CRM and customer loyalty news announced recently:

NextNine, which describes itself as a vendor of "proactive, automated, remote service and support products for business-critical systems," today announced the immediate availability of NextNine Service Automation Version 4.0.

This software is billed as being able to help with improved workflows, advanced user personalization and enhanced functionality for compliance with regulation such as HIPAA and SOX.

NextNine Service Automation Version 4.0 helps organizations improve the level of customer service they provide, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and by extension, customer retention and loyalty.

Enhancements include ad-hoc diagnostics, a new graphical user interface and one-click navigation to allow a higher-level of user personalization, enhanced capabilities for modeling complex distributed applications and improved rule definitions and alarm correlation to ensure timely receipt of necessary alarms.

There's also enhanced reporting mechanism enabling the creation of custom reports, enhanced remote access capabilities and tunneling of various protocols including Telnet, VNC and Web, and a new server security and improved end-customer supervision of remote desktop activities.

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QuestionPro, a vendor of online survey services, today announced a new feature designed, company officials say, "to enable businesses to quickly calculate customer loyalty, a key determinant in a company's overall health."

The feature is based on a methodology discussed in the new book "The Ultimate Question," by noted loyalty expert Fred Reichheld, which postulates that knowing the answer to a single question can help companies determine whether they are heading in the right direction.

The question? Keep reading, Grasshopper:

Reichheld, Director Emeritus and Fellow at Bain & Co., is the bestselling author of 1996's The Loyalty Effect and 2001's Loyalty Rules, both published by Harvard Business School Press and each one probably a better book on the subject of customer loyalty than any other one you'll find; Reichheld is to customer loyalty what Peter Drucker was to management. There are very few people who deserve the title "guru" in their disciplines, Reichheld is one of them.

His new book shows how to turn customers into promoters who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth. The key: one simple question -- "Would you recommend us to a friend?" -- that allows companies to track promoters and detractors and produces a clear measure of an organization's performance through its customers' eyes.

QuestionPro has introduced a feature which it says automatically enables this methodology and incorporates answers into an easy-to-read report, showing users exactly what percentages of customers are "promoters" and "detractors" and then calculating the score.

Used in conjunction with the insights in the book, business owners, marketers and researchers now have an easy and cost effective way to determine the health of their business in real-time.

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Sports Loyalty Systems, a customer loyalty company that designs, operates and markets programs for professional sports leagues and their franchises, and Mall Networks, the company that connects online retailers to the universe of consumer rewards programs, have announced a partnership to offer customized online shopping malls to SLS-powered fan loyalty programs for Major League Baseball teams.

Through the partnership, MLB teams will be able to foster better relationships with their fan base by allowing fan loyalty members to earn points faster and easier when shopping online at more than 250 online merchants including Expedia, Lands' End, Overstock.com, and Teleflora.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.