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Bring yourself up to speed with our introductory content.
call center schedule adherence
Call center schedule adherence is a common metric used in the call center to determine whether or not call center agents are working the amount of time they are scheduled to work. Continue Reading
chief customer officer (CCO)
A chief customer officer, or customer experience officer, is generally responsible for customer research, communicating with company employees and taking charge of customer experience metrics. The position typically reports one level below the chief... Continue Reading
call center shrinkage
Call center shrinkage is a measure of how much time is lost in the call center because agents are unavailable to receive calls. Continue Reading
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obliquity
In systems engineering, obliquity is a theory that proposes the best way to achieve a goal when you are working with a complex system is to take an indirect approach instead of a direct one. Continue Reading
workforce optimization (WFO) software
Workforce optimization (WFO) software is a program suite that combines recording, quality management (QM) and other call center technologies into one console with the purpose of optimizing call center performance. Continue Reading
Call center interaction dos and don'ts
Read about call center interaction dos and don'ts and get tips for improving the customer experience, customer trust and customer retention through call center interactions.Continue Reading
Five call center sales tips and techniques
In difficult economic times, ramping up sales in the call center can provide another outlet to help companies meet sales quotas and drive sales effectiveness. We've gathered these five tips for companies looking to improve call center sales and ...Continue Reading
How to use Web 2.0 technology for customer service, marketing, sales
As more customers head to the Web to review products, make purchases and find information, forward-thinking companies need to learn how to leverage Web 2.0 to stay competitive. Here are a few ways you can use Web 2.0 technologies to improve your ...Continue Reading
Leveraging speech recognition technology in call centers
Learn more about speech recognition technology in this special report, where we've outlined the basics of this up-and-coming call-center technology and what you need to know about speech recognition software for the call center.Continue Reading
neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is the study of how people's brains respond to advertising and other brand-related messages by monitoring brainwave activity, eye-tracking and skin response...(Continued)Continue Reading
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loyalty punch card
A loyalty punch card is a token that lets a customer earn free merchandise or discounts after a certain number of purchases.Continue Reading
loyalty card program
A loyalty card program is an incentive plan that allows a retail business to gather data about its customers. The goal of a loyalty card program is to build repeat business by offering participating customers something that isn't available to ...Continue Reading
transactional marketing
Transactional marketing is a business strategy that focuses on single, "point of sale" transactions. The emphasis is on maximizing the efficiency and volume of individual sales rather than developing a relationship with the buyer. (Continued)Continue Reading
The top 10 customer experience questions
Read our list of the top ten customer experience questions from expert Lior Arussy. Learn about customer experience mapping, the chief customer officer position and more.Continue Reading
SOA and CRM: Top 10 headlines
A service-oriented architecture (SOA) can help enable integration between CRM and other applications in the enterprise. These headlines will get you up to date on the latest news and information on SOA and CRM.Continue Reading
Workforce optimization (WFO) quiz
Workforce optimization (WFO) is still an emerging call center technology, but in recent years the call center market for WFO has experienced tremendous growth as companies look to optimize their business processes through one unified system. Whether...Continue Reading
CRM jobs and careers: Special report
In this CRM jobs and careers special report, you'll find popular news articles, expert advice and other resources to help with a job search or career advancement. Get the latest CRM job market news and headlines from SearchCRM.com and other sources....Continue Reading
Vertical industry CRM: Special report
In this vertical industry CRM special report, we've compiled popular news articles and case studies on implementing, managing and maintaining CRM in vertical industries.Continue Reading
Call center management training
We've gathered these tips and advice on call center management training to help you train current and future call center managers in your organization.Continue Reading
Customer surveying and feedback: Top 10 headlines
The best way to keep your customers satisfied is to solicit their feedback -- and act on it. Failure to do this can be catastrophic for any organization, big or small. We've gathered these headlines on customer surveying and feedback to help you ...Continue Reading
Quality of Experience (QoE or QoX)
Quality of Experience (QoE or QoX) is a measure of the overall level of customer satisfaction with a vendor. QoE is related to but differs from Quality of Service(QoS), which embodies the notion that hardware and software characteristics can be ...Continue Reading
Call center metrics quiz answers
With answers from the Call Center Metrics School quiz, learn about call center metrics like average handle time, occupancy and schedule adherence.Continue Reading
Customer experience management: Top five headlines
In an attempt to build customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, many companies have turned their attention to the customer experience. We've gathered our most popular headlines on customer experience management (CEM) to get you up to date on the ...Continue Reading
CRM ROI quiz.
For many years, the return on investment (ROI) from CRM implementations was dissapointing -- at one point, analysts suggested that eight out of 10 projects failed to deliver on ROI promises. Today's reports are more optimistic, and many ...Continue Reading
Evaluating sales force automation (SFA) software vendors
In this section of the sales force automation (SFA) guide, review top vendors and options including hosted SFA to help you decide if SFA is the right choice for your organization.Continue Reading
market leadership
Market leadership is when an individual or company owns the largest market share or highest profitability margin in a given market for goods and services. Market share may be measured either the volume of goods sold or the value of those goods. (...Continue Reading
Web 2.0 and CRM quiz
This quiz on Web 2.0 and CRM was designed to test your knowledge of Web 2.0 technology and social networking and open your eyes to how this technology can help advance CRM initiatives.Continue Reading
Web 2.0 and CRM quiz answers
Test yourself on Web 2.0 and social networking and how this technology is impacting CRM, with the answers to SearchCRM.com's quiz.Continue Reading
Call Center Performance Management Learning Guide
Performance management skills are essential, yet they aren't easy to master. As a call center manager, you are tested on all aspects of monitoring agents in the call center, including call center planning, developing agent skills, rating agents ...Continue Reading
abandoned call
An abandoned call is a call or other type of contact initiated to a call center that is ended before any conversation occurs... (Continued)Continue Reading
Preventing call center attrition quiz answers
Discover how to prevent call center attrition with the answers to SearchCRM.com's quiz.Continue Reading
Call center interactive voice response (IVR) system quiz answers
Find out how you did on SearchCRM.com's call center IVR system quiz with these answers.Continue Reading
Call center interactive voice response (IVR) system quiz
Call center interactive voice response (IVR) systems continue to expand their functionality. Find out how much you know about today's IVR technology with this quiz.Continue Reading
silent monitoring
Silent monitoring refers to the practice of call center managers or senior agents listening to the interaction between an incoming caller and an agent. Silent monitoring is generally used in training and to ensure that customer service and ...Continue Reading
Apex
Apex is a development platform for building software as a service (SaaS) applications on top of Salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) functionality.Continue Reading
skill-based routing (SBR)
Skill-based routing (SBR) is a component of automatic call distributor (ACD) systems that filters and directs incoming inquiries to call center agents with the most applicable skill sets.Continue Reading
Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction Learning Guide
Find out about customer loyalty and satisfaction, marketing, metrics and advice on the best ways to retain customers. This SearchCRM.com guide will lead you through defining, measuring and maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Also, learn ...Continue Reading
Customer loyalty case studies and industry-specific strategies
This section of the Customer Loyalty Learning Guide provides a look at other businesses that have implemented customer loyalty programs and examines innovative strategies and industry-specific challenges.Continue Reading
Case studies of call center best practices
Discover call center best practices in case studies for call center managers. Learn how some of the best call centers operate.Continue Reading
Customer self-service case studies
These customer self-service case studies examine how other companies have implemented self service and what challenges and benefits they've encountered.Continue Reading
Evaluating and implementing customer self-service technology
This section of the guide to self service offers explanations of self-service terms and expert advice on customer self service.Continue Reading
contextual marketing
Contextual marketing is an online marketing model in which people are served with targeted advertising based on their current page or recent browsing behavior... (Continued)Continue Reading
sales cycle
The sales cycle is the sequence of phases that a typical customer goes through when deciding to buy something.Continue Reading
one-to-one-marketing (1:1 marketing)
One-to-one marketing (sometimes expressed as 1:1 marketing) is a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy emphasizing personalized interactions with customers.Continue Reading
Microsoft Dynamics CRM quiz answers
Looking for answers to SearchCRM.com's quiz on Microsoft Dynamics CRM? Read the answers plus detailed information from our most popular news articles on Microsoft CRM here.Continue Reading
Microsoft Dynamics CRM quiz
If you missed Microsoft's Convergence 2007 conference, use this quiz to catch up on the latest Microsoft CRM news. Read our most popular news articles on Microsoft CRM as well as announcements from the conference. Find out how much you know -- and ...Continue Reading
customer relationship analysis (CRA)
Customer relationship analysis (CRA), sometimes termed customer relationship analytics, is the processing of data about customers and their relationship with the enterprise in order to improve the enterprise's future sales and service and lower cost.Continue Reading
marketing encyclopedia
A marketing encyclopedia is an application with an online interface to a database of information that a sales person might want to help a customer make a purchase decision.Continue Reading
customer valuation
In customer relationship management (CRM), customer valuation is a scoring process used to help a company determine which customers the company should target in order to maximize profit.Continue Reading
skyscraper
A skyscraper ad is a tall and narrow banner advertisement usually placed to the right of content on a Web page.Continue Reading
intellectual capital
Intellectual capital is knowledge that can be exploited for some money-making or other useful purpose.Continue Reading
direct email marketing
Direct email marketing is a format for email-based campaigns in which standalone advertisements are sent to a targeted list of recipients.Continue Reading
Shoshkele
A Shoshkele (pronounced Shosh-KEY-lee) is a proprietary type of floating ad developed by United Virtualities.Continue Reading
up-sell
Up-sell is a marketing term for the practice of suggesting higher priced products or services to a customer who is considering a purchase.Continue Reading
Learn IT: How Spam Affects Email Marketing Campaigns
1. What's the difference between spam and legitimate email marketing? Spam is unsolicited bulk email (UBE).Continue Reading
Permission Marketing
Permission marketing is an approach to selling goods and services in which a prospect explicitly agrees in advance to receive marketing information.Continue Reading
bid for placement
Bid for placement is a paid inclusion search engine marketing model in which advertisers select keywords and bid per click for first link placement in search results using those terms.Continue Reading
leaderboard
A leaderboard is a popular type of banner advertisement.Continue Reading
nagware (annoyware)
On the Web, nagware (sometimes called "annoyware") is programming that presents the user with one or more pop-up windows or alerts when an application is launched or closed (sometimes both), reminding the user to register, purchase the application, ...Continue Reading
cannibalization
In marketing, cannibalization is the decreased demand for an existing product that occurs when its vendor releases a new and similar product.Continue Reading
video e-mail
Video e-mail is an e-mail message with a video file either inserted in the body of the message or accessible through a hypertext link.Continue Reading
clicks and mortar
Clicks and mortar, sometimes seen as clicks-and-mortar or clicks and bricks, is a type of omnichannel business model that takes advantage of both online and offline operations.Continue Reading
Floating Ad
A floating ad is a type of rich media Web advertisement that appears uninitiated, superimposed over a user-requested page, and disappears or becomes unobtrusive after a specific time period (typically 5-30 seconds).Continue Reading
collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM is an approach to customer relationship management (CRM) in which the various departments of a company, such as sales, technical support, and marketing, share any information they collect from interactions with customers.Continue Reading
customer-managed relationship (CMR)
A customer-managed relationship (CMR) is a relationship in which a business uses a methodology, software, and perhaps Internet capability to encourage the customer to control access to information and ordering.Continue Reading
do not call list
The "do not call" list is a registry of phone numbers in the United States that telemarketers are prohibited from calling in most circumstances.Continue Reading
readerboard
A readerboard is a visual display board that conveys information about a wide variety of subjects, including advertising for products or services, travel, news or event information.Continue Reading
longest delay in queue (LDQ)
Longest delay in queue (LDQ) is the longest time period that a customer in a queue waits before either connecting with an agent or hanging up.Continue Reading
automatic callback
Automatic callback is a telephone system feature that permits a caller who gets a busy signal to instruct the system to establish the connection when the line becomes available... (Continued)Continue Reading
click-to-callback
Click-to-callback is a Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) technology that enables users browsing a company's Web site to leave a phone number where a company representative can call them back with more information.Continue Reading
ANI (Automatic Number Identification)
ANI (Automatic Number Identification) is a service that provides the receiver of a telephone call with the number of the calling phone.Continue Reading
customer service chat (CSC)
In customer relationship management (CRM), customer service chat (CSC) is an Internet service that allows the user to communicate in real time with a customer service agent by using an instant messaging (IM) application that's built into the ...Continue Reading
escalation plan
An escalation plan is a set of procedures set in place to deal with potential problems in a variety of contexts... (Continued)Continue Reading
fast clear down
A fast clear down is a call center term for a caller who hangs up upon hearing a delay notice.Continue Reading
collaborative browsing (co-browsing)
Collaborative browsing (also known as co-browsing) is a software-enabled technique that allows someone in an enterprise contact center to interact with a customer by using the customer's Web browser to show them something.Continue Reading
e-support
Part of the growing trend toward online customer relationship management (CRM), e-support is the electronic (usually Web-based) version of customer service that would otherwise have required either a visit to a company or a telephone call.Continue Reading
level of support (support level)
Level of support indicates a specific extent of technical assistance in the total range of assistance that is provided by an information technology product (such as a software product) to its customers.Continue Reading
issue tracking system (ITS)
An issue tracking system (ITS) is a software application that allows an enterprise to record and follow the progress of every problem or "issue" that a computer system user identifies until the problem is resolved.Continue Reading
trouble ticket (trouble report)
A trouble ticket (sometimes called a trouble report) is a mechanism used in an organization to track the detection, reporting and resolution of some type of problem.Continue Reading
Customer loyalty quiz answers
Every organization struggles with customer loyalty. Find out how much you know about customer loyalty with the answers to SearchCRM.com's Customer loyalty quiz.Continue Reading
Customer loyalty quiz
Figuring out how to attract and retain happy customers is a struggle for every organization. Find out how much you know about customer loyalty with this quiz. You'll find the most common terms related to customer loyalty, as well as technology ...Continue Reading
geotargeting
Geotargeting is the practice of customizing an advertisement for a product or service to a specific market based on the geographic location of potential buyers. Every country, province, state, county or city in the world can constitute a niche ...Continue Reading
service assurance (SA)
Service assurance (SA) is a procedure or set of procedures intended to optimize performance and provide management solutions in communications networks, media services and end-user applications. Service assurance is an all-encompassing paradigm that...Continue Reading
crowdcasting
Crowdcasting is a problem-solving and idea-generating tactic in which a corporation disseminates details of a specific problem or situation to a carefully chosen group of people for possible solutions. The process is often conducted as a contest. ...Continue Reading
Streamlined Sales Tax (SST)
The Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) program is a cooperative arrangement among states in the United States for the collection and payment of retail sales taxes when the seller and the purchaser are located in different taxing jurisdictions... (Continued)Continue Reading
Customer self-service quiz answers
Looking for a cheat sheet to SearchCRM.com's Customer self service quiz? Read answers and get detailed information on all related CRM topics, including the benefits of self service technology and how to select and manage self service ...Continue Reading
Customer self-service quiz
Many CRM practitioners are aware of the cost savings associated with self service. But there is a lot more you need to know in order to use self service effectively in your organization. Test your self service savvy with this quiz from SearchCRM.com.Continue Reading
Employee self service quiz answers
Employee self service (ESS) is an up-and-coming technology that can help employees perform routine tasks and assist customers more quickly. Find the answers to SearchCRM.com's employee self service quiz here.Continue Reading
Employee self service quiz
Employee self service (ESS) can be used to help employees handle routine tasks and for help desk employees and call center agents to assist customers better. Test your knowledge of employee self service with this quiz from SearchCRM.com.Continue Reading
Google bomb
A Google bomb is an attempt to bias a search result on Google by increasing a Web page's PageRank. ...(Continued)Continue Reading
database of record (DBOR)
A database of record (DBOR) is a repository for centralized storage of information about objects or people... (Continued)Continue Reading
astroturfing (astroturf marketing)
Astroturfing is the artificial creation of a grassroots buzz for a product, service or political viewpoint. ... (Continued)Continue Reading
call logging
Call logging (also known as call recording or call monitoring) is the practice of listening to, recording and assessing interactions between agents and callers.Continue Reading
Incremental Revenue (Value) Analysis
Incremental Revenue (Value) Analysis is a process used to calculate the value of each agent in a call center.Continue Reading
Digital Signage (dynamic signage)
Digital signage, also called dynamic signage, is a specialized form of slivercasting in which video or multimedia content is displayed in public places for informational or advertising purposes... (Continued)Continue Reading
Cost Per Call
In a call center, cost per call is a numerical metric calculated by dividing the total operational costs by the total number of calls for a given period of time... (Continued)Continue Reading
callback messaging
Callback messaging, in a call center context, is a service that allows callers to leave a message (usually personal contact information, either spoken or through the number pad) so that an agent can call them back and they retain their place in the ...Continue Reading
blended agent
A blended agent, in a call center or contact center context, is an agent who manages both incoming and outgoing calls and applications as needed.Continue Reading
average handle time (AHT)
Average handle time (AHT) is a call center metric for the average duration of one transaction, typically measured from the customer's initiation of the call and including any hold time, talk time and related tasks that follow the transaction.Continue Reading
masthead
On the Internet, a masthead is a graphic image or text title at the top of a Web page that identifies the Web site and, sometimes, the particular section of the site.Continue Reading