Review of Complaint Management: The Heart of CRM (Hardcover)

In the past few decades the Services Industry has advanced long way – in a direction from product services to a customer centric business environments.
Although the quantitative and qualitative importance of services – as well as its spectrum of offerings – has grown quite considerably,the thrust of activity still seems solely to center around itsoperational tasks and processes. Bernd Stauss’ and Wolfgang Seidel’s revolutionary Complaint Managent model represents an impressive progress in our understanding of what services organisations must do to become outstanding and exemplary leaders in the roles ofservices providers and services innovators.
I have read the book entirely page by page, each chapter creatingmore desire and curiosty to read the next one.
Today the aspects of complaint managementare used probably in hundreds ofbusiness facilities around the world, yet there is to my knowledge no other book or public documentation providing such a holistic introduction and a guidance to everyone in services management, to enable the creation of a powerful blue print for services organisations.

Walter Duschek, Speaker of the Supervisory Board Spirit/21 AG, VP AFSMI

Product Description
Every company strives for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. But without effective complaint management, it’s only a matter of time before the seemingly sweet company-client relationship may turn sour. Drawing from their extensive experience in customer service (both from academic research and practical business perspectives), Stauss and Seidel deliver thorough coverage of complaint management, from helping readers understand why customers complain to illustrating how to handle customer complaints to effectively measuring and analyzing complaints. Complaint Management is an excellent resource for marketing professionals in customer support, technical support, and marketing management, as well as executives, department managers, and any employee who has direct contact with complaining customers.

About the Author
Professor Bern Stauss holds the first German chair for services management at the Business School of Ingolstadt of the Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt.Currently, his research deals with aspects of services marketing, service quality, quality management in the service industry, management of internal services, customer retention, complaint management, regain management, and electronic services.Stauss has written and edited several books, and he has also written more than 140 articles, which were published in books and journals like Managing Service Quality, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service Research and European Journal of Marketing.

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Review of Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies For The Age Of The Customer (Paperback)

This 1991 book focuses on technology marketing, but it is relevant to general marketing today. In some respects, McKenna was a marketing prophet, since he was an early proponent of experience-based marketing, interactivity, connectivity and creativity.He sees marketing as a means of building relationships and credibility through a four-part process:

1. Use word of mouth, primarily through face-to-face meetings.
2. Develop the infrastructure (rank influencers in your industry and cultivate relationships)
3. Form strategic relationships with the 10% who influence the other 90%..
4. Sell to the right customers.

Here are some of my other take-aways from Relationship Marketing:

* Shift from monologue to dialogue.
* Concentrate on substance before image.
* Be wary of secondary marketing research reports.
* In the information age, image advertising won’t work.
* Know that the line between products and services is blurring
* Personality and image are always changing.
* Perpetual adaptation makes a product successful.
* Marketing is a process, not a set of tactics.
* Marketing is qualitative, not quantitative.
* Marketing is everyone’s job.

McKenna also has a distinctive approach to positioning. Unlike Trout and Ries, he sees positioning as a blend of technology, price, applications, quality, service, distribution channels, target audience, specific customers, and alliances. In other words, positioning is who you are, not what you want people to believe you are. He also sees positioning as changing and dynamic.

When you look at the world of blogs and social media, this counsel makes more sense than ever. I also think McKenna was on the mark with his expanded understanding of positioning and focus on relationships as the focal point of marketing.

I’m very glad I read this book in the late 90s.It has helped me become a better marketer. Her are other books to consider:

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition
The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage
Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets (Collins Business Essentials)
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual

Product Description
The bestselling author of The Regis Touch expands on his previous work to focus on building crucial relationships that help a company dominate–and own–the market in this age of the customer. Includes stories, insights, and advice to give readers an edge in today’s fiercely competitive climate.

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Review of Data Mining Techniques: For Marketing, Sales, and Customer Support (Paperback)

It covers almost every aspect of data mining. It is clear, precise, goes to the point, and sometimes goes into some depth. If you are a marketing person, it will give you a very refined idea of what can be done with datamining, and what does it involves for your company ( remember the firstthing you need is DATA!!). If you are an academic person, you will get ageneral idea of the different kinds of data analysis. You won’t see anyformulae or algorithms, after reading this book look for details somewhereelse.

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Review of Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together (Hardcover)

This book is one the best for understanding Lean applications in Services.
It is not the techniques that makes this book great. These are known.

The real strengths of this book are the questions it raises, the examples it provides, and its perspective on application and implementation.

The questions raised are from a consumer’s point of view – getting problems solved completely, when and where we want them solved, without investing too much of our ‘unpaid’ time. The book also clearly demonstrates how Lean can result in a ‘win win’ for producers and consumers.

The examples illustrated are very helpful and insighful. They also cover a wide range – from Help Desks to Retail to Air Travel.

Above all, the language is simple, the explanations down to earth. And yet, very insightful and thought provoking.

Indeed, the book is very well crafted.

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Review of Maximizing Call Center Performance (Paperback)

Unless you are looking for the most simplistic view of call centers, don’t buy this book.You would do just as well to send some grade school kids into a call center and ask them for their insights.As a matter of fact, if you are determined to read it, I”LL SEND YOU MY COPY FORFREE–don’t waste any money on it.

Product Description
Ever wish you could find out how North America’s biggest and most advanced call centers are really using call center technology? Want to know how successful call centers have solved the problems behind basic call center functions such as order handling, h

For call center managers who want to make their customers happy and their company successful, this book shows how to leverage call center technology. It’s packed with innovative solutions from a variety of industries, and provides practical applications for cutting-edge technologies.

About the Author
Madeline Bodin has been writing about call centers for over 10 years. She is a former editor of Call Center Magazine. Her books have been translated into several languages and are read around the globe. Her most recent book is Maximizing Call Center Performance. Keith Dawson is one of the world’s foremost authorities on call centers. He is currently Senior Editor at CommWeb and was founder of Call Center News Service, which is the industry’s premier online source for industry information and analysis, an independent online source for industry information. He is also author of ‘Call Center Savvy’ and ‘Call Center Handbook’.

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Review of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback)

Book is well-written and covers all the major subjects, but I can’t help but think that there’s more detail to CRM4 than what is presented.

This is a broad overview. Good book for starters, but it won’t tell you how to do what YOU want/need to do after setting things up. You will need to extrapolate that yourself. This is a good introduction, because it covers alot of ground, but it doessn’t do more than introduce concepts and showing you where things are.

Don’t get it if you are already familiar with MS Dynamics CRM.

Product Description
Customer relationship management, or CRM, is certainly a hot topic in business today. If you have a small or medium-sized business, chances are you’re already aware of all it can do for you. But with so many options and so much to think about, how do you get a CRM system in place with a minimum of hassle? Well, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 For Dummies is a great place to start!

Written by veteran CRM experts Joel Scott and David Lee, this friendly guide will have you understanding and using Microsoft’s CRM solution in a jiffy. Whether you’re considering a CRM system for the first time or you’ve decided to switch from another system to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this book will make it easy to:

• Maintain and manage all your customer information
• Personalize Microsoft CRM to work for your business
• Set up CRM to support sales, marketing, and customer service
• Use the Outlook client
• Manage territories and business units
• Create and manage activities
• Generate quotes and invoices
• Implement and manage a marketing campaign
• Work with contracts, and much more

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 For Dummies is packed with information on the latest version, It will help you get a unified view of your customer information and interactions through integrated sales, marketing, and customer service features. And that, as every business owner knows, is important to improving your bottom line!

From the Back Cover
Personalize Microsoft CRM to work for your business

Find out how to support your sales, marketing, and customer service initiatives

Microsoft Dynamics CRM means business! Here’s what you need to get going now with this customer relationship management solution. Discover how to set up CRM 4, navigate and customize the system, use it to work with your accounts and contacts, collect leads, forecast sales, run reports, and much more.

Discover how to:

• Navigate the Microsoft CRM system

• Create and manage activities

• Generate quotes and invoices

• Implement and manage a marketing campaign

• Work with contracts

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Review of Microsoft CRM 3 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback)

This book lives up to its promise and more.An easy to read book, but detailed enough to get you up and running with every facet of using Microsoft CRM.Whether you are new to Microsoft CRM or just want a reference that goes beyond the help files included with CRM, this is the book for you.With 29 chapters, things are organized neatly which makes certain subject areas easy to find.

I used this book to get up to speed on CRM and also as a preliminary text for studying the CRM Applications exam.This wasn’t the only reference I used, but it is a great starting place and helped me achieve a high score on the exam.

Any computer topic can easily be dry and boring, but the authors really bring things to life with light and witty humor.

I read this book myself cover to cover and now use it as a reference guide.As a CRM consultant I plan to give a copy to all of my customers, I know they’ll appreciate it.

While there is a short chapter on Workflow, if you’re looking for in depth customization or programming information, this book does not have that.While they have several chapters on some of the built in customizations (out of the box), the authors did a great job of keeping on the intended topic of providing a general guide to using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Product Description
Manage sales, service, and marketing processes all together

Find out how to manage customer information to make your business more productive

Whether you’re completely new to customer relationship management (CRM) software or you just want the scoop on the newest version, this handy guide will get you going. Discover how to set up CRM 3, navigate and customize the system, use it to work with your accounts and contacts, collect leads, forecast sales, run reports, and much more.

Discover how to
* Develop and manage customer relationships
* Implement a sales process
* Set up security and access rights
* Generate quotes, orders, and invoices
* Manage leads and opportunities
* Create and use product catalogs

From the Back Cover
Manage sales, service, and marketing processes all together

Find out how to manage customer information to make your business more productive

Whether you’re completely new to customer relationship management (CRM) software or you just want the scoop on the newest version, this handy guide will get you going. Discover how to set up CRM 3, navigate and customize the system, use it to work with your accounts and contacts, collect leads, forecast sales, run reports, and much more.

Discover how to

• Develop and manage customer relationships
• Implement a sales process
• Set up security and access rights
• Generate quotes, orders, and invoices
• Manage leads and opportunities
• Create and use product catalogs

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