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• 6 ways to use analytics to improve customer engagement

  Organizations can delve into customer data to improve interactions, identify gaps and work toward better engagement. Here's how to start out, and how to build on what you have. Continue Reading

• contactless payment

  A contactless payment is a wireless financial transaction in which the customer authorizes monetary compensation for a purchase by moving a security token in close proximity to the vendor's point of sale (PoS) reader. Continue Reading

• How AIOps investment improves customer service, boosts ROI

  Before reaping the benefits of AIOPs -- such as improved customer service and easier collection of customer data -- companies need to determine if it is a good fit. Continue Reading

• Would your customer experience strategy survive 'Shark Tank'?

  Bob Azman identifies what customer experience professionals need to do to get C-suite buy-in and investment support for their customer experience initiatives. Continue Reading

• The psychology of UX design: How design affects CX

  In her book, '100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, 2nd Edition,' Susan Weinschenk explains how UX design relies on psychology to improve customer experiences. Continue Reading

• Definitions to Get Started

  • contactless payment
  • Oracle Customer Experience Cloud (Oracle CX Cloud)
  • database marketing
  • omnichannel

  • CRM (customer relationship management)
  • speech recognition
  • contact center as a service (CCaS)
  • content personalization

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• The history and evolution of CRM

  Customer relationship management had simple beginnings, which evolved into a sophisticated system that helps businesses improve the overall customer experience.Continue Reading

• Customer upselling gets upgrade from AI, analytics

  The time-honored tradition of convincing buyers to make an unexpected impulse purchase combines proven sales tactics with sophisticated customer upselling technologies.Continue Reading

• How to write a marketing email: 10 tips

  There are a number of components that make up a compelling marketing email, including content readers want, photos and videos, calls to action and mobile optimization.Continue Reading

• Create a customer experience strategy before tech investment

  Align customer expectations with your customer experience strategy before making any investments in CX technology. Bob Azman has 10 questions to ask yourself before making any moves.Continue Reading

• A breakdown of inbound marketing vs. demand generation

  Inbound marketing and demand generation are easy to confuse, but they are different. While inbound marketing is marketing-centric, demand generation tends to be more sales-centric.Continue Reading

• Oracle Customer Experience Cloud (Oracle CX Cloud)

  The Oracle Customer Experience Cloud (Oracle CX Cloud) is a suite of cloud-based tools for CRM and sales, marketing, customer service, e-commerce and other tools.Continue Reading

• database marketing

  Database marketing is a systematic approach to the gathering, consolidation and processing of consumer data.Continue Reading

• How to build a world-class customer experience system, part 2

  Building off the previously discussed foundation, Megan Burns explains what's needed to complete an XM system: diagnostic guidelines, micro-design process and rollout infrastructure.Continue Reading

• omnichannel

  Omnichannel -- also spelled omni-channel -- is a multichannel approach to sales that seeks to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, whether they're shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone, or in a ...Continue Reading

• CRM (customer relationship management)

  Customer relationship management (CRM) is the combination of practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.Continue Reading

• speech recognition

  Speech recognition, or speech-to-text, is the ability for a machine or program to identify words spoken aloud and convert them into readable text.Continue Reading

• The importance of personalized experience in CX

  Musa Hanhan breaks down the three stages of customer experience and explains why personalized experiences offer companies the best chance at customer retention.Continue Reading

• contact center as a service (CCaS)

  Contact center as a service (CCaaS) is a framework for contact center infrastructure management that combines the principles of contact center hosting and cloud-based contact center infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Revenue operations vs. sales operations: What's the difference?

  While revenue operations focus on revenue growth and integration of sales, marketing and service departments, sales operations keeps its focus on sales department efficiency.Continue Reading

• How to collect customer data to improve overall retail CX

  Businesses need data to predict and adjust to customer wants and needs, but first, they need to figure out how to collect it. One option is to use a digital CX software.Continue Reading

• content personalization

  Content personalization is a strategy that tailors webpages and other forms of content to individual users' characteristics or preferences.Continue Reading

• Key strategies to build and monitor customer loyalty and trust

  Businesses can't immediately expect trust from customers. It requires a lot of effort to build and eventually gain customer loyalty, especially during a pandemic.Continue Reading

• 10 types of biases that affect customer data analysis

  Analytics can help businesses make data-driven decisions, but common cognitive biases can skew how organizations interpret the information and CX.Continue Reading

• How to create a great customer experience strategy in 6 steps

  In today's business landscape, a powerful CX strategy is key to gaining customer loyalty and a competitive advantage. Here's how to deliver a great customer experience, plus a template.Continue Reading

• Salesforce Service Cloud

  Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for customer service and support, based on the company's CRM software for sales professionals.Continue Reading

• Creating the right self-service content for customers

  Businesses need to provide useful content to customers to help them solve problems without contacting customer service. Providing effective content gives customers answers quickly.Continue Reading

• How to create customer profiles with examples

  Creating customer profiles gives brands a deep understand of their customers' needs and behaviors and results in more successful marketing strategies. Here are steps to get started.Continue Reading

• What roles are essential on a content marketing team?

  There are a number of people involved in business content marketing teams. Some of those roles include content managers, content strategists and content creators.Continue Reading

• 7 benefits of customer experience management

  There are many benefits of a customer experience management strategy, including a reduced customer churn rate, lower marketing costs and improved crisis management.Continue Reading

• How to gather and evaluate customer sentiment

  Businesses can harvest customer sentiment from a variety of places, including social media, surveys, likes, comment cards, contact centers and word-of-mouth.Continue Reading

• customer journey map

  A customer journey map is a visual representation of the stages a customer goes through when interacting with a company.Continue Reading

• voice of the customer (VOC)

  Voice of the customer (VOC) is the component of customer experience that focuses on customer needs, wants, expectations and preferences.Continue Reading

• chief experience officer (CXO)

  A chief experience officer (CXO) is an executive in the C-suite who ensures positive interactions with an organization's customers.Continue Reading

• How to comprehensively personalize the customer experience

  A personalization strategy can increase brand loyalty and customer retention by providing relevant content to customers when they need it. Here's how to get started.Continue Reading

• buyer personas

  A buyer persona is a composite representation of a specific subdivision of a market segment.Continue Reading

• customer experience (CX)

  Customer experience (CX) is the sum total of customers' perceptions and feelings resulting from interactions with a brand's products and services.Continue Reading

• 7 key customer experience metrics to measure

  Net Promoter Score is the most popular customer metric, but it's not the only one for CX teams to measure. Understand which metrics to track and how to calculate them.Continue Reading

• Salesforce Trailhead

  Trailhead is a series of online tutorials that coach beginner and intermediate developers who need to learn how to code for the Salesforce platform.Continue Reading

• 10 ways to improve the customer experience today

  Many organizations struggle with where and how to improve CX, as the focus shifts from CRM to customer experience. Here are 10 strategies to use for a successful journey.Continue Reading

• 10 steps to create a voice of the customer program

  One of the best initiatives a customer experience team can undertake is a voice of the customer program. Here are some guidelines for building one from scratch.Continue Reading

• What are the differences between CRM, CDP and DMP platforms?

  Sales and marketing terms are like alphabet soup, and the different acronyms can get confusing. Find out the difference between three major platforms: CRM, CDP and DMP.Continue Reading

• Building a successful CX governance operating model

  When developing a CX governance operating model, leaders should consider four key components: people, measurement framework, processes and tools and technologies.Continue Reading

• B2C (Business2Consumer or Business-to-Consumer)

  B2C -- short for business-to-consumer -- is a retail model where products move directly from a business to the end user who has purchased the goods or service for personal use.Continue Reading

• Tips for call center crisis management amid coronavirus pandemic

  Call centers can receive an influx of calls from customers during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some steps businesses can take handle the call volume.Continue Reading

• Mystery shopping software key to customer experience management

  Businesses use mystery shopping platforms, comment cards, brand reputation management and more to identify customer pain points and improve customer experience.Continue Reading

• Personalized digital experiences for customers begin at home

  Learn how implementing a rewarding digital experience for savvy customers starts with digitally transforming corporate culture and nurturing a customer-facing staff.Continue Reading

• Contact center workforce management keeps pace with consumers

  Workforce management software improves customer interactions with contact center agents and helps transform customer service from a cost center into a profit center.Continue Reading

• Contact center AI opens new frontiers for customer engagements

  Learn how AI and automation technologies like machine learning, chatbots and NLP are transforming one-dimensional call centers into multidimensional contact centers.Continue Reading

• 5 terms to know before creating a sales enablement strategy

  Sales enablement is important for companies to drive efficiency, maintain customer satisfaction and stay organized. Sales enablement uses different tools and strategies to do this.Continue Reading

• The contact center of the future is here

  What started as a call center phone bank has morphed into a multipurpose operation aided by AI. This guide explores the contact center as it evolves into a critical CX force.Continue Reading

• 5 tips for an effective marketing automation implementation

  Successful marketing automation implementations require steps beyond those that go into the usual technology rollouts. Here are some tips to help businesses along the way.Continue Reading

• 6 ideas to consider before making a C/4HANA SAP cloud migration

  Moving to SAP's C/4HANA platform may lead to improved CX. However, companies should make some considerations before starting an on-premises to SAP cloud migration.Continue Reading

• 5 common call center terms to know

  Businesses interact with customers in a variety of ways, including via phone calls and chatbots. Here are some call center terms that define these interactions.Continue Reading

• virtual agent

  A virtual agent (sometimes called an intelligent virtual agent, virtual rep or chatbot) is a software program that uses scripted rules and, increasingly, artificial intelligence applications to provide automated service or guidance to humans.Continue Reading

• chatbot

  A chatbot -- sometimes referred to as a chatterbot -- is programming that simulates the conversation or "chatter" of a human being through text or voice interactions.Continue Reading

• contact center

  A contact center -- also referred to as a customer interaction center or e-contact center -- is a central point from which all customer interactions across various channels are managed.Continue Reading

• actionable insights

  Actionable insights are conclusions drawn from data that can be turned directly into an action or a response.Continue Reading

• What chatbot evaluation metrics do you use to measure performance?

  Chatbots are an important contact center component -- as is measuring their performance. Learn how to measure chatbot performance in your organization.Continue Reading

• cost per engagement (CPE)

  Cost per engagement (CPE) is an advertising pricing model in which digital marketing teams and advertisers only pay for ads when users interact with their campaign in some way.Continue Reading

• owned media/earned media/paid media

  Owned, earned and paid media are three different types of advertising content used by digital marketing teams to create a complete and effective marketing strategy.Continue Reading

• What is the role of a customer success manager?

  The customer success manager is an essential CX role that takes a proactive approach to ensuring customer loyalty and retention, balancing out automated CRM functions.Continue Reading

• BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store)

  BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) is a business model that allows consumers to shop and place orders online and then pick up their purchases in the brick-and-mortar store, often within the same day.Continue Reading

• real-time analytics

  Real-time analytics is the use of data and related resources for analysis as soon as it enters the system.Continue Reading

• These are the ABCs of marketing in the digital age

  Audience understanding, behavior analysis, marketing convergence and accessible design are the ABCs of marketing in the digital age, according to Microsoft's Purna Virji.Continue Reading

• Best practices for initiating chatbot-to-human handoff

  Customers can become frustrated with chatbots, so it is important for contact centers to design AI that can recognize this and perform a timely handoff to live agents.Continue Reading

• Evolving contact center services reshape engagement strategies

  As consumer expectations increase the need for more satisfying omnichannel engagements, the role of the contact center takes on greater importance and complexity.Continue Reading

• social media influence

  Social media influence is a marketing term that describes an individual’s ability to affect other people's thinking in a social online community.Continue Reading

• The difference between autodialers and predictive dialers

  Some people don't know that a predictive dialer is a type of autodialer. There are, in fact, five broad categories of autodialers contact centers need to know about.Continue Reading

• 8 live chat best practices for organizations to consider

  Organizations find that live chat can be a means to improve customer experience -- when implemented correctly. Here are some best practices to put into action.Continue Reading

• 10 things to know about Google Cloud Contact Center AI

  Google has partnered with more than 90 different companies to roll out its contact center AI. This article lists 10 important things you need to know about the program.Continue Reading

• The art and science of digital experience management strategies

  Businesses need a well-rounded view of customers to provide innovative, personalized digital experiences. In this handbook, learn the techniques and tools of the trade.Continue Reading

• Digital CX vs. customer experience: What's the difference?

  While similar, digital CX and customer experience are different. The former focuses on digital communication tool experiences, while the latter is the overall brand perception.Continue Reading

• Customer data management tools shape personalization, boost CX

  In this guide, learn about the many tools, including customer data platforms, that collect and analyze data from disparate sources and provide a single, 360-degree customer view.Continue Reading

• 5 Gen Z marketing trends for businesses to consider

  Those born after 1995 are driving trends online for themselves and older generations. These shared experiences are important for marketers to understand. Here are some tips.Continue Reading

• Customer service vs. customer experience: What's the difference?

  Customer service is an age-old concept, but where does it fit into the customer experience? Here's how the two are different and where they intersect.Continue Reading

• call center

  A call center is a centralized department to which phone calls from current and potential customers are directed.Continue Reading

• relationship marketing

  Relationship marketing is a customer relationship management strategy designed to encourage strong, lasting customer connections to a brand. The goal is to generate repeat sales, encourage word-of-mouth promotion and gather customer information.Continue Reading

• AI converts consumer analytics into potent sales weapons

  Surveys, social media monitoring and loyalty cards are just some of the ways to collect customer data. Consumer analytics can help businesses analyze that data.Continue Reading

• The evolution of call centers to experience centers

  The call center has evolved over the years, moving from phone-based systems to multichannel contact centers. The next move is toward a customer experience center.Continue Reading

• What are the most effective uses of AI in marketing automation?

  AI is beneficial in many marketing automation processes. Organizations use the technology in chatbots, personalization, voice and visual search, frequency optimization and more.Continue Reading

• Multipronged digital customer experience strategy enriches CX

  The digital experience is an everyday facet of life. Learn how businesses are using tools and technologies to engage consumers and devise and manage effective CX strategies.Continue Reading

• 5 tips for creating customer journey maps from buyer personas

  Comprehensive customer personas are important tools in coping with the increasing complexity of customer journey mapping. Here are some tips on how to do it best.Continue Reading

• 4 steps to create a digital marketing strategy

  This four-step approach will help organizations build a digital marketing strategy designed to increase their online presence and attract new customers.Continue Reading

• 6 live chat benefits to consider in a CX strategy

  Live chat enables customers to solve problems quickly and agents to multitask, but it also can be difficult to implement well and requires synchronous communication.Continue Reading

• brand ambassador

  A brand ambassador is an advocate of a particular company's products and services. In marketing, brand ambassador may actually be a paid position and job title.Continue Reading

• Prepare for California Consumer Privacy Act with these 5 questions

  At Oracle's Modern Customer Experience conference, a privacy professional shared tips on incorporating privacy into CX systems so businesses are ready for the CCPA.Continue Reading

• customer lifecycle

  In customer relationship management (CRM), customer lifecycle is a term used to describe the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using and maintaining loyalty to a product or service.Continue Reading

• customer acquisition cost

  Customer acquisition cost is the fee associated with convincing a consumer to buy your product or service, including research, marketing and advertising costs.Continue Reading

• How to use live chat for lead generation

  Live chat can successfully generate sales leads -- if done right. Here are four steps organizations can take to boost brand loyalty and close the deal.Continue Reading

• marketing-qualified lead (MQL)

  A marketing-qualified lead (MQL) is a website visitor whose engagement levels indicate that he is likely to become a customer. Continue Reading

• Salesforce learning resources include free and paid options

  While Salesforce offers a number of free and paid customer success tools to users, nonusers can also benefit through the use of Trailhead and the Trailblazer Community.Continue Reading

• 7 customer segmentation methods to help connect the dots

  Customer segmentation is essential to marketing, enabling businesses to provide the right people with the right products -- and is a move away from bulk appeals.Continue Reading

• 5 things to know about Salesforce Customer 360

  Salesforce Customer 360 -- a tool that connects customer data stored in multiple silos -- is currently in beta and will be available to all users later this year.Continue Reading

• How do you determine the right point for chatbot-human handoff?

  Customer experience can be adversely affected when chatbots don't transfer the call to a live agent at the right time. Here are some guidelines and best practices for initiating that handoff.Continue Reading

• customer segmentation

  Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests and spending habits.Continue Reading

• marketing automation

  Marketing automation is a type of software that allows companies to effectively target customers with automated marketing messages across channels including email, websites, social media and text messages to generate sales leads.Continue Reading

• 5 crucial ways to prepare for the CXO role

  Technophiles who have experience in sales and marketing, as well as social media awareness, may be best prepared for success in the role of chief experience officer.Continue Reading

• How to improve customer experience with mystery shopping

  Mystery shopping -- among other CX management tools -- enables businesses to collect the data necessary to identify customer pain points and improve CX.Continue Reading

• brand recognition

  Brand recognition is the extent to which a consumer can correctly identify a particular product or service just by viewing the product or service's logo, tag line, packaging or advertising campaign.Continue Reading

• needs assessment

  A needs assessment is an exercise that identifies the difference between a current condition/state and the desired condition/state. Improvements can then be made to improve performance or fix a deficiency.Continue Reading