register and automatically manage scheduled communication to contacts.&nbsp;\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Lead Scoring</span>\r\nAllocate criteria to help sales and marketing prioritise their time. Distribute leads to the right teams for follow-up. Use scoring to ensure sales spend their time following-up on the deals most likely to convert.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Website Analytics</span>\r\nTurn anonymous traffic into sales by discovering who was on your website and what pages they viewed. Knowing visitor interests prior to a call will help sales conversion rates and marketing can nurture more effectively by sending the most relevant information.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Supplier Management</span>\r\nTypically you will have a multitude of partners who provide you with marketing services such as lead purchase, email marketing, lead nurturing, event management, design &amp; print contractors etc. Track and manage these suppliers in Workbooks so the relevant information is stored in one place.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Track Marketing Activities</span>\r\nManage your/your team's day-to-day workload and keep on top of outstanding actions to ensure project milestones are hit and campaigns are delivered on time. Tasks and Meetings can be associated with specific marketing campaigns to provide full visibility.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Telemarketing Campaigns</span>\r\nData can be segmented and added to Marketing Campaigns to enable Telemarketing teams to focus on delivering targeted messaging. Track progress and review performance easily and effectively.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Lead Management</span>\r\nIdentify your most profitable lead channels by tracking the source of your leads. Automatically assign leads to Marketing Campaigns. Categorise your leads and harvest relevant contact information in one place to help you convert more prospects into sales.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Website Lead Capture</span>\r\nAutomatically capture leads from your website, assign them to queues/campaigns and notify your sales team members.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Marketing Metrics</span>\r\nCapture key information such as campaign ROI, lead volumes by source, lead conversion. Use Dashboards and Reports to ensure you have real-time information at your fingertips rather than spending time manually updating outdated spreadsheets.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">POs Management</span>\r\nManage your marketing expenditure more effectively. Raise Purchase Orders and track marketing expenditure for goods or services you are purchasing. Easily identify the current status of Supplier Orders and whether they have been approved/paid/delivered.\r\nWorkbooks CRM enables you to work more effectively, to better identify opportunities, close more deals and grow revenue.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Features to support Sales Success</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Contact Management &amp; Prospect Profiling</span>\r\nUse every interaction with a prospect to further your business intelligence. Capture knowledge, map relationships and segment your data to improve sales prospecting. Sync everything with Outlook, Microsoft Exchange/Office 365 or Google Apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Opportunity Management</span>\r\nManage sales opportunities, improve conversation rates, drive best practice across your sales team and grow revenue. With a CRM system undermining your sales execution, you can ensure that your Sales people share a common methodology, understand where their prospects are in the sales process and address their needs effectively - ultimately increasing closure rates.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Sales Performance Metrics</span>\r\nGenerate Reports and Dashboards that give you insight into your sales pipeline and performance. By understanding your sales performance you can improve execution, increase conversion rates and grow your revenues.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Quotations</span>\r\nBuild professional looking quotations in a matter of minutes. Standardise terms and conditions, control discounting and ensure quotations are followed-up effectively.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Tracking Sales Activities</span>\r\nRecord Sales Activities to ensure that Opportunities are progressed effectively and no calls are overlooked. Analyse which activities are the most productive and replicate these as best-practice examples for the whole team.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Sales Forecasting</span>\r\nEnable your sales people to forecast effectively. Identify your ‘best case’ and ‘commit’. Determine how likely those deals are to close and if your team is likely to hit target. Generate Reports and Dashboards to provide real-time visibility to sales teams and managers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Existing Account Management</span>\r\nManage your customers more effectively by using the data held in your CRM. Understand your customer landscape, improve retention rates, up-sell within an account. Improve your customer service.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Order Creation &amp; Processing</span>\r\nCreate and manage orders within your CRM. Turn quotes into orders with a single click and track the status of orders as they are fulfilled and invoiced.","shortDescription":"Workbooks.com CRM brings your Sales, Marketing and Customer Service teams together.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":15,"sellingCount":12,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Workbooks.com","keywords":"your, sales, marketing, effectively, Management, more, with, ensure","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Workbooks CRM helps you run campaigns and generate more quality leads.&nbsp;</span>\r\nWe give you the tools you need to execute your marketing strategy and measure ROI.\r\nFeatures to support Marketing Success\r\nData Management, Pr","og:title":"Workbooks.com","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Workbooks CRM helps you run campaigns and generate more quality leads.&nbsp;</span>\r\nWe give you the tools you need to execute your marketing strategy and measure ROI.\r\nFeatures to support Marketing Success\r\nData Management, Pr","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Workbooks.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1136,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support":{"id":1455,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":1,"alias":"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support","companyTitle":"Zendesk","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4140,"companyAlias":"zendesk","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to make a purchase when you reach out with a chat.</li><li>Less wait, more happy. Chat and messaging let agents help more customers in less time, which means happier customers more of the time.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Support Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<ul><li>Customer service for humans. Build trust with customers by offering responsive, personalized, support on the channels they prefer.</li><li>Powerfully productive agents. Set agents up for success with effective tools for collaboration, information gathering, and automation.</li><li>Self-service satisfaction. Give customers 24/7 support with easy access to the answers they need, wherever they are.</li><li>Easy does it. Relationships with customers can be complex, but the tools to manage them shouldn’t be. Zendesk Support is intuitive, built with customer support agents in mind. And set-up takes days, not months, which means less training for agents and happier teams overall.</li><li>Make it yours. Zendesk Support is designed to be flexible because no two businesses are exactly alike. Configure any workflow, from the simplest to the most complex, extend your agent’s help desk with hundreds of available apps, or design sophisticated customizations with our API. Everything is possible.</li><li>Come to a better understanding. Zendesk Support provides clear visibility into customer interactions, which helps better serve their needs. This is important because personalized service requires greater context. Using our customer analytics and machine learning capabilities, you can better understand and predict customer satisfaction, measure performance, and uncover actionable insights across your data.</li><li>Our people are your people. Zendesk Support is backed up by a team of experts. Our Advocate Team offers worldwide support across email, phone, and chat – helping you solve problems, not just tickets. Our Success Team can also work as an extension of your team. Through focused service engagements, we can set goals and create strategies across all stages of growth to optimize the experience for your customers.</li></ul>","shortDescription":"Zendesk Chat - reach your customers, instantly via web, mobile, and messaging. \r\nZendesk Support is a beautifully simple system for tracking, prioritizing, and solving customer support tickets","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":10,"sellingCount":1,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to m","og:title":"Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to m","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1456,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide":{"id":1453,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":1,"alias":"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide","companyTitle":"Zendesk","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4140,"companyAlias":"zendesk","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\nAnticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.\r\nRaise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to make a purchase when you reach out with a chat.\r\nLess wait, more happy. Chat and messaging let agents help more customers in less time, which means happier customers more of the time.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Support Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Customer service for humans. Build trust with customers by offering responsive, personalized, support on the channels they prefer.</li><li>Powerfully productive agents. Set agents up for success with effective tools for collaboration, information gathering, and automation.</li><li>Self-service satisfaction. Give customers 24/7 support with easy access to the answers they need, wherever they are.</li><li>Easy does it. Relationships with customers can be complex, but the tools to manage them shouldn’t be. Zendesk Support is intuitive, built with customer support agents in mind. And set-up takes days, not months, which means less training for agents and happier teams overall.</li><li>Make it yours. Zendesk Support is designed to be flexible because no two businesses are exactly alike. Configure any workflow, from the simplest to the most complex, extend your agent’s help desk with hundreds of available apps, or design sophisticated customizations with our API. Everything is possible.</li><li>Come to a better understanding. Zendesk Support provides clear visibility into customer interactions, which helps better serve their needs. This is important because personalized service requires greater context. Using our customer analytics and machine learning capabilities, you can better understand and predict customer satisfaction, measure performance, and uncover actionable insights across your data.</li><li>Our people are your people. Zendesk Support is backed up by a team of experts. Our Advocate Team offers worldwide support across email, phone, and chat – helping you solve problems, not just tickets. Our Success Team can also work as an extension of your team. Through focused service engagements, we can set goals and create strategies across all stages of growth to optimize the experience for your customers.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Guide Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<ul><li>Grow what you know. Capture your agents’ collective knowledge and build on it over time to respond to support requests more effectively.</li><li>Give them the good stuff. Give customers the most relevant answers and information automatically—and in context—for a faster self-service experience.</li><li>Be better with bots. AI powered Answer Bot can resolve high-frequency, low-touch tickets by sending customers relevant articles while they wait for an agent.</li><li>Get smarter as you go. Measure and score the popularity and effectiveness of your content to see what needs work, and what you should write next.</li><li>A powerful pair. Zendesk Support works with Guide to make your knowledge base smarter. When customers use self-service, Guide tracks that activity and sends it to Support in the form of contextual insights in Pathfinder that help agents analyze customer activity and solve tickets faster. This info is fed back into Guide, which continuously improves and refines the info it offers to both agents and customers.</li><li>You have what it takes. With Guide, setting up a well-stocked knowledge base is easy. The Knowledge Capture app allows agents to turn every customer interaction into new content, flag old content for improvements, and even search for articles to share in tickets. This continuous feedback loop creates a treasure trove of knowledge for agents—both new and old—and helps get your self-service up and running right out of the gate.</li><li>Know thy self-service. Guide lets you create a single version of your content and then distribute it everywhere at once. You don’t have to worry about device incompatibility or what version of content is out in the wild. Articles are automatically optimized so they’re easy to find on search engines or on your own help center. And with Zendesk Embeddables, the most relevant articles are matched and recommended to customers based on their browsing activity.</li><li>Thanks a bot. The Guide Answer Bot lends agents a helping hand, reducing their workload and freeing them up to focus on problems that require a human touch. Using artificial intelligence, Answer Bot automatically resolves high-frequency and low-touch tickets by suggesting relevant articles to customers while they wait for an agent. And Answer Bot keeps getting smarter. It learns from each customer interaction and trains itself to deliver more relevant and customized content with each solved ticket.</li></ul>","shortDescription":"Zendesk решение: ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":10,"sellingCount":16,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\nAnticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.\r\nRaise your sales. Cu","og:title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat Features:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \"><br /></span>\r\nAnticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.\r\nRaise your sales. Cu","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1454,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide-zendesk-talk":{"id":1451,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide, ZENDESK Talk","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":1,"alias":"zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide-zendesk-talk","companyTitle":"Zendesk","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4140,"companyAlias":"zendesk","description":"&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat&nbsp;</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Features:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to make a purchase when you reach out with a chat.</li><li>Less wait, more happy. Chat and messaging let agents help more customers in less time, which means happier customers more of the time.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Support&nbsp;</span><span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Features</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Customer service for humans.&nbsp;Build trust with customers by offering responsive, personalized, support on the channels they prefer.</li><li>Powerfully productive agents.&nbsp;Set agents up for success with effective tools for collaboration, information gathering, and automation.</li><li>Self-service satisfaction.&nbsp;Give customers 24/7 support with easy access to the answers they need, wherever they are.</li><li>Easy does it.&nbsp;Relationships with customers can be complex, but the tools to manage them shouldn’t be. Zendesk Support is intuitive, built with customer support agents in mind. And set-up takes days, not months, which means less training for agents and happier teams overall.</li><li>Make it yours.&nbsp;Zendesk Support is designed to be flexible because no two businesses are exactly alike. Configure any workflow, from the simplest to the most complex, extend your agent’s help desk with hundreds of available apps, or design sophisticated customizations with our API. Everything is possible.</li><li>Come to a better understanding.&nbsp;Zendesk Support provides clear visibility into customer interactions, which helps better serve their needs. This is important because personalized service requires greater context. Using our customer analytics and machine learning capabilities, you can better understand and predict customer satisfaction, measure performance, and uncover actionable insights across your data.</li><li>Our people are your people.&nbsp;Zendesk Support is backed up by a team of experts. Our Advocate Team offers worldwide support across email, phone, and chat – helping you solve problems, not just tickets. Our Success Team can also work as an extension of your team. Through focused service engagements, we can set goals and create strategies across all stages of growth to optimize the experience for your customers.</li></ul>\r\n<p style=\"text-indent: 24px; \"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-indent: 24px; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Zendesk Guide&nbsp;</span><span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Features</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">:</span></p>\r\n<div style=\"display: inline !important; \"><ul><li>Grow what you know.&nbsp;Capture your agents’ collective knowledge and build on it over time to respond to support requests more effectively.</li><li>Give them the good stuff.&nbsp;Give customers the most relevant answers and information automatically—and in context—for a faster self-service experience.</li><li>Be better with bots.&nbsp;AI powered Answer Bot can resolve high-frequency, low-touch tickets by sending customers relevant articles while they wait for an agent.</li><li>Get smarter as you go.&nbsp;Measure and score the popularity and effectiveness of your content to see what needs work, and what you should write next.</li><li>A powerful pair.&nbsp;Zendesk Support works with Guide to make your knowledge base smarter. When customers use self-service, Guide tracks that activity and sends it to Support in the form of contextual insights in Pathfinder that help agents analyze customer activity and solve tickets faster. This info is fed back into Guide, which continuously improves and refines the info it offers to both agents and customers.</li><li>You have what it takes.&nbsp;With Guide, setting up a well-stocked knowledge base is easy. The Knowledge Capture app allows agents to turn every customer interaction into new content, flag old content for improvements, and even search for articles to share in tickets. This continuous feedback loop creates a treasure trove of knowledge for agents—both new and old—and helps get your self-service up and running right out of the gate.</li><li>Know thy self-service.&nbsp;Guide lets you create a single version of your content and then distribute it everywhere at once. You don’t have to worry about device incompatibility or what version of content is out in the wild. Articles are automatically optimized so they’re easy to find on search engines or on your own help center. And with Zendesk Embeddables, the most relevant articles are matched and recommended to customers based on their browsing activity.</li><li>Thanks a bot.&nbsp;The Guide Answer Bot lends agents a helping hand, reducing their workload and freeing them up to focus on problems that require a human touch. Using artificial intelligence, Answer Bot automatically resolves high-frequency and low-touch tickets by suggesting relevant articles to customers while they wait for an agent. And Answer Bot keeps getting smarter. It learns from each customer interaction and trains itself to deliver more relevant and customized content with each solved ticket.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Talk</span><span style=\"text-indent: 24px; font-weight: bold; \">&nbsp;</span><span style=\"text-indent: 24px; font-weight: 700; \">Features</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">:</span>\r\nTalk is cloud-based call center software built right into the Zendesk Support ticketing system, allowing customer service teams to provide phone support from the same platform they use to manage all other channels. With full customer history, automatic ticket creation, and call recording, agents can focus on conversations instead of workflow.","shortDescription":"Zendesk CRM solution: Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Talk","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":20,"sellingCount":10,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide, ZENDESK Talk","keywords":"","description":"&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat&nbsp;</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Features:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to","og:title":"ZENDESK Chat, ZENDESK Support, Zendesk Guide, ZENDESK Talk","og:description":"&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: 700; \">Zendesk Chat&nbsp;</span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Features:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Anticipate customer questions and offer help when—and where—they need it most.</li><li>Raise your sales. Customers are 3X more likely to","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zendesk.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1452,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":186,"title":"VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol","alias":"voip-voice-over-internet-protocol","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Voice over Internet Protocol </span>(Voice over IP, VoIP) is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Other terms commonly associated with VoIP solutions are IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service.\r\nThe term Internet telephony specifically refers to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding.\r\nInstead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, however, the digital information is packetized, and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. Such transmission entails careful considerations about resource management different from time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the benefits of VoIP?</h1>\r\n VoIP technology can facilitate tasks and deliver services that might be cumbersome or costly to implement when using traditional PSTN: \r\n<ul><li>More than one phone call can be transmitted on the same broadband phone line. This way, VoIP system can facilitate the addition of telephone lines to businesses without the need for additional physical lines.</li><li>Features that are usually charged extra by telecommunication companies, such as call forwarding, caller ID or automatic redialing, are simple with voice over internet technology.</li><li>Unified Communications are secured with VoIP technology, as it allows integration with other services available on the internet such as video conversation, messaging, etc. </li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">VoIP programs </h1>\r\nThere are four main types of VoIP technology. Each option has varying levels of complexity which can impact ease of implementation and maintenance.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated Access</span>\r\nIntegrated access is the VoIP service that most mimics the traditional phone line. With integrated access VoIP, businesses integrate VoIP software and existing, legacy phone systems. This approach lets the business keep its old number and equipment while also gaining access to advanced telecommunications features. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SIP Trunks</span>\r\n Session Initial Protocol (SIP) transmits voice and video information across a data network, letting VoIP users take advantage of shared lines and increase their communications flexibility. Because all data is sent over a network, businesses can use SIP trunks to replace traditional analog phone networks or use a VoIP gateway to integrate SIP trunking with legacy phone systems. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Hosted IP PBX</span>\r\n What most people envision when they think of VoIP, this VoIP solution sees a vendor host and operate the private branch exchange, offering unified communications solutions. The business connects to a hosted cloud-based PBX network via its IP network. Phone system hardware is maintained off-site by the hosted IP PBX vendor, and all responsibility for the hardware, software, maintenance, security and upgrades all falls on the hosted PBX provider. \r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Managed IP PBX </span>\r\nSimilar to Hosted IP PBX, this version of the unified communication solution is outsourced to a third party that takes care of all management requirements, but instead of phone hardware being off-site, the equipment is housed on-premise by the business. \r\nUnderstanding these different services of VoIP communication can help a business determine the system that best suits its needs. SIP Trunks, for instance, are more attractive to those who want to install their own technology and manage it themselves, while still connecting to VoIP features.\r\n On the other hand, managed IP PBX is a good option for those who don’t have the resources to buy and operate their own VoIP systems. The Hosted IP PBX solution frees the business to select the VoIP management software that works for them and liberates them from the cost and administrative headache of maintaining both voice and data lines and the related carrier partnerships. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/VoIP_-_Voice_over_Internet_Protocol.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},"zoho-contactmanager":{"id":1122,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Zoho_ContactManager.jpg","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Zoho ContactManager","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":1,"alias":"zoho-contactmanager","companyTitle":"Zoho Corporation","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4023,"companyAlias":"zoho-corporation","description":"Get more context. Make smarter decisions.\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Have one place for all your contacts. Maintain your contacts in a centralized address book, and have a unified view of related tasks, notes, and emails.</li><li>Track deals, and tasks.Stay on top of your deals, manage your tasks, and follow up on your to-do items. Categorize everything with Tags.</li><li>Bring your team together. Create, assign custom roles to team members and control who can see what information with predefined user profiles. Stay up-to-date of all the happenings in your team through Feeds.</li><li>Search intelligently. Quickly find exactly what you want with the intelligent multi-conditional search feature.</li><li>Use smart templates. Improve your productivity by using smart task and email templates to share best practices with your team. Engage via email &amp; social media.</li><li>Manage your email interactions. Stay glued with your social media audience and build beautiful customer relationships online.</li></ul>\r\nZoho ContactManager integrates with\r\n<ul><li>Zoho Mail</li><li>MS Outlook</li><li>MailChimp</li><li>G Suite</li><li>Card Scanner</li><li>Facebook</li><li>Twitter</li></ul>","shortDescription":"Zoho ContactManager is an online contact management software that lets you organize contacts, tasks, and deals in one place. Managing your business contacts just got easier.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":9,"sellingCount":17,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Zoho ContactManager","keywords":"your, with, team, Zoho, tasks, Stay, email, media","description":"Get more context. Make smarter decisions.\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Have one place for all your contacts. 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The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":277,"title":"Enterprise Social Networks","alias":"enterprise-social-networks","description":" Enterprise social networking focuses on the use of online social networks or social relations among people who share business interests and/or activities. Enterprise social networking is often a facility of enterprise social software (regarded as a primary component of Enterprise 2.0), which is essentially social software used in &quot;enterprise&quot; (business/commercial) contexts. It encompasses modifications to corporate intranets (referred to as social intranets) and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication, collaboration and other aspects of their intranets. Enterprise social networking is also generally thought to include the use of a standard external social networking service to generate visibility for an enterprise.\r\nSocial networking sites started to form in the 1990s; an example of these websites is Theglobe.com, which began in 1995. As other websites such as GeoCities and Tripod.com started to form online communities, they encouraged their users to interact with each other via chat rooms and other tools. They also provided easy-to-use publishing tools along with free web space. Classmates.com’s approach was to link people together via their emails, the website was like a friends search engine.\r\nBusinesses eventually realized that social networking websites could provide a fast and efficient way of marketing. Social media websites are great places for businesses to reach their customers, and the environment can provide a means for growing a business. In 2005, as social networking websites were becoming more and more popular, Myspace had more page views than Google. Myspace was followed by Facebook which started in February 2004. When Facebook began, users were limited to college students in the United States, who had to use a college email with a .edu extension to join the network. In September 2005 some high schools were allowed to join the network, but they needed an invitation to join. On September 26 of 2006, Facebook announced that anyone around the world older than 13 years old with a valid email would be able to join Facebook’s online community. In October 2007, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook. That gave them the right to place international ads on Facebook. In July 2010 it was reported that Facebook had more than 500 million active users. This means that one out of fourteen people around the world is a Facebook user. The growth of Facebook was a boom in the social networking space. Facebook became a huge corporation that had 1400 employees in 2009; their estimated revenue was US$800 million in 2009. In 2010, it was reported that there were more than 200 social networking websites on the web.\r\nMany companies are starting to implement social networks to promote collaboration amongst their employees. Vendors are now starting to use this as a way to help out the different companies. Some companies are starting to teach their employees about cloud computing and SaaS. These new technologies are being added to the enterprise social networks. These networks are being implemented to get employees collaborating and sharing tips and ideas about how to improve the workplace. Some social networks are homegrown systems that are built internally. Companies are using social networks to trade information amongst team members or other people who are part of the company. Sometimes this might also mean trading documents in real time. Based on research by Gartner (2010), 50% of enterprises will be using some sort of social network by 2012.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an enterprise social network?</span>\r\nSocial networks are inherently open, public spaces, available to anyone who wishes to sign up. Now imagine a private social network, only accessible by members of an organization, business or club. This is essentially what an enterprise social network is, kept private to that particular organization. This can be extremely useful for businesses that require all the collaborative features and efficiency of a modern social network, without the public, potentially unsecured nature of them.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why use an enterprise social network?</span>\r\nWe’re inherently social beings, and so the modern enterprise workplace contains an abundance of varying formats of communication, both online and off. Talking to co-workers, making phone calls, sending emails – the list goes on. By compiling all of these channels of connectivity together into one interactive, easily accessible digital environment, you can reap the many rewards of enhanced, community-driven workspaces, helping to move your business forward through better connectivity, collaboration and productivity.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What form do corporate social networks take?</span>\r\nOrganizations can utilize a range of different social platforms, such as discussion forums and intranets. Whatever works for your company, team or department, can become a social network.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Enerprise_Social_Networks.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"},{"id":409,"title":"Content Collaboration","alias":"content-collaboration","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Content collaboration</span> software makes it easy for your users to securely create, access, share and manage business content.\r\nThe content collaboration platform (CCP) market covers a range of products and services that enable content productivity and collaboration. CCPs are aimed at individuals and teams, inside or outside an organization. Additionally, CCPs increasingly support lightweight content management and workflow use cases. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Core user functionalities include: </span>\r\n<ul><li>Mobile access to content repositories.</li><li> File synchronization across devices and cloud repositories.</li><li>File sharing with people and applications, inside or outside an organization. </li><li>Team collaboration, with dedicated folders.</li><li>A content repository. This can be cloud based collaboration software or on-premises program, native to the CCP platform or based on other file servers or repositories.</li></ul>\r\nCommon <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">features </span>of collaboration software include messaging, audio and video conferencing, task management, document management, calendars, and time tracking.\r\nFrom employees and decision-makers to partners, vendors, regulators and customers, your users benefit from easy, secure access to valuable business content. Rather than keeping files locked up in silos, content collaboration software enables information to flow safely and freely within your organization and across your firewall to external contacts.\r\nSecuring those documents is the challenge. Unless your content collaboration software maintains the highest standards of performance, security, auditing and reliability, cross-enterprise document sharing may lead to inadvertent data leaks or malicious security breaches.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Types of collaboration software tools</h1>\r\nGenerally, collaboration software can be divided into synchronous (or real-time) and asynchronous. Using synchronous software, teammates can work together at the same time, for example with apps that allow several users to edit the same document in real time. Asynchronous software enables users to work on the same task at different times.\r\nBased on their key features, collaboration software can be classified into:\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Communication software</span></p>\r\nTo solve communication problems, communication software offers chat and audio or video collaboration platform so people can communicate within teams without having to travel. As a result, communication software saves time, helps solve problems faster, and allows remote teams to connect, which otherwise would be difficult and time-consuming.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Key features include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Chat and messaging to enable real-time text conversations using direct messages or group chats</li><li>Audio and video conferencing to let people make calls and hold meetings regardless of their location</li><li>Discussion threads to allow users to reply to one particular message in a group chat or channel without distracting other teammate</li><li>File sharing or file collaboration software to make it fast and easy to upload and send files</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Task management software</span></p>\r\nTask management is an important part of collaboration. Teams use task management software to prioritize and track tasks, which helps to keep track of deadlines. To make collaboration more transparent and effective, task management software often provides boards, timelines, and calendars.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Key features include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Boards to create and manage tasks</li><li>Task assignment to appoint people to a task</li><li>Task prioritization to move tasks and set the project schedule</li><li>Planning and scheduling to create plans and meet deadlines using timelines and calendars</li><li>File management to attach and arrange file</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Document and content management software</span></p>\r\nDocument and content management software allows users to store, share, and work together on different files. Most of these tools track history of changes that different users make. Some collaboration apps and platforms also have features like chat and video conferencing, allowing users to collaborate on a document and communicate at the same time.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Key features include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Document and content management to store and track documents and other files</li><li>Cooperative writing to let several people write content together</li><li>Synchronous editing to let several people edit the same document at the same time and see changes in real time</li><li> Ready-made templates to create documents faster</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Content_Collaboration.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}},"aliases":{"1":["absalon-crm-for-consumer-goods","amazon-simple-email-service","binary-mlm-software","cloze-crm","egain-mail","eptica-customer-engagement-suite","microsoft-dynamics-crm","netsuite","pipedrive","workbookscom","zendesk-chat-zendesk-support","zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide","zendesk-chat-zendesk-support-zendesk-guide-zendesk-talk","zoho-contactmanager"]},"links":{"first":"http://b4r_be/api/products?page=1","last":"http://b4r_be/api/products?page=1","prev":null,"next":null},"meta":{"current_page":1,"from":1,"last_page":1,"path":"http://b4r_be/api/products","per_page":20,"to":14,"total":14},"loading":false,"error":null,"useProductLoading":false,"sellProductLoading":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{}},"filters":{"filterCriterias":{"loading":false,"error":null,"data":{"price":{"min":0,"max":6000},"users":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"suppliers":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"vendors":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"roles":{"id":200,"title":"Roles","values":{"1":{"id":1,"title":"User","translationKey":"user"},"2":{"id":2,"title":"Supplier","translationKey":"supplier"},"3":{"id":3,"title":"Vendor","translationKey":"vendor"}}},"categories":{"flat":[],"tree":[]},"countries":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}}}},"showAIFilter":false},"companies":{"companiesByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"implementations":{"implementationsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"agreements":{"agreementById":{},"ids":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"comparison":{"loading":false,"error":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{},"products":[],"selectedTemplateId":null},"presentation":{"type":null,"company":{},"products":[],"partners":[],"formData":{},"dataLoading":false,"dataError":false,"loading":false,"error":false},"catalogsGlobal":{"subMenuItemTitle":""}}