As the information economy continues to evolve, significant tension is growing between two opposing forces. On one hand, it is essential to keep increasing the empowerment of knowledge worker teams across the organization. For companies to run lean and mean, to ensure that they capitalize on any and all opportunities that may emerge in the market, and to rigorously drive down the risks associated with process or compliance failures, they must keep raising the bar when it comes to what users can do individually and collectively from their PCs, tablets and smartphones.
Understanding the Product Management Customer Experience Puzzle
May 7th, 2012 by Stacy Leidwinger
I rarely have time for random conversations while traveling as I’m either too focused on catching my flight or my head is buried in a report—except on my last trip. I had quite an interesting conversation on a flight to San Diego which started as a simple question, “How does product management fit into customer experience?” After all, isn’t customer experience championed by marketing and customer service departments?
IBM and Vivisimo: Making big data easier to navigate for clients
April 25th, 2012 by Jerome Pesenti
I am honored to announce that Vivisimo has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by IBM. Over the past 12 years, the Vivisimo team has been dedicated to building an amazing product, helping customers extract tremendous value out of their information. We can be proud of what we have accomplished and IBM’s decision to acquire us is a remarkable validation. By combining the brand and breadth of IBM with the nimbleness and expertise of Vivisimo, we intend to create the most robust and comprehensive Big Data solution on the market: A platform capable of searching and analyzing large volumes of fast changing structured and unstructured information where it lives. A platform on which we can quickly build high-value applications like CXO.
Navigating Corporate Data Silos: Unlocking The Data Differentiator
April 16th, 2012 by John Porter
Organizations are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. An often-overlooked source of differentiation is housed within an organization’s collective data. Products can be examined and copied but what really makes an organization unique and drives competitive advantage is the data, information and knowledge contained within its collective conscience and its many data silos. The key features of the next great product release or business-building marketing campaign may be right under your nose, if only you could find it. Collected data is a competitive advantage but only if you can access it and use it effectively. To unlock the value contained in this data, workers must be able to access it, relate it and derive meaning from it an efficient manner. Search is the most common means to unlock this store of knowledge however its effectiveness is often undermined by the specter of fragmentation.
People Skills in Customer Experience
April 10th, 2012 by Stacy Leidwinger
Memorable customer experiences are hinged on great customer-facing professionals (CFPs). People buy from people. Thus, the CFPs that bring true empathy and personality to interactions win. Research shows that seventy percent (70%) of customers left because of a lack of attention from front-line employees. The number one trait for CFPs is empathy. True empathy happens when CFPs are empowered with knowledge.
Wrangling Big Data with Enterprise Search
April 4th, 2012 by Mark Myers
In an earlier blog post titled, “Use the Four V’s to Better Understand the Big Data Ecosystem,” I discussed the concepts of volume, velocity, variety and variability that represent the measurable dimensions of big data. I then reviewed some research on how the various tools that make up the big data “ecosystem” address these dimensions. Further vetting of these ideas has helped to fuel discussions about the role of enterprise search in addressing big data with customers, partners, analysts and a number of big data practitioners I met at the recent Strata conference in Santa Clara, California. One of the key takeaways of this research is the real-time element that search can add to a big data deployment—more on that later. As promised in my initial post, I developed the topic of search and the value it can bring to big data into a Vivisimo White Paper titled, Optimizing Big Data.
Journey of a CFO to Customer Experience Expert
March 30th, 2012 by Ken Holmes
At first glance many would assume that with a CFO background I wouldn’t have the right traits to be responsible for a customer experience management program. After all, customer experience is about people while finance is about numbers. Customer experience deals with emotions while finance involves facts. However, here I am today doing just that. I sit in front of customers and prospects weekly helping them answer the question, “I know it is right to invest in our customer experience, but how do I justify the economic value to my stakeholders?”
Field Notes
March 29th, 2012 by Stacy Leidwinger
As a product manager one of my favorite parts of the job is visiting customers and prospects. These past weeks I was doing just that—visiting several of our clients and prospects getting a firsthand look at how they’re beginning to leverage our solutions within their businesses environments, their challenges and some of their victories. I thought I’d share two of these with you as some of these challenges may very well be within the walls of your company.
Harnessing the “Nexus” for Deeper Employee and Customer Engagement
March 28th, 2012 by Mark Myers
Earlier in March I attended two conferences presented by industry analyst firm Gartner, Inc.: the Portals, Content and Collaboration Conference and Customer 360. It is no coincidence that these conferences are conducted back-to-back in the same venue. There is considerable overlap between the business strategies and technologies used to manage and deliver information inside an organization and those which are used to engage and nurture customer relationships. Both of these areas of activity are being transformed by changes in the technology landscape and workplace. Several themes connected these two conferences but the most significant and relevant two topics to me were the theme of “engagement,” and a concept Gartner has labeled the “Nexus.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Customer Experience as a Branding Strategy
March 27th, 2012 by Tracey Mustacchio
With more emphasis on customer experience, many companies are asking how we leverage customer experience as the foundation for creating an effective brand strategy. Apple and Steve Jobs have proven that this is indeed possible and a viable tactic. To humanize our brands we must take a closer look at how we interact with customers and identify the necessary steps to truly connect with our customers.
