Sites by Category
This section lists some sites to explore; they are organized by category. Some sites might appear in more than one category if they have content that crosses over. You'll find that visiting one of these sites leads naturally to visiting others, and you'll find that you develop your own list of favorites that you bookmark and return to.
Communities and Associations
Business associations and other existing communities form an important part of the online CRM community. Many of the sites listed below operate in both online and offline arenas.
Microsoft Public CRM Newsgroup
microsoft.public.crm newsgroup
Easily the most active online Microsoft CRM community, this news group is provided by Microsoft.
The Direct Marketing Association
The Direct Marketing Association (The DMA) is the oldest and largest trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database, and interactive marketing fields.
The Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM)
http://www.interactivemarketing.org
This site is devoted to helping marketers leverage interactive opportunities across multiple channels to effectively reach their respective marketplaces. Headquartered in New York, AIM serves diverse corporate interests in an effort to build a strong interactive community, drive benchmarks, and best practices, advocate industry guidelines, and educate the direct and interactive marketing industries.
The Internet Alliance (IA)
http://www.internetalliance.org/
The Internet Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., is the leading consumer Internet industry association representing the industry at the state, federal, and international levels. Through public policy, advocacy, and consumer outreach, the IA is dedicated to building the confidence and trust necessary for the Internet to become the mass-market medium of the 21st century.
CRMCommunity
http://www.crmcommunity.com/default.htm
CRMCommunity is a community-oriented Web source for comprehensive, targeted information on evaluating, purchasing, and implementing customer-relationship management technology and solutions.
CRM-Forum
CRM-Forum is an independent online resource center for CRM professionals working in the business-consumer marketplace. It provides CRM professionals and companies involved in CRM on both the demand and supply side of the industry with a place to keep up-to-date with CRM developments, and to meet, discuss, and contact each other about CRM-related issues.
Association for the Advancement of Relationship Marketing
AARM is a not-for-profit association and promotes industry growth, development, and education through a network of CRM people, which provide a forum for members and offer educational and networking opportunities for those involved in specific CRM disciplines. AARM fulfills its educational role by providing conferences, seminars, workshops, executive briefings, networking sessions, and other CRM educational content.
Business Process Management Group
The Business Process Management Group is a global business club exchanging ideas and best practice in change management. It has over 2,000 members across all business sectors. Through case studies, seminars, and research it supports members by improving their organizations' work across business processes, information technology, and people.
CRM2day
CRM2day focuses on every business function—marketing, sales, human resources, technology, and so on. It also focuses on the business sector—finance, retail, health, insurance, IT, telecoms, Internet, call centers, and so on, in order to provide its members with information and knowledge that is indispensable in today's competitive business environment.
CRMguru.com
CRMGuru.com serves the world's largest CRM community with independent editorials, features, discussions, and products.
The CRMXchange
The CRMXchange is your place on the Internet for an exchange of information on customer relationship management (CRM), sales, call center, and telemarketing issues.
The CRM Foundation
http://www.crmfoundation.com/index.html
The CRM Foundation is a nonprofit society in India. Its mission is to help organizations find the best tools for improving and assessing CRM practices, to create a common platform for users and suppliers of CRM Tools/Solutions, and to add value to CRM professionals by providing opportunity for networking, sharing and learning, and benchmark CRM practices.
The CRM Project
This project explores a bouquet of collaborative technologies that together comprise a total CRM solution. The best-of-breed vendors you'll find here describe their products in detail, and they explain how to work with those products. Top industry analysts offer reviews, advice, and their visions of the future.
The Customer Service Network
This site provides access to a full program of site visits where you can see best practice in operation. You'll also be invited to a series of workshops, where key issues are discussed and problems shared. And, at their networking events, you'll have the opportunity to find out, directly from the people involved, what makes the best customer service organizations so good.
eCustomerServiceWorld.com
http://www.ecustomerserviceworld.com/
eCustomerServiceWorld.com is an online Customer Service Associate Membership organization and is the organizer of the European Conference on Customer Management—Europe's most prestigious and largest conference for Customer Service, CRM, Contact Center, and Customer Support professionals.
GreaterChinaCRM.org
http://www.greaterchinacrm.org
This site is a CRM portal focusing on Greater China—Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It covers all topics in the CRM arena, including contact center, sales force automation, enterprise marketing automation, personalization, eCRM, PRM, data mining, data warehousing, knowledge management, business intelligence, ERP, and supply-chain management.
Intelligent CRM
http://www.intelligentcrm.com/
Intelligent Enterprise communities focus on business software strategies that provide competitive advantage by improving business decision-making, enhancing business performance, and maximizing the lifetime value of customer relationships. This one is focused on CRM topics.
Marketing Competence
http://www.argo-navis.com/competence/index.php
This site is dedicated to Total Customer Management.
The Resource Center for Customer Service Professionals
http://www.the-resource-center.com/
One-stop shopping for call center and help desk education. The Resource Center carries books, reports, surveys, self-study training in all forms, association memberships, and training seminars produced by industry associations, consulting firms, and publishers.
Destination CRM
http://www.destinationcrm.com/
The goal at destinationCRM.com is to become the preferred Internet location for information, products, and services relevant to the CRM user marketplace. destinationCRM.com is dedicated to providing this pertinent information in a timely manner, thereby connecting decision makers and industry providers now and in the future.
CRM Assist
The CRM ITToolbox site. ITtoolbox is a company that maintains knowledge bases for each major segment of the IT industry. Each knowledge base contains information sourced from the user community, licensed from leading content providers, and linked to on the World Wide Web.
TIPTo find a Microsoft CRM user group in your local area, check the Microsoft Event locator site for updates: http://msevents.microsoft.com/isapi/events/usa/enu/default.asp?MSCOMTB=ICP_Events%20Home |
News
Web sites included in this category focus on news and events in the CRM industry. They also provide search directories and magazine sites that are focused primarily on reporting news and events in the industry.
RealMarket Today
http://www.realmarket.com/index.html
A source for late-breaking news in CRM; RealMarket seeks to accelerate the acceptance of CRM solutions through education, awareness, and example. RealMarket research helps organizations tackling the customer relationship challenge by recognizing the interrelationship of CRM (unified sales, service, and marketing), the 21st century contact center, and e-business, while tackling the customer interaction challenge of managing data, channel, and process.
Search CRM
The CRM-specific search site. Combines news, white papers, and a search engine to bring you the latest CRM developments. Also provides discussion forums moderated by experts and category experts to answer your questions directly.
CRMConferences.com
http://www.crmconferences.com/
The Center for Business Intelligence (CBI) and World Research Group (WRG) has teamed to bring you industry-specific CRM events. Although the theory of CRM is applicable to most industries CBI and WRG recognize the value of industry-specific case studies and the benefit of networking with those who face similar challenges. CBI and WRG have put together a series of CRM events that focus on three specific industries: sports, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. If you provide CRM services or are involved in one of these three industries you will not want to miss the opportunity to attend these events.
Publications
These publications include both online and print magazines in the CRM sector. They can be useful for conducting research using articles, journals, and whitepapers on CRM topics.
e-CRM Magazine
This site's features are designed to serve leaders engaged in the development of customer-centric, e-business initiatives and ventures at their companies.
Field Force Automation
http://www.destinationffa.com/info/contact_us.asp Field Force Automation magazine targets executives and managers charged with implementing mobile technologies into the business process of the enterprise. It provides business managers, IT implementers, and integrators with the ideas and specifics for integrating new technology into their company's field operations.
Customer Contact World Magazine
Customer Contact World magazine is Asia's only CRM and business intelligence magazine. This is Asia's only bimonthly publication delivered to over 10,000 readers across the Asia Pacific.
Resources
This section includes vendors, consultants, service companies, and other resources for the CRM community. It includes sites that categorize and provide searchable databases of vendors providing services and products for CRM, as well as selected sites of vendors themselves.
Cross-referenceSee Chapter 16, “Managing Your Service Vendors,” for more information on defining your requirements for vendor products and services, and for setting up a successful relationship with these vendors. |
isitCRM.com
http://www.isit.com/IndexCRM.cfm
With articles, vendors, current topics, and free press release postings, isitCRM.com can help you find the answers to your CRM questions. The site also includes vendor profiles with links to the Web sites of participating companies.
ECCS
ECCS is a focal point for research, management advice, and commercial developments in Customer Relationship Management. It delivers a mix of originally researched information and interactive services. Register free on www.eccs.uk.com for regular information, ideas, and insights into CRM practice. You'll find information unavailable elsewhere: CRM Trends keeps you in touch with major user and marketplace developments. Infobank provides insights and ideas you can apply to improve your CRM performance based on Business Intelligence's exclusive research. In addition, you will find case studies, articles, a guide to vendors and consultancies, CRM books, events, training programs, and much more.
1to1service
1to1service is a vendor for call center technology and services. They provide a contact center solution that is easy to implement and supports all communication channels including telephone, text-chat, email, fax, VoIP, and Web-based self-service.
Business Intelligence
http://www.business-intelligence.co.uk/
Business Intelligence delivers independent, authoritative advice on emerging business trends and practices including CRM, supply chain, data warehousing, balanced scorecard, business intelligence, human resources, and knowledge management, presenting its findings in the form of conferences, exhibitions, research, publishing, training courses, and Web communities.
Capterra—The Enterprise Software Center
An objective Web site that combines guidance and resources to simplify software selection.
Hewson Group
Hewson Group is an independent UK-based organization. Since inception in 1989, Hewson Group has specialized in market analysts and management consultancy in the Customer Relationship Management arena.
Talisma Corporation
Talisma Corporation is a provider of interaction-centric CRM solutions for service, sales, and marketing to mid-market and Global 2000 enterprises. Talisma's proven philosophy of rapid software deployment and use-based evolution has helped hundreds of companies create long-lasting and profitable customer relationships and see early returns on their investment.
Inspiration
No listing of sales- and marketing-related Web sites would be complete without mentioning the sites that help you find the inspiration to do your job. Drawing on resources from marketing and sales disciplines, these sites provide the inspiration to find the next customer and implement the next marketing initiative.
The Perfect Customer
http://www.perfectcustomer.com
This site offers daily tips for transforming your business to attract only the customers that you really want (what they call your “Perfect Customers”). Also includes articles, discussions, and other resources for bringing “right-brain technologies” into your left-brain technological world.
Millionaire Eagles—The Enlightened Millionaire Program
This site can best be introduced by reading their online mission statement, which is “Our mission is to change the economic history of the planet by creating 100 Enlightened Millionaires in 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada. An Enlightened Millionaire is someone who understands that there is no limit to the abundance in the Universe, and that there is enough for everyone.”
Metamorphosis International
http://www.dataminingcookbook.com/
The site for the data-mining cookbook, which is a useful guide about how to benefit from the customer information you collect in your CRM systems.
Excalibur Exhibits and Events
http://www.excaliburexhibits.com/
Excalibur Exhibits and Events is a Houston-based, event-marketing company. If you need help with trade show exhibits, retail displays, corporate briefing centers, and special event programs, this site can help.
Archetype Discoveries Worldwide
http://www.archetypediscoveriesworldwide.com/
The owner of this site, Dr. G. C. Rapaille, is an internationally known expert in archetype studies and creativity. From the site:
In contrast to traditional marketing research firms, Archetype Discoveries does not rely on what people say. Instead these studies use a unique blend of biology, cultural anthropology, psychology, and learning theories to discover the hidden cultural forces that pre-organize the way people behave toward a product, service, or concept. Unlike opinions that can change in a minute, cultural Archetypes are deeply imprinted in people's minds and strongly rooted in cultural codes.
Use-Case Corner
Online communities are built, not found. Community building is an art in itself.
One example of a thriving online community is the literary agency Studio B (studiob.com) with its popular Computer Information Professionals discussion list. Although the list boasts the participation of many successful writers who are leaders in the community, David Rogelberg, founder of Studio B, acts as an influential community builder by writing industry-related and discussion-provoking posts, which stimulate activity on the list. There is a “list mom,” a typical community-building role, who moderates and encourages restraint, gently nudging participants back on track when posts go too far afield from the stated topic of the list.
Another way in which Rogelberg builds his community is to value and work with individuals who influence community members and play leading roles in the industry. Tim O'Reilly, publisher of the In a Nutshell series books, and an active member of the computer-book publishing community, often drops in to discuss issues on Studio B's list, creating a cross-pollination of ideas that enhance thought leadership to community members. Rogelberg makes it clear that O'Reilly's contributions are welcome, whether he always agrees with Tim's point of view or not.