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This week, Salesforce used its annual Dreamforce mega-show to make a host of announcements, ranging from contact center partnership with Amazon to a smart speaker tool for sales. ...

It's easy to take things you see every day for granted. We take the sun rising and setting for granted, for instance, and that's a good thing, because it helps us organize our lives. ...

Recent events have resulted in many people learning about a long-understood rhetorical tactic called "Gish galloping." Named after creationist Duane Gish, it is the technique of confronting an opponent with a rapid-fire series of arguments -- including half-truths, misrepresentations and outright lies ...

A depressing number of people think that the be-all and end-all of CRM is the CRM application. While CRM software is a vital tool, CRM itself is really a discipline: It's the cultivation of the customer relationship and the management of customer data to create better experiences for the customer and to generate better results for the business ...

"Customer experience" is the great watchword of 2018 -- and it was a great watchword in 2017 and 2016, too. ...

The customer experience battle is being fought in the contact center. Whether it's a service line or an inside sales call making first contact, the phone is often the medium that matters in moments of truth. ...

Top CRM Blogs of 2018: Countdown, Part 1 ...

After several years of instability on this list, 2018 saw things settle down a bit. In past years, blogs would make the list for a flurry of great posts one year, then fizzle the next. Sometimes, bloggers would change careers and their CRM content would dry up. Once in a while, a great blogger would get hired by a major vendor and see his or her output bent to fit the corporate line.

Sales talent for a long time has been broken up into three groups: A-players, B-players and C-players. Everyone loves the A-players -- they're the ones who bring home the bacon, after all. The B-players show promise and, with the right training and motivation, could become A-players. The C-players? Well the less said, the better ...

Before I was a parent, I was a youth leader for high school-age young people. As individuals, they had unique personalities, skills and stories, but one thing that was universal was the effect that parental communication had on them. Whether it was a criticism, a suggestion, or merely a bit of information that might prove helpful, the teens tended to look down on it, or even become hostile toward the person delivering the message.

Where does the discipline of CRM begin? We have a good idea where the software fits, but where does its impact end? With a sale? With a customer saying good things about your company to other customers? With a repeat purchase? And does CRM contribute to these events alone, or is there a web of other activities that help drive these relationships -- and do we ever consider these things to be CRM?...

"Customer experience" is the great watchword of 2018 -- and it was a great watchword in 2017 and 2016, too. ...

Sales talent for a long time has been broken up into three groups: A-players, B-players and C-players. Everyone loves the A-players -- they're the ones who bring home the bacon, after all. The B-players show promise and, with the right training and motivation, could become A-players. The C-players? Well the less said, the better ...

I have never been a big fan of the term "360-degree view of the customer" for a couple of reasons, but mostly because you never can have a complete view of your customers. It's simply impossible. ...

Much of the discussion around sales and artificial intelligence has been outwardly focused. It's exciting to think about using AI to examine leads, sift through data, and help deliver answers that allow salespeople to close more and bigger deals. ...

Before I was a parent, I was a youth leader for high school-age young people. As individuals, they had unique personalities, skills and stories, but one thing that was universal was the effect that parental communication had on them. Whether it was a criticism, a suggestion, or merely a bit of information that might prove helpful, the teens tended to look down on it, or even become hostile toward the person delivering the message.

Much of the discussion around sales and artificial intelligence has been outwardly focused. It's exciting to think about using AI to examine leads, sift through data, and help deliver answers that allow salespeople to close more and bigger deals. ...

Automation. Robots. Technology taking our jobs. I defy you to pick up a business magazine and avoid this topic -- it will be in there somewhere. However, there's another theme you won't be able to avoid: the need to focus on the customer experience. ...

The Top 20 CRM Blogs of 2017: Countdown, Part 1 ...

Something very interesting is happening in the world of CRM blogs: CRM is becoming less and less of a subject. Oh, it's in there -- it's just being elbowed to the back of the stage by a whole host of other related disciplines and technologies. ...