CRM Software

Several breaking news stories in the CRM industry hit the wires of TMC (News - Alert) this week. We saw quite a bit about Google and its CRM search ranking strategies, how best to select a hosted CRM solution, and delved into Netsuite’s CRM in the cloud.

The recent hub bub surrounding Google’s (News - Alert) changing algorithms has probably gotten more attention than the search engine giant would have liked. Revealing that it changed its search result requirements to try and avoid ranking businesses that supply poor customer service, Google has tried to diffuse the situation that has become an alarming reality: When vendors treat their customers like dirt, they get great search results.

Vitaly Borker, an online seller of eyeglasses, apparently berates his customers, and gets rewarded on Google for it. So Google decided to do something about it. Announcing that it had changed its algorithms to make it more difficult for businesses such as DecorMyEyes.com to rank, Google blogged that it looks down upon such customer treatment, and will henceforth make it difficult for “hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide extremely poor user experience,” to rank highly.

In other news, when shopping for the right hosted CRM solution for your business, do you find yourself inundated with too many options? The reality is, as captured in this latest Forbes piece, there are simply too many good CRM applications available on the market today, which makes it that much more difficult to choose the right one for your environment. You know you need to do your research – but where do you start?

The hosted CRM solution should serve as a robust database that keeps track of anything pending for each customer, supplier or partner. A robust system will offer calendars, activity lists and forms so that this pertinent information does not fall through the cracks. It will also provide reminders, automatic e-mails and will schedule follow-ups for others to help deliver the expected service your customers want.

Finally, CRM software has moved from being a helpful tool in a business’s box to an absolutely essential part of user engagement.  Netsuite offers cloud based CRM, resource planning and ecommerce utilities to its customers and the widespread adoption of its software has resulted in a stellar for the company. Following news that the company’s stock had hit a 52 week high this past week, the company has also revealed that it added over 500 companies to its customer roster. The companies defected from Netsuite competitor Sage who also offers CRM and ERP solutions but does so in an on premise solution.

Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.

Edited by Juliana Kenny