Extraprise

Part 6: Campaigns Versus Access

2009-07-24T07:30:00.004-04:00

This is the fourth part of a series on Sustainable Marketing. In this installment we continue the comparison of Traditional Marketing (Price) versus Sustainable Marketing (Value). Click here to link to the beginning (Part 1) of the series.

The Internet and mobile communications have increased their share of marketing’s attention, and the reason is clear. As discussed in an earlier section, the customer now routinely determines where, when, and how he or she will interact with a company.

Broadcast media have declined in importance, as they have become fragmented into hundreds of specialized channels. Addressable media like direct mail and telemarketing have become more expensive and more highly regulated. The challenge to marketing is to manage customer access points, not just execute campaigns. “Customer experience,” has become a concept that spans all channels.

Marketers are no longer only brand managers executing campaigns. Increasingly, they are customer managers guiding customers to the most appropriate interaction channel and insuring that every channel knows what to do with each customer.

Failing to synchronize marketing, sales, and support channels is a violation of any company’s brand strategy. Any inconsistency in messages, prices, and policies diminishes the company’s hard-won position in the market. Every dropped communication, reentry of data, or perceived confusion chips away at long-standing customer relationships.

Synchronizing customer access points is a major challenge. Many companies have a sophisticated distribution strategy that incorporates everything from retail stores to indirect channels, as the figure below illustrates.

Each of these channels has a different dynamic and cost structure. The cost of interacting with customers is typically a function of both the sophistication of the product and the complexity of the sales process. Packaged products such as books, DVDs, and clothing can easily be sold through cost-effective retail, catalog, and electronic commerce channels. The cost of customer interaction for these products and these channels is typically low (a few dollars per interaction).

More sophisticated products that require configuration or customization or that are created to the customer’s specification typically mandate a more expensive distribution model through a direct sales force or specialized channel. A direct sales call can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. When products are sold through channels, much of the transaction cost can be offloaded to the partner. However, since the discount structure for indirect sales is much higher than direct sales (and the revenue per transaction is shared), the ultimate cost per customer interaction is still quite high.

Obviously every company wishes to sell its products through the most cost-effective mix of channels. As e-commerce has matured, more sophisticated products are being sold online. Regardless of their access point, the customer experience must be consistent. Lack of synchronization creates additional costs when a sales or support person must call on the customer to correct errors or misconceptions.

Part 5: People vs. Process

2009-07-24T06:43:00.007-04:00

This is the fifth part of a series on Sustainable Marketing. In this installment we continue the comparison of Traditional Marketing (People) versus Sustainable Marketing (Process). Click here to link to the beginning (Part 1) of the series .

In many small companies, lead volume is tracked by Mary. Cost per lead is determined by Bob. Someone “on the fifth floor” consolidates the pipeline report. In larger companies, these forenames are simply replaced by department names. Marketing communications tracks leads. Sales operations develops the forecast.

Companies frequently have well-defined processes and workflows in manufacturing, customer support, and finance, but too often the same cannot be said of marketing. Processes that are well documented are candidates for continuous measurement, automation, and improvement. Here marketing is often well behind other disciplines.

The lack of standard processes in marketing makes sustainable progress difficult. What cannot be defined cannot be measured and improved. One thing that rapidly becomes apparent from this discussion is that sustainable marketing involves phased investments managed consistently over time. “Sustainable marketing” describes a process, not a discrete event or achievable state.

We have written about the value of continual improvement for more than a decade. This concept is well known, primarily on the supply side of the corporate value chain and most notably in process control and quality assurance. The approach became popular in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a major restructuring of business in many countries as a response to gains made by the Japanese automobile and electronics industries. The overall approach is older, dating to the 1930s and 1940s.

The Deming-Shewhart Cycle of Continual Improvement is the result of work done by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Walter Shewhart. The four-step process (PDSA) is simple, but compelling in practice:

• Plan: Determine the scope of the test as well as the planned interval of iteration

• Do: Try out the test on a small scale

• Study: Gather empirical evidence and study the results (involve the customer if possible)

• Act: Take action to improve the process based on what was learned from the test

This model is part of a large body of statistical work on improving quality. It has spawned a host of “quality circles” and “six sigma” initiatives. Six Sigma uses a modified version summarized by the acronym DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Quality has become an objective, a philosophy, way of life, and a major organizing principle in manufacturing organizations worldwide. In corporate IT departments, the idea has gained significant traction, as much from experience as from theory. Long, serial development processes have given way to continual prototyping with phased deliverables.

Most IT professionals have emotional (if not physical) scars from the big bang approach to systems development. The approach has not, however, found its way easily into the demand side of the value chain. Sales and marketing executives are driven by quarterly results. They live on the front lines, and their tenure can be short. The notion of a long journey of continual improvement resonates only with the few.

In an age of sustainable marketing, this must change. Companies simply cannot risk big surprises and large failures. They require the ability to plan big and start small as a way to contain risk. To be more sustainable, marketing organizations must focus on implementing and improving processes by creating a culture of quality.

Extraprise Sustainable Marketing Webinar, Thursday July 16th at 2 PM Eastern Time

2009-07-15T11:55:00.003-04:00

To continue the dialogue regarding Sustaible Marketing, and make it more of an interactive discussion than our blog series and whitepaper, we'll be conducting a webinar on the topic July 16th at 2 PM Eastern. Please join in, we'd love to get some feedback as we develop this topic. Register here, and we'll look forward to discussing the topic with you. We'll also be posting the webinar on our website next week.

Sustainable Marketing - Part 4: Price vs. Value

2009-07-14T16:29:00.007-04:00

It is difficult to have an intelligent conversation about price and value without quoting Oscar Wilde. A cynic, he wrote, “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” In our context, value is often understood by those who make and use products. Price is better understood by those who are involved a transaction: sales, finance, contracts, purchasing, and too often, marketing.

Price is what a customer pays. Value is what they perceive or receive in return. Value-based pricing defines selling prices based on the perceived value to the customer, rather than on traditional measures like cost, competitive pricing, or the historical price.

A key insight in this approach is that pricing may be customized for each customer segment based on the value delivered. Many metrics determine value, such as time, features, discount level, and many other firmographic and demographic factors.

Like most sustainable aspects of marketing, value-based pricing requires a significant level of analysis and customer understanding. It is imperative to know how customers measure value, through evaluation of customer interactions, feedback in surveys, focus groups, and other marketing instruments.

The van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) is a well-known segmentation process for understanding customer price preferences. The basic assumption is that all customers are capable of envisioning broad pricing schemes and can define their preferences based on a quantifiable measure of value to them. Customers or prospects are asked four price-related questions:

At what price would you consider the product to be so inexpensive that you would have doubts about its quality? (too inexpensive)
At what price would you still feel the product was inexpensive yet have no doubts as to its quality? (inexpensive)
At what price would you begin to feel this product is expensive but still worth buying? (expensive)
At what price would you feel that the product is so expensive that regardless of its quality it is not worth buying? (too expensive)

Graphing the resulting values from each question helps the marketer identify the range of acceptable prices. In most such exercises, the optimal price band falls between the point of marginal cheapness (the intersection of inexpensive and too inexpensive) and the point of marginal expensiveness (the intersection of expensive and too expensive).

An allied approach, Conjoint Analysis, requires participants to make a set of predefined trade-offs in features, packaging, and price. Attendees are typically asked to rank a series of options or choose their preferences from a list of alternatives. Initial segmentation is important; participants must be grouped according to their identified demographics, objectives, and anticipated values. Analyzing these judgments can reveal the relative importance of the underlying components of value. Other approaches like Gabor Granger and Brand Price Trade Off offer useful additions to these basic themes.

Research in value-optimized pricing supports the assumption that this approach leads to increased revenue and margins. Assuming that costs are fixed, customers who perceive greater value will pay more for the same product and be more profitable. Customers who perceive less value may be targets for increased marketing spend to change their perception. At the other end, customers who perceive the lowest value may not be appropriate targets for the next marketing initiative. They may be incented to move to lower cost sales and support channels like the Internet.

Click here to continue to Part 5 of the Sustainable Marketing Series.

Sustainable Marketing - Part 3: Products versus Customers

2009-07-08T10:02:00.020-04:00

This is the third part of a series on Sustainable Marketing. In this installment we beging the comparison of Traditional Marketing (Product-centric) versus Sustainable Marketing (Customer-centric). Click here to link to the beginning (Part 1) of the series .

There has been much discussion over the last decade about the necessity of moving from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach to business. In the mid-90’s, technology caught up with the concept. Companies like Siebel Systems were launched to capture and share customer interaction data across marketing, sales, call centers, customer support, and a variety of channels.

With the rapid rise of the World Wide Web, customer centricity became an imperative. Marketers quickly lost control of their distribution strategies. Customers had instant access to competitive information like features, packaging, pricing, and discounts. For the first time, they gained the ability to manage their relationships with companies. Customers determined when, where, how, and through which channel they would interact with companies and, as a result, marketers scrambled to define a set of preferred interaction models for each customer segment based on its value to the company.

Despite this flurry of activity, most marketing organizations remain product centric. Companies still organize around product lines and marketing budgets too often follow the corporate organization chart. Developing a customer-centric focus is a journey not a destination. In fact, we typically see companies going through three distinct phases to make this transition, as the following chart illustrates: (note: you may click on the chart to link to a larger version)

From My Pictures

Click here to continue to Part 4 of the Series.

Sustainable Marketing - Part 2: Sustainable Versus Traditional Marketing

2009-07-08T09:27:00.014-04:00

This is the second part of the series on Sustainable Marketing. In this installment we compare traditional versus sustainable marketing. Click here to link to the beginning (Part 1) of the series.

What is, and what isn’t sustainable about marketing? The following ten criteria summarize the differences between the traditional and sustainable approaches:

Traditional.......Sustainable Products............................Customers Price...................................Value People................................Process Campaigns.........................Access Leads..................................Sales Analysis.............................Insight Data................................Information Budget...............................Baseline Sometime..........................Real time Manage.............................Measure

The key distinctions captured in these criteria are the rapid movement to measuring realtime information to create immediate insights, and selling value-based solutions to customers. These are certainly not new insights. However, the two key clauses (converting real-time information into insights and moving from selling products to markets to selling solutions to customers) do not often appear together. Pursuing them as part of a single initiative with the other concepts outlined above, is a significant step towards sustainability.

Click here for Part 3 of the Series

Sustainable Marketing - Part 1: Introduction

2009-06-24T12:05:00.012-04:00

Sustainability has crept into the corporate parlance quietly over the last decade. And it's mutated from something that seemed a bit like a PR attempt to appease the activitist tree huggers; into something strategic, real, and core. Of course, by usage "Sustainability" has come to apply primarily to environmental issues, but in the broadest sense, it is the "capacity to endure," and implicitly the term recognizes that resources are limited and must be utilized judiciously or literally imperil survival.

So as we see the corporation promoting sustainability as part of its social responsibility obligation (whether it be for PR purposes or a true belief in the underlying value); we are seeing more and more messaging around the term. And, in general, it is the marketing department that is responsible for creating this Sustainability messaging. In order for Marketing to avoid being deemed hypocritical, and in order for it maintain its own "capacity to endure," Extraprise espouses an objective we call "Sustainable Marketing," over the next few weeks, Extraprise EVP Bill Blundon will build a case for "Sustainable Marketing" over Traditional Marketing.

In these current turbulent times where marketing budgets are being sheared; customer expectations and demands are increasing; marketing technology is becoming more complex; social media is burgeoning while traditional media seems to be going the way of the dodo bird; and the C-level suite is looking at marketing with ever increaseing scrutiny; Bill lays out in report format an approach that will indeed foster marketing's "capacity to endure."

INTRODUCTION

Many discussions about business are politicized and, as a result, easily become polarized. Somewhere between “Workers of the World Unite” and the “The Business of America is Business” common ground can sometimes be found. One such area involves reducing the volatility of the business cycle, or failing that, limiting its impact. Whether it is John Maynard Keynes or Joseph Alois Schumpeter, economists may differ fundamentally on means but they often overlap on ends: Growth is good; sustainable growth is better.

Anyone who has been a marketer for just a decade has lived through the inflation of an Internet bubble, the bursting of same, a post-9/11 crash, a gradual recovery, a major global advance, and an international economic meltdown. Marketing strategies, budgets, tactics, and measurements changed in response to these events, but at an even more rapid rate.

Investments in marketing are often cyclical depending on the season, the economic climate, competitive forces, and new product launches. During periods of economic stress, marketing investments are viewed as (in that terrifying phrase) “discretionary spending.” Marketing organizations are expected to make cuts and they often make them reflexively – “cut ten percent across the board!” More sophisticated organizations borrow from finance and IT and take a portfolio management approach to their cost-cutting. They consider the impact of specific disinvestments in terms of business objectives, revenue, margin, market share, and other imperatives.

Still, too many marketers lurch from peak to valley without a long-range plan.

As the definition of marketing has evolved over the years and begun to value left brain over right brain thinking, analytical skills are more highly prized. Too often, however, these skills are applied only to tactical issues like customer segmentation, list selection, and media placement. Those who take an analytical approach to marketing strategy are a rare breed.

Amid currency fluctuations and bailouts, one concept has remained highly valued: It’s the customer, stupid! Increasingly, the product-focused Four P’s of Marketing (product, price, promote, place) are evolving to the more customer-focused SIVA (solution, information, value, access). This new trend, or ancient verity, depending on your point of view, is part of a more general approach to creating a sustainable notion of marketing.

This report considers some of the changes required to focus marketing not just on today, this quarter, and this fiscal year. To find its way out of the boom/bust cycle of investments, marketing must find a more sustainable way of operations.

Click here for Part 2 of the Series

Targeting investments in a recession

2009-02-27T14:01:00.004-05:00

Last month, Extraprise and Oracle co-hosted a dinner where analyst John Neeson, the co-founder and managing director of analyst firm Sirius Decisions, led a conversation about areas on which to focus in 2009 to enable your organization to survive and thrive in this economy.

The round table dinner was for Bay Area B2B Marketing and IT executives, and focused on the potential for optimizing and integrating the sales and marketing functions. John addressed both the downturn and positioning yourself for an agile rebound upon economic recovery. He noted that he’s working with many companies to support re-budgeting marketing, and in the process has to contend with companies making knee-jerk reactions on how to reduce budget. He highlighted one CFO's direction, which was to look at the 40 programs that were ongoing and cut them all except for the top 1 or 2 results-producing programs.

John’s position reaffirmed what other analysts are saying, which is that even as all unnecessary costs should be trimmed, results must still be achieved. And in general, doing the same things (or more accurately, less of the same things) is unlikely to have the desired effect on retaining sales and revenue. The key is to introduce new paradigm shifting capabilities into the organization. To do this, what’s working well should be retained, but for less effective efforts, funds should be reallocated to focus on promising new initiatives.

In terms of the potential for both using new tools and ensuring “best practice” use of the tools available, John highlighted that the average company required 16 leads to generate 1 sale, whereas best practices companies required only 7 leads. Though John didn’t extend this to extra dollars spent by the average versus best practice company, at an estimated cost of $5-6 thousand per lead, “average” companies are spending an extra $45-54 thousand per sale. Obviously increasing conversion efficiency could yield the cost savings that the CFO and CEO are looking for while still maintaining sales and profitability.

John outlined 10 of the most important opportunities for enabling the most efficient companies to blow away the competition.

Channel and sales enablement. Provide sales (direct and channel) the tools that will give them access to the knowledge assets that support in-process sales pursuits. Foster sharing of information on a two-way basis as information learned in the field can be used to tune, refresh, and continuously improve the knowledge base. As one dinner attendee reported, great leaps and bounds were made just by focusing on “searchability and findability” of information.
Building a digital relationship. Demand generation consumes from 40-60 percent of a company’s marketing budget. Ensuring the right individualized message gets to each opportunity regardless of where it is in the sales cycle is critical, and automating this process is essential if it can be done economically.
Propensity modeling. Maintaining predictive models of outcomes based on attributes and behavior is essential in terms of being able to prioritize, optimize, and provide the right messaging and timing to those in the sales and nurture cycles based on calculated analysis rather than guesses or hunches.
Data quality. B2B data decays rapidly, and needs to be cleaned, appended, and verified on a consistent basis. There is measurable value in this process, but it often omitted because it can be a challenging and time consuming process. In terms of driving towards best practices, efforts applied against inaccurate data are wasted. Another aspect of data quality is that marketing should focus on improving data quality through the entire marketing and sales process. (Side note: A recent B2B article focuses on the importance on focusing on internal lists in a recession.)
Focus on the lead to close ratio. This ratio encompasses the key transition from marketing to sales. As noted above, companies should drive towards best practices of 7 to 1 versus the industry average of 16 to 1.
Business process reengineering. Optimizing processes rather than activities enables overall improvements in bottom line results rather than in somewhat less meaningful intermediary results. The importance of change management is to foster the cultural, personal, technological, and other changes that are required to achieve optimal results.
Persona-based marketing. As a counter to one-size-fits-all campaigning which leverages a bland corporate message to nudge people through the sales process, identifying personas of the most prevalent or most ideal customers allows messaging to be targeted to specific problems and needs and fosters acceleration of the sales cycle. Furthermore, codifying attributes of target customers enables digitization of the process.
Live event marketing. This type of marketing is of added importance in an economic environment where people are more discerning in their investments, require more personal attention, and require additional assurances against risk. One element that should be recognized is that the live event is the icing, and the journey that leads up to the event is key. It’s all about building up to a live event.
Better understanding the lead development cycle. Creating a taxonomy can support improved measurement and better analysis. Since the cost of a lead is typically in the $5-6 thousand range, and goes up to $15 thousand for the sales person to qualify lead, better understanding where an opportunity is in the cycle will be required in order to prioritize and estimate costs of developing a pipeline. Furthermore, in processes where there is a transition from one organization to another (i.e., marketing to sales), ensuring that all parties are speaking the same language goes a long way in reducing
Inclusion of localization of marketing. Even as corporations seek to ensure consistency of brand and messaging, focus on the customer dictates that the message be synthesized into forms that engage individuals from different cultures, geographies, and current local conditions. One method recommended to achieve this goal is to develop regional demand generation centers of excellence which take the corporate message and optimize for regions and location and then provide the technology, specialized skills, and best practices to enable efficient delivery of marketing programs.

For those not willing to accept the risks and exhaustion that accompany “white knuckling” it through the downturn, targeting investments in priority areas provides the best opportunity for achieving sustainable improvements. Although John didn’t provide a generalized workplan to get from average to excellent, he did reinforce that two things specifically won’t work: doing nothing or simply slashing programs and costs across the board. In fact the real opportunity is not in optimizing any one activity, but in looking at the entire lead generation to sales process to improve overall efficiency.

PDF version available

2009-02-18T09:53:00.003-05:00

If you've liked our last series about managing CRM in difficult times, we have the entire series in one convenient PDF document for you to download. Click here to download the PDF. If you have further questions about the material presented in the series, please do not hesitate to contact Eric Robbins at eric [dot] robbins [at] extraprise [dot] com or call 617-880-4000.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 13 of 13

2009-02-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

The world economy has experienced many shocks over history. Some aspects of today’s economic environment are unique and create a level of uncertainly not seen since the 1970’s. Today, the global economy is more tightly integrated. Capital flows relatively freely across borders. Trade is an increasing percentage of nearly every company and country. Still, the threat of terrorism and other disruptions may become a continuous process.

Customer relationships, especially existing ones, have never been more precious. In an attempt to manage cost and hedge risks, companies must not neglect their customers. Fortunately, as our discussions have shown, investments in improving customer relationships often yield cost savings. Pick two or three areas of sales and marketing that show short-term promise and make sensible investments.

Integrating and standardizing customer data as the foundation for better decision-making are an obvious investment that can yield rapid results. Clear customer processes that span channels enable companies to move any phase of the customer life-cycle to the most efficient channel. Conversely, there are tremendous opportunities to harvest revenue from existing customers if the relationship is strong and data is transformed into actionable information.

This too shall pass. Companies that invest intelligently during this difficult period will have the best chance to ride the next wave.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 12 of 13

2009-02-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

Option 10: Building for the future

We believe the U.S. economy is now more likely to experience a U-shaped recession where the rate of decline is rapid and the recovery slower. This period of uncertainty creates an opportunity for companies that have the resources and will to invest in sales and marketing. The leaders during the next major expansion phase will be those that invest during a downturn.

Our discussion with customers shows that companies invest in customer relationship management and marketing services solutions as much for operational efficiency as revenue generation. This is one area where initiatives that effectively cut costs can also build a foundation for future growth.

Automating the direct sales force with better account management, proposal generation, forecasting and territory management tools can increase the number of deals in the pipeline. It will also reduce the amount of time, resources and inaccuracies in the process. If managed intelligently, a strategic CRM program can create a virtuous circle of cost saving, increased customer satisfaction and new revenue potential.

In this environment, selecting the right technology foundation for customer initiatives has never been more important. This is a time to tightly manage risk and limit investments on stand-alone component technology. Against this backdrop, Siebel Systems is the only game in town. They have the breadth of products, services and partnerships to be the strategic choice for nearly every major customer project. We have tracked the CRM market closely for a decade, and each major study has shown Siebel grow incrementally as the strategic choice.

In our experience, there are compelling reasons to select both Siebel’s enterprise and hosted SaaS products. Having experience on both sides of the SaaS versus enterprise software debate, we view this phase in the business cycle as contrarian. Now is the time to purchase enterprise CRM software. Software vendors like Siebel are even more willing to sharpen their pencils to close a deal. As the business climate improves, today’s investments will bear fruit quickly.

Bill Blundon in BtoB Magazine article

2009-02-10T08:42:00.001-05:00

We recently discovered that Bill Blundon, Extraprise's Executive Vice President of Hosted Services was interviewed and quoted for an article in BtoB Magazine that ran yesterday. The article was called "Looking to the lists within," and it discussed how top marketing experts suggest perfecting their in-house databases, cleaning their lists, and focus on customer nurturing. The article continues on to talk about the decline in list rental prices and volume due to decreasing demand, especially in the B2C space; data co-ops; the relationship between marketers and list managers; and getting more details from vendors and campaigns before going through with the contract. Read the entire article here.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 11 of 13

2009-02-09T10:20:00.000-05:00

Option 9: Focus on return on investment

The immediate response to uncertainty will be to trim both variable and fixed costs. In these times, management will focus on what they can control (operating expenses) not on those they cannot (demand). As the economy stabilizes and returns to a growth mode, many will focus initial investments in areas that can be managed as variable costs.

As a result, we forecast an increase in investments for consulting and temporary staff over new permanent hiring and an overall acceleration of outsourcing. Outsourcing will likely involve both personnel and systems.

Calculating the return on investment of major customer initiatives can be complex. Management typically does lacks in its ability to continuously measure ROI. Most companies develop an ROI case for new initiatives, but subsequent measurements are infrequent.

We recommend that companies use the following three-level ROI analysis: begin with strategic business objectives, then separate those objectives into operational objectives—business unit or geographic—and further into tactical objectives at the group level. Once this model is developed, it should be reviewed as each new investment is made.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 10 of 13

2009-02-06T10:18:00.000-05:00

Option 8: Continuous investment and improvement

The notion of long development projects culminating in the rollout of systems throughout the enterprise is clearly under pressure. This is particularly true on the demand side of the corporate value chain. Unlike other enterprise solutions, incremental investments in customer initiatives are both possible and desirable. We have been promoting the idea of multi-generational plans of continuous improvement for some time.

In the current climate, this idea will gain greater traction. Today, there is little margin for error. Implementing a major customer initiative as a sequence of steps minimizes cash outlays in the short-run and provides many opportunities to measure the success of the initiative in terms of organization, process and technology.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 9 of 13

2009-02-04T10:16:00.000-05:00

Option 7: Operational efficiency and growth

Companies invest in customer relationship management solutions as much for operational efficiency as revenue growth. In our study with students from the Harvard Business School several years ago we found that companies listed efficiency and revenue growth almost equally as the driving reason for investments in customer relationship management.

In the short-term economy, operational efficiency will dominate the investment decisions at many companies. Many police departments in the U.S. have adopted the motto “To protect and serve.” This is the correct view for most companies today: protect the base and serve the customer.

The natural instinct in discussing efficiency is to cut costs. This may be the correct decision for many companies. However, efficiencies are only operational if they are sustainable. Investing in better processes, training and technology may be a more effective efficiency path for other companies.

CRM in the down economy

2009-02-02T11:02:00.003-05:00

As you might have noticed thanks to the two latest series on this blog, Extraprise is concerned with how the down economy is affecting companies' CRM strategies, support, and implementations. To better measure the effects, we've put together a quick five-question survey. Click here to take the survey! We'll post the results here, and you can also sign up to receive a report via e-mail. If you're interested to see what we can do to help, fill in your phone number when you take the survey, and one of our representatives will contact you.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 8 of 13

2009-02-02T10:12:00.001-05:00

Option 6: Every employee is a sales support representative

Like this customer support focus, all employees must be empowered to move the sales process forward. Not every employee can or should be a sales representative. However, companies must insure that every employee knows how to handle a sales lead, customer inquiry or order. When distribution channels were limited and static this was an easy task. As businesses evolve at a rapid rate and organizations change, sales processes and employee training often lag behind.

There are many approaches to this problem. We have found that enterprise CRM products provide a good platform for informing, facilitating and incenting employees to understand their role in the sales process. Similarly, an investment in change management and training is a critical component in making these initiatives successful. A successful change management program should include executive sponsorship, a communication plan and a reappraisal of the existing compensation and incentive program.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 7 of 13

2009-01-30T10:10:00.000-05:00

Option 5: Customer support is every employee’s job

At the beginning of the decade, as the growth rate in the U.S. economy reached unsupportable levels, customer service suffered. The rapid reversal of growth into negative territory has caused companies to cut costs, which has only exacerbated the problem. In an economy where the customer is king, service is not a differentiator—it is a survival technique.

Enhancing customer satisfaction involves culture as much as process and technology. However, process and technology can help. We see the increasing usage of technologies like corporate portals that connect customers not simply to company information, but to applications that manage customer information. This trend will only increase.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 6 of 13

2009-01-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

Option 4: Increase sales focus on farming

In a difficult economic climate companies will be more likely to increase the percentage of their investments on existing customer relationships. This focus on “farming” instead of “hunting” is a natural response to uncertainty. As a result, we expect cross-selling and up-selling initiatives to increase as a percentage of corporate sales expenditures. Sales managers should review existing account plans and accelerate planning and review meetings with key customers. If such plans do not exist, this is good time to adopt a formal account management process (such as Target Account Selling, Miller-Heiman or the Large Account Management Process).

The role of the sales professional has changed in most industries, as transactions continue to move to online channels. Sales personnel are increasing their focus on relationship management and support. Companies that have successfully made this transition will be well served in the current economic climate through increased customer satisfaction and a greater share of wallet from existing accounts.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 5 of 13

2009-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Option 3: Increase focus on customer loyalty and retention programs

Over the years, much has been written about building customer-centered companies. There is an old saying: “When all is said and done, more is said than done.” This has certainly been true in customer relationship management. There have been many studies on the relative costs of customer acquisition versus customer retention. The most famous of these was done by the Harvard Business Review, which showed that the cost of acquiring a new customer was six to seven times greater than retaining them. Other analyses put the cost ratio at between three and twenty times.

In the current business climate, the cost of customer acquisition is likely to increase. Each existing customer relationship is sacred, since attracting new customers may become more difficult. Investments in loyalty and retention programs should increase as a percentage of overall spending. This is particularly true in customer analytics. We anticipate that there will be a significant increase in initiatives that enable companies to better understand and anticipate the business needs of their customers in order to maximize the value they provide to them.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 4 of 13

2009-01-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

Option 2: Use clean data to improve decision-making

Most business executives can recount at least one critical decision that they made based on bad or incomplete information. Data integration is only one critical step in improving the quality of business decisions. Data must also be clean, consistent, and complete. Companies often use data hygiene tools from companies like BusinessObjects to clean, correct, dedupe, and match customer records to create a master record that can be shared broadly in the company. There are many external data sources from national postal organizations, public data sources, and commercial data services to enhance this kind of record with firmographic or demographic information that puts customer data in context.

One key mistake that companies make in times like these is to view this task as a batch process. They clean and augment customer records once or on a yearly basis. This leads to countless challenges as the frequency of customer contacts (through the Web site, call center, and other outward bound channels) moves closer to real time. The quality of customer data must become a daily process to insure that analytical, dashboard, and reporting tools produce an accurate view of the business. When money is tight, how it is spent is even more important than usual.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 3 of 13

2009-01-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Option 1: Integrate and secure customer information

During a period of political and economic instability, the security of data is paramount. In most companies, information about customers is dispersed among geographies, operating units and product lines. The accuracy, liquidity, completeness, and security of customer data are often drivers for investments in customer relationship management solutions.

As the dependence on existing customers increases, compiling a complete picture of their interests, concerns, financial and service history, as well as buying patterns is important. This leads not just to data cleansing and validation, but to bringing together distributed customer data in a physical or virtual repository. The resulting customer data need not be a single corporate database; they may be virtual with secure communications and coordinated backup and archive processes. Security without integration is self-defeating.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times 2 of 13

2009-01-15T10:26:00.005-05:00

In any period of uncertainty, there is a natural tendency toward caution and reluctance to invest in the future. Whatever takes place over the coming months and years, one thing is certain: the customer is king. That has always been true, but never more so than now.

Finding ways to better understand customer requirements, increase customer loyalty and manage costs will be the focus of every enterprise. Companies that do all these things well, and make targeted investments now will prevail. These imperatives will dominate the business world for some time to come.

Each company will take a unique path, but there will be some common themes in how each deals with a recessionary phase of business. We believe the following ten imperatives are critical issues for each of our clients to consider and resolve:

Integrate and secure customer information
Use better data to improve decision-making
Increase the focus on customer loyalty and retention programs
Increase sales focus on “farming” revenue from existing accounts
Make customer support the job of every employee
Turn every employee into a sales support person
Balance operational efficiency and growth
Focus on implementing long-term strategies as a process of continuous investment and improvement
Focus on return on investment
Use this opportunity to rebuild customer infrastructure

Over the course of the rest of the series, we will go into more detail about each of these issues and what you can do to manage and improve your customer relationships.

Managing Customer Relationships in Uncertain Times

2009-01-06T11:17:00.001-05:00

“May you live in interesting times,” intones the old Chinese curse. Our times are more than interesting. They are troubling. Markets fall precipitously and rise tentatively. Credit is in crunch time. Doom and gloom are the currency of the day. However, despite the intervening problems, the economies in United States and other G7 nations will almost certainly flourish over the coming years. What exists in the immediate future is uncertain and there may be an understandable reluctance by management to invest too heavily in the future. This is particularly true of investments in marketing and sales, especially in areas that are perceived as discretionary or without an immediate return on investment. One thing is clear throughout the current business climate: the customer is king. Strengthening relationships with customers is no longer simply important; it is imperative. Each existing customer relationship is now sacred. Retaining and developing customer relationships are the life-blood of every company. After talking to our clients, both large and small, we find that there is a strong belief in the long-term economic health of the Americas and Europe. In the very short-term the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks are attempting to insure liquidity through increases in the money supply and cuts in interest rates. The attempt to inflate the economy with a continuing series of rate cuts, will spur investment over time. Certainly there will be increased government spending to rebuild and fortify existing defense, communications and healthcare infrastructure. Inflation, for the moment at least, is next year’s problem. Given the slowing of economies in the U.S. and Europe over the last several quarters, there has been much discussion of the form of a widespread global recession. Economists often picture economic downturns as a series of letters – a “V,” “U,” or “L” shaped recession. In the fall of 2008, most economists predict a U- or L-shaped recession with the sharp downturn followed by a lingering trough. Our view is that the recent turmoil in the market and the political structure increased the potential for a U-shaped recession. Our discussions with clients suggest that we may experience a continued downturn followed by an at least one temporary upturn over the next three to four quarters. Whether we are correct or not, business will go on. This blog series distills our thoughts and those of our clients. Opinions are many and varied. There is some consensus on actions, but less on their potential results. The following posts highlight a new role for customer relationship management in these difficult times, with a focus on nine issues that every company must consider over the coming months and years.

Focus on your timeframe

2008-12-30T11:22:00.002-05:00

Our series entitled "Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy," spread over the past eight posts, dealt primarily with the short-term. While these methods may be all you need to cut your costs for the time being, many marketing departments are facing longer-term cuts and reductions in their budgets. Given the current economic climate in which nothing is for certain, it may be time to take a look at ways you can cut back on spending in the longer-term. Studies have shown that making strategic investments in marketing technology, while they might decrease the overall operating budget in the short term, have a long-term effect in reducing marketing costs. Our next blog series will deal with ways companies can invest in the long-term to decrease marketing costs. If you'd like to read the content of our most recent blog series in one PDF document, check out our resources page. Downloading a white paper requires filling in a quick form. Enjoy!

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 8

2008-12-24T11:14:00.004-05:00

For our last installment, we have the cost-cutting idea of leveraging every contact with your customers. Each and every touch-point with your customers, from mailing an invoice to waiting on hold, provides an opportunity to communicate with them. Be creative! 8) Leverage every contact with the customer. Look at all the ways a customer has contact with your organization and try to leverage all the relevant touch points. Postage is expensive, so make sure you optimize any mail-based touches. Statements, invoices and even the physical delivery of your product may all be great places to drop in a marketing message. Think about the inbound touches as well-- can service reps up-sell or get a product message across? What are your customers listening to on hold– music or the pitch on the value of upgrading to the newest version of your product? Treat every customer-related interaction as an opportunity to educate them on your products and services.

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 7

2008-12-22T09:36:00.002-05:00

Today, we have the short-term budget idea of assessing your rented data. If you buy lists of leads, this point is particularly relevant to you. Keep in mind that data always needs refreshing! 7) Assess your rented data. Most of the time, only a small amount of the data offered by data providers are relevant and being used in analytics or to drive programs. Of the hundreds of demographic or firmographic data elements you purchase, how many are actively being used? Are you using this information to drive a single program? Is the program generating enough ROI to justify the expense? Not only is this information expensive to purchase, but maintaining it carries a cost. This cost includes storing the information and maintaining the integration points or load routines into the database. Many times, the process is on autopilot with the data coming regularly through automated feeds set up by past previous process owners and over time, the organization forgets why it was important. Remember, the information contained in your rented data is always changing and has a limited lifespan so make sure you are using it right away. You should also keep in mind that the firms selling this information will always be there ready to sell you new data when you need it.

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 6

2008-12-18T10:06:00.003-05:00

Today, we have "review process for savings." It might be difficult to track down all the business units sending their own e-mail campaigns, but if you can consolidate all the company's e-mail blasts into one area, it might help cut back on the time and money spend on each campaign. 6) Review process for savings. Process improvement can also save you money and improve your brand. Do you have several business units creating and executing their own e-mail campaigns? Now is the time to improve the brand and the process by consolidating down to one e-mail center of excellence. One central group ensures all e-mails are consistent to the brand, are executed using the best processes, and are not competing with other units trying to market to the same customer or prospect.

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 5

2008-12-17T14:57:00.002-05:00

For our fifth day in our series on how to cut your marketing budget and not your strategy, we have "clean up your system or platform." Take a look at your existing technology and licences to see if you can cut any corners or consolidate tasks. 5) Clean up your system or platform. It’s a great time to tighten up how you are spending budget on your marketing platform and/or tools. Do you need those ten years of historical data in the marketing database or would the last four years be enough? How much disk space and cost can be saved by archiving old data? Just make sure you are not actively using this data in your analytic algorithms for scoring, or other processing. Some tools change by the number of customer and prospects loaded into the database. Will archiving old data get you to a lower pricing level? Make sure you are using all the licenses you are paying for. Do you have people that use the tool once a week to pull a report? Can this task be given to someone else and save the separate license fee?

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 4

2008-12-16T10:50:00.003-05:00

Today's post revolves around rethinking your testing and creative strategies. Creative testing is very expensive, but can you cut costs and improve deliverability by testing operations? 4) Save money in the short term by changing testing strategies. Under no circumstances should you stop testing your campaigns altogether. On the other hand, now maybe a time to focus on testing lists, copy, offers, timing, etc. and reduce the costly new creative package testing. New creative testing means incurring costs in multiple areas: creative development, account management, printing, lettershop, reduced postal discounts, new data entry and response processes, and even the analysis of the results. By focusing on the less expensive operations-based testing, you can still increase the effectiveness of your campaigns and tweak where necessary without burying yourself in the expenses associated with creative-based testing

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 3

2008-12-15T09:52:00.003-05:00

Today we have our third installment in our series of cutting marketing costs while maintaining your marketing plan's quality. This series focuses on the short-term options for saving money. Our next series, debuting right after this one, will cover how to save your budget in the long term. 3) Reevaluate communication volume. Do a simple test: take the top 20% of your customer base and find out the average number of times they received some form of marketing communication from your company in the last twelve months. In addition, take a look at the type of communication (mail, call, e-mail, etc.) and what business unit within your organization sent it. Do you have the right number and mix of touches? Don’t be surprised if don’t realize number of times you are bombarding your best customers with various touches. It’s not uncommon for multiple business units within the same company to be marketing in an uncoordinated way to the same customers. With so many groups sending out daily or weekly recurring programs (newsletters, etc.), touches can add up quickly. Are they all really necessary or are you overcommunicating, thus negatively impacting the success of individual programs? How are you enjoying our series? Let us know in the comments!

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 2

2008-12-11T10:56:00.002-05:00

2) Join forces with sales. The sales team is most likely facing the same cuts you are facing in marketing. Why continue to send the same number of leads into the sales force if the team does not have the capacity to follow up? Become more selective and drive only the highest-value leads into the sales channel. Reduce the outbound volume for your sales reps, allowing them to focus on the most qualified leads and attend to underperforming prospecting programs or lists when the reps need to fill their funnels. Less qualified leads can be driven to the less expensive channels like web-based information collecting or inside sales or put into your nurture program track until they are ready to go to sales. What are you doing with regards to linking marketing and sales? Tell us in the comments!

Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 1

2008-12-09T11:55:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you have to accept budget cuts. Below are some ideas that will save your budget without reversing all the hard work you’ve already put into your marketing plan. In this 8-part series, we'll discuss ways to cut back on your budget without demolishing your marketing plan.

Please note: not all ideas will work for all industries and programs. Be open to and aware of these suggestions, but modify them to suit your purposes.

1) Scrutinize how you are treating your lower value segments. Now is a great time to do that switch to less expensive channels that may have cropped up in strategy meetings but never seriously considered. With a smaller budget, it’s important that you create the biggest impact in sales by targeting the highest-value prospects first and more closely. If you ignore your lower-value prospects, though, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Can these audiences be receiving e-mails rather than direct mail? Can you send this audience to your web site for more information instead of a sales rep? Are you communicating too much with this group?

What can you do to cut unnecessary costs out of your budget?

Next time: Join forces with sales.

On the Floor of NCDM

2008-12-09T11:37:00.003-05:00

As we blog, we're exhibiting at the National Center for Database Marketer's (NCDM) conference in Atlanta. This is a picture from the Exhibition Hall of our booth (#323) with Extraprisers Leah Wesemann attending to an NCDM participant and Doug Michaud on the right.

Our focus for the show is B2B database marketing. When we say B2B we also include other complex and regulated distribution models as well, and in this uberconnected world, where all the influencers needed to be included if you are going to leverage a 360 degree of your customers, more and more businesses are falling into this category, and so our message is resonating rather well.

To more fully support the B2B community, we're hosting an informal reception of B2B community folks at one of the resort eateries this evening at 6.

Visit us!

2008-12-05T12:29:00.003-05:00

A small team of Extraprisers will be attending the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM)'s annual conference this coming Monday (12/8/08) in Orlando, FL. If you're in the area, we'd love to chat with you! Just stop by Booth #323 and say hi-- be sure to mention you saw this blog post!

Three reasons CRM implementations fail

2008-12-01T13:50:00.003-05:00

In this post from The Center for Business Intelligence Education, poster Paul McDonald reviews the three reasons CRM implementations fail. His main points?

Too much focus on the CRM vendor and technology
Not enough focus on the customer
Rushing into CRM adaptation.

Over the course of our work with our clients, we've seen these three mistakes come into play. That's why we contractually guarantee the success of our clients. We won't take a job unless we're 100% positive we can make a company's CRM strategy work.

What do you think? What's holding back your CRM implementation?

Oracle releases latest version of Siebel CRM

2008-11-20T09:44:00.004-05:00

Here at Extraprise, we're excited to share the news that Oracle has recently released the latest version of Siebel CRM, version 8.1.1. Here's what the online version of B2B Magazine has to say about it:

"Oracle has launched the newest version of its Siebel customer relationship management system for lead nurturing and customer loyalty management. Aimed at the communications and public sectors, the newest version provides industry-specific customer self-service, enhanced use of multichannel applications with Siebel Chat, and comprehensive search capability. Its Siebel Loyalty feature enables clients to offer membership enrollment and management, including loyalty points accrual and redemption, member services, partner management and promotion management. The company said Siebel CRM 8.1.1 provides cost-savings through its use of open-standards technology. " —Christopher Hosford

Simultaneously, Oracle announced a number of Social CRM offerings that support desktop and portal based access to Siebel information "mashed up" with social network information such as LinkedIn and Facebook.This release, represent almost 30 person years of engineering and has significant enhancements in all areas of the product including:

Fusion Middleware-based updates to Siebel Self-Service, including Siebel eSupport and Siebel eCommerce;
Vertical-specific self-service applications for communications and public sector organizations; Improved multichannel capabilities with deeper search and better use of Siebel Chat;
New customer loyalty features in Siebel Loyalty including loyalty points accrual and redemption, member services, partner management and promotion management;
New features in Siebel Marketing for strategy and planning, multichannel response, and lead management; and
Extended sales forecasting capabilities for cross-functional teams, deal registration capability, and an enhanced user interface for Siebel Sales.

Particularly germane to Extraprise were major announcements around the 8.1.1 Marketing module. New features in Siebel Marketing provide a closed-loop solution that provides the marketing organization actionable insights by automating processes across the marketing function, from strategy and planning to multi-channel response and lead management execution. Related to marketing, and part of a major push by Oracle, is the evolution of their Loyalty platform as a "fourth pillar" regarding CRM (the first three are sales, marketing, and support). Within the loyalty offering are means of increasing the value of interactions on a 360 degree basis. You can view an in depth webinar on the release and its significance presented by Anthony Lye, VP of Oracle CRM. Below is a screen capture from the presentation focusing on some the differentiators associated with Siebel Marketing.

As might be expected, the webinar touched on the current economic conditions, positioning it as an opportunity to introduce fundamental, transformational change within organizations. There was also a focus on ROI, accelerated payback periods, and major TCO improvements facilitated by the 8.1.1. release.

The discussion about Social CRM focused on the changes in the marketplace and the ineffectiveness of disruptive marketing and a transition to engagement and support for all types of new commerce (and commerce facilitating) models like C2C interactions fostered by sites like Facebook and C2B interactions where people are speaking directly to the companies that serve them.

First Edition of CRMinIT, October 31, 2008

2008-11-05T11:24:00.009-05:00

CRMinIT

IT-focused CRM perspective in a minute

IT support costs are constant suspects in the drive to reduce overhead costs. With goals of economizing, improving productivity, and assisting the strategic transformation of the organization into a customer-centric juggernaut; one of the key areas for IT manager focus is CRM support. Extraprise, a CRM integrator and services provider, has done significant research on the support issue, having recently completed a CRM support survey. Further, Extraprise provides a unique best-in-class CRM support offering, Siebel Onshore Support.

In this edition of CRMinIT, we tabulate the myriad support options and identify avenues to evaluate based on specific organizational goals and specific existing conditions. We also provide a brief diagnostic tool to help guide your journey to support nirvana.

Diagnostics:

If cost is an issue there are two options: consider some of the options that have a low cost element, or reprioritize activities to focus on the most important aspect of providing satisfactory support. Our research shows the major factor impacting support satisfaction is support resource understanding of the underlying business process.
If meeting SLAs is a priority, short of piling on resources, you may want to consider one of the options which has both an SLA infrastructure in place and has cost-efficient, flexible staffing capabilities to meet peak demands.
If your CRM environment is stagnating either in terms of technology or lack of evolution of underlying business processes, you may want to focus on one of the solutions that embeds best practices within its foundation. Outsider views are often potent contributors to identifying fresh ways to improve existing processes.
If your company is in a hyper-competitive industry, responsiveness is key to meeting evolving requirements. Employing a hybrid of one or more of the high-agility solutions may be the right route.

Next Steps:

Learn more about CRM Support by looking at our in-depth CRM Survey Report (Stay tuned for further updates!)
Learn more about Extraprise’s Siebel Onshore Support program by visiting http://www.extraprise.com/sos
Call us to discuss your CRM situation and options: 1-888-i2i-MKTG Drop by our booth (#323) at NCDM
Review our Resources page for more articles, white papers, podcasts, or join the dialog on our blog.

Siebel Named Leader in SFA by Forrester

2008-10-31T14:11:00.006-04:00

Forrester Research just released the latest installment of their Forrester Wave for Sales Force Management which rates the major vendors in the space as of Q4 S008. Siebel, SAP, Microsoft, and salesforce.com all achieved the vaunted Leader categorization, as did up-and-comer RightNow Technologies. Both Oracle's Siebel (the on-premise Siebel offering) and Oracle CRM OnDemand (the Siebel SaaS offering) were ranked as leaders. Forrester praised Siebel for its functionality and called out its social web capabilities and its support for the indirect channel. In addition to the strong rating for functionality, Siebel (on-premise) rated well in terms market presence. The one area it got significantly dinged in was in regard to Time to Value, where it ranked lowest. Interestingly the CRM OnDemand offering received the highest rating in this area. This Sales Force Management Wave analysis is supported by several other complementary Waves. The one most germane to Extraprise's business is the Enterprise CRM Suites Wave (which include a more full set of CRM functions including support, field service, marketing, etc.). Siebel ranks as a Leader in this area as the vendor having the greatest breadth and depth of functionality. In both Sales Force Management and Enterprise CRM Suites, it's interesting to note that other Oracle CRM offerings (PeopleSoft and eBusiness suite) do not fare as well as the marquee Siebel-based offerings. Over time, Oracle has a strategy to converge the best functionality from each platform into a new "Fusion" offering. Most bets are being placed on that meaning the Fusion offering will look a lot like the Siebel application. In the short to mid-term, Extaprise's Siebel expertise may provide us some opportunities for us to work with customers on developing a strategy to migrate from other offerings to the ultimate Siebel/Fusion Oracle CRM offering. The full Sales Force Management Wave Analysis can be viewed in pdf format here.

About Extraprise

2008-07-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

About us: Extraprise offers an integrated set of services to make customer insights actionable across all marketing, sales, and service channels. We are the only services company to offer clients the combined skills of a marketing service provider with extensive systems integration expertise using a single consulting methodology. What we do: Extraprise is a marketing services provider that helps companies apply insight to customer interactions to improve acquisition and retention. Simply put, we help companies find, win, and keep more valuable customers. We offer services spanning the following categories:

Customer Strategy
Database Marketing Services
Customer Management Solutions

Extraprise offers:

An on-demand, hosted database marketing services platform that can be integrated directly into sales, customer service, and call/contact center solutions
Proven CRM application integration and strategy services

For more information about Extraprise, visit http://www.extraprise.com

Extraprise S.O.S.

2008-07-15T11:39:00.000-04:00

Over the past decade, the Siebel application platform has evolved to the point where no organization, no matter how large or small, carries the complete technical expertise to adequately support a live production environment. Extraprise overcomes this gap in IT support coverage by offering a cost effective augmentation solution that uses 100% Siebel certified onshore resources. Extraprise S.O.S. provides your organization with a real time Siebel Onshore Support model that will be your lifeline for Siebel issue resolution - at any time and as frequent as your firm requires. Service offering The Extraprise S.O.S. - Siebel Onshore Support model surpasses the level of service companies typically receive from traditional support service offerings and takes up where the Siebel TAM service leaves off. The S.O.S. onshore capability allows clients to more easily leverage our team of Siebel experts beyond critical platform support and bug fixes for assistance with Siebel enhancements, upgrades, and implementations as well.Extraprise S.O.S. offers significant cost-savings by bundling the following services into a comprehensive retained model rather than engaging consultants or hiring full-time staff. The flexible model gives clients access to expert, senior-level Siebel resources from across multiple Siebel disciplines capable of addressing critical support issues as well as managing implementation projects and upgrades. There are no third parties involved and no calls routed overseas. Rather, clients are given a single point of contact at Extraprise S.O.S. to handle their requests. For more information about Extraprise S.O.S., please visit http://www.extraprise.com/sos.

Welcome!

2008-07-11T15:34:00.001-04:00

Extraprise is a full-scale marketing services company based in Boston, MA that specializes in CRM implementation and database marketing to create closed-loop marketing and sales environments. We have successfully completed over 700 engagements for more than 200 companies since 1997. Our experience, proven Extraprise Way methodology, best practices database, partner certifications, and i2i technology platform reduce the cost, complexity, and risk for our clients to achieve their CRM objectives. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.extraprise.com/.