Talking Around the Town – Friday, 10/30/09

Thanks to all the folks who took time to write articles and share their thoughts. 

So many good topics on technology, CRM, and social businesses.  So many opportunities to comment.

And I did, I did. Here are the places I visited this week.

 

Sales is much more than just sales people

A Twitter discussion on the lead to opportunity life cycle moved to a Mitch Lieberman's blog (sometimes you need more than 140 characters for conversations).  My 2 cents on the customer life cycle and it's place in lead nurturing through opportunity to conversion to customer.

Also be sure to check out the article I wrote as a follow up to Mitch's.  It's Take ownership of your customer relationships - And win.

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How social media helps customer service - Up close examples

I just bought a new cell phone – starting with an AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro before switching to an iPhone.  My goal, beyond making phone calls, was to download emails from multiple email accounts, send text messages, and Twitter.

Guess what?  I experienced configuration problems.  No surprise there, what with a new phone and all. Besides, that’s what tech support is for.

In trying to solve my problems, though, I experienced an up close and personal view in how three companies – AT&T, Pantech, and Rackspace Email – use Twitter’s social media channel to their benefit...or in the case of one company, to its detriment.

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Twitter API extends value of Salesforce’s Service Cloud

This week, Salesforce.com announced the marriage of Twitter with Salesforce.  A Twitter API to Service Cloud, Salesforce’s customer service product, will allow companies capture Twitter conversations, import them into Salesforce, and take action on the micro-conversations.

Some hailed Salesforce’s announcements with big woo hoos while others poked at the news. I saw at least one blogger lament the coming of advertising intrusions into the Twitterverse.

We at Intellicore Design Consulting think this is good news. Let’s dish about what it means to customer service a la Salesforce.

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