customer relations
By Barton Goldenberg Concerning the Internet of Things options for retailers: At present, there is no one company that can create a single comprehensive Internet of Things (IoT) solution for retailers. IoT equipment manufacturers can put the IoT sensors together, while the IoT integrators must integrate the IoT equipment into a huge IoT ecosystem. Organizations…
By Barton Goldenberg There are various retail Internet of Things (IoT) benefits and risks that retailers will encounter before, during and after implementation. The IoT is not a one-size fits all solution as all retailers need to segment their customer base carefully and be differential whenever a high-touch approach is required and when low-touch approach…
By Barton Goldenberg As the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomena becomes more prevalent in the marketplace, major retailer brands are adopting various IoT applications. From my analysis of the IoT retail marketplace, here are my key observations concerning IoT for retail: The need for best-in-class retailers to survive in the current digital deluge environment and…
By Barton Goldenberg As the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomena becomes more prevalent in the marketplace, major retailer brands are adopting various IoT applications. From ISM’s analysis of the IoT retail marketplace, here are four key retail IoT case studies that demonstrate major retailers’ efforts to thrive in the new IoT business environment: Rebecca Minkoff…
By Barton Goldenberg As the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomena becomes more prevalent in the marketplace, major retailer brands are adopting various IoT applications. From ISM’s analysis of the retail IoT market, here are the four key retail IoT applications that will be critical for retailers in their efforts to thrive in the changing business…
By Barton Goldenberg ISM predicts that the biggest impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) will be in the global retail market as according to the 2016 McKinsey Global Institute report, IoT is forecasted to have a total economic impact of between $3.9 and $11 trillion a year by 2025, including $410 billion to $1.2…
By Barton Goldenberg When a new technology like the Internet of Things arrives on the scene, I find it helpful to ask this question: “What are the people, process and technology issues that need to be overcome in order to fully exploit this new technology?” Below are my current observations. ‘People’ Issues Providing necessary training…
By Barton Goldenberg 1. What are the Internet of Thing’s resulting customer service challenges? The resulting customer service challenges include: New Contact Center support requirements: I foresee the Contact Centers of the future offering support across most if not all channels – including telephone, Web, SMS messaging, Social Media, Internet of Things – that feed…
By Barton Goldenberg As with any new technology, there are plenty of questions that need to be asked by the management of every organization considering implementing the innovative technology. Here are three key questions concerning the Internet of Things and my initial responses to each question. 1) Is there a sustainable driving force behind the…
By Nick Rojas Like everything in life, good business is strengthened by good relationships. Having as close a relationship with your customers as possible will only work to further improve sales. Taking the extra information, you know about them and their needs into account allows for success that might not have come otherwise. To aid…
By Barton Goldenberg Here are two significant Internet of Things technologies that are impacting merchant–customer relationships: 1. A Beacon is a very small transmitting radio that sends relevant information to a desired location. Beacons utilize Bluetooth Low Energy technology, which is a wireless technology standard for exchanging data efficiently over short distances from fixed and…
By Ronald L. Dod For this week, ISM will feature a Guest Blog Post from Ronald L. Dod concerning how your eCommerce brand can boost your customer experience. Description: Discover ways to boost your eCommerce customer experience and have a more successful eCommerce store. We often hear about user experience (UX), but the term customer experience…
By Gloria Kopp For this week, ISM will feature a Guest Blog Post from Gloria Kopp concerning the Top 5 Cloud Computing Mistakes made by businesses. If you have streamlined your business to the cloud, you will already be seeing the outstanding benefits of being able to access everything from everywhere. It can be hugely…
By Barton Goldenberg Closely related to the Internet of Everything is the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), which can be defined as any natural or man-made object that is embedded with sensors that are assigned an Internet address and that transfers data coming from the sensors by connecting wirelessly via the Internet to servers located in…
By Nick Rojas For this week, ISM will feature a another Guest Blog Post from Nick Rojas concerning Social Media practices for franchises. Some brands have become synonymous their product/service. Examples are saying you’re going to “Google” something instead of use a search engine, or grab some “Kleenex” instead of just tissue. Of course, this…
By Barton Goldenberg Any organization wishing to be around in 10 years will have to execute a sound channel optimization strategy. That strategy must answer at least these two questions: (1) Is the organization optimizing channel partner integration, the channels that their customers use, or both? and (2) How is the organization accommodating multi-channel optimization?…
By Barton Goldenberg A second key component of channel optimization is optimizing each selected channel – see diagram above – through the use of integrated processes and technology. (The first key component is achieving a balance between fulfilling each customer’s desired channel preferences versus achieving the organization’s desire to secure the lowest cost-to-serve channel option…
By Barton Goldenberg To succeed at channel optimization, organizational management must overcome the challenges of finding the right balance between delivering desired customer channel preferences while simultaneously driving customers to the lowest cost-to-serve channel that is acceptable to them. The key challenge for organizations is to find the right balance between delivering desired customer channel…
By Barton Goldenberg All organizations at one time or another have dealt with happy and unhappy customers, profitable and unprofitable customers as well as ‘high maintenance’ and ‘low maintenance’ customers. What if an organization had a magic wand and could optimize the channel(s) that each of their customers uses such that each customer gets to…