Service centers get a lot more calls with complaints and criticisms than they get showers of praise. All telecom companies experience churn rates way above those of many other industries -- it isn't unheard of for 30 percent of an average telecom company's customers to switch providers in the course...

The consumer backlash against unsolicited telemarketing and e-mails coupled with ever-increasing competition for customer attention have forced companies to take a new look at their inbound call centers. Long considered a profit drain and necessary evil, inbound call centers are now seen as a critic...

In the early days of the dot-com boom, companies tracked "hits" and "eyeballs" and measured "stickiness" on their hastily created Web sites. As Web sites matured into viable business channels, however, these simple Web metrics proved to be of little value. Just as the customer data generated through...

Customers today come in increasingly unique and differentiated segments. They want to be seen and approached as individuals with specific needs and to feel that offers address them personally. Satisfying these self-segmented customers requires a careful balance of science and art. While creative ide...

The customer is king again. After decades of mass-market driven customer outreach, which typically lumped customers in large, homogenous segments, a complex mix of socioeconomic factors coupled with a proliferation of new media and technologies have put the customer back in the driver's seat. Today'...

Micro marketing, one-to-one marketing, niche marketing. Whatever buzzwords are used to define it, the trend driving businesses today and tomorrow is the need to profitably serve smaller and smaller audiences. This focus on knowing thy customer on a one-to-one basis is fueled by advances in technolog...