Recently added articles from Soft-Letter:
WEB SUPPORT: A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC VIEW.
Jul 31, 2001 ... "Jupiter Media Metrix reports that [despite the current economic downturn] 74% of businesses will spend more money on customer relationship management (CRM) infrastructure in 2001 than they did in 2000--with a majority committing to increasing their spending by as much as 25% to 50% ....
SIDEBAR:.
Jul 31, 2001 ... The Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2001 <Pre> OPEN DIVISION Cognos support.cognos.com/support Dell premiersupport.dell.com Hewlett-Packard itrc.hp.com Macromedia www.macromedia.com/support National Instruments www.ni.com Symantec ...
POSTSCRIPT:.
Jul 31, 2001 ... In August, the Association of Support Professionals will publish a book-length report on this year's "Ten Best Web Support Sites". The report will offer a ...
HOW TO HOST AN INFLUENCER DINNER.
Jul 15, 2001 ... "One of the simplest and most powerful ways to build a company's reputation," says publicist Shel Israel, "is to host occasional dinner meetings with a group of 'key influencers'--typically with one or two customers or business partners, perhaps an analyst who covers the company, and one ...
CHECKLIST: OEM PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS.
Jul 15, 2001 ... Earlier this year, SPSS set up a new "enabling technologies" division to offer statistical and analytical solutions to large OEM partners like Unisys, Lucent, NetGenesis, and Hyperion. David Blyer, who heads the new division, sees these OEM deals as a way "to reach customers who've ...
HOW TO LIVE WITH MICROSOFT.
Jul 15, 2001 ... There's an old parable about a scorpion who hitches a ride across a river on the back of a frog, and then stings the frog in mid-river. "Why?" the frog asks. "Now you're going to drown." Says the scorpion: "I can't help myself. It's just my nature." The past few weeks have not ...
DATA POINTS: TECH SUPPORT TURNOVER.
Jul 15, 2001 ... [CHART OMITTED] Tech support departments are famous for burnout and constant employee churn, which adds substantially to the cost of recruiting and training new support reps. In fact, a new survey by the Association of Support Professionals shows that roughly 40% of support ...
THE ART OF SEMINAR MARKETING.
Jun 29, 2001 ... No question, seminars are an absurdly primitive way to sell technology products. We lure a few dozen people to a windowless hotel room, force them to sit through mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations, and then hope they'll turn into loyal clients. This is a marketing strategy? ...
ON MINIMIZING SOFTWARE COMPLEXITY.
Jun 15, 2001 ... Greg Gianforte's four-year-old company, RightNow Technologies, sells customer service automation software--a product category that's become notorious for out-of-control implementation costs. But RightNow almost never gets bogged down in complex customization projects, says Gianforte, ...
CHECKLIST: BANNER AD COMPONENTS.
Jun 15, 2001 ... Like most forms of Web marketing, banner ads have lost much of their novelty value. But good banner ads still produce healthy clickthrough rates and even sales--and more than ever, the ad measurement experts know what makes an ad "good." Probably the best research on this topic ...
HOW TO BE A BAD BOSS.
Jun 15, 2001 ... Executive coach Paul Lemberg is a pretty upbeat guy, but he's often frustrated by how often well-meaning bosses put obstacles in front of their employees and create dysfunctional organizations. "Most discussions of management and leadership talk about what to do to help people be their ...
DATA POINTS: MICROSOFT'S PROFIT-PER-EMPLOYEE RATIO.
Jun 15, 2001 ... [CHART OMITTED] It's no secret that Microsoft has pulled well ahead of most rivals in revenue per employee, but a less-watched metric--profit per employee-- has widened the competitive gap even further. Ten years ago, each of Microsoft's 8,226 employees contributed an average ...
MARKETING CASEBOOK #2: SIMPLE IDEAS, BIG RESULTS.
May 31, 2001 ... Some marketers would like us to believe that it takes a mysterious mix of experience, scientific testing, and creativity to produce a breakthrough campaign. The truth is, there's also a lot of sheer luck behind many great marketing ideas. A random "let's try this" suggestion suddenly ...
THE CASE FOR E-MAIL NEWSLETTERS.
May 11, 2001 ... Every month, FirstPlace Software president Brent Winters cranks out a long, densely technical e-mail newsletter about search engine algorithms and keyword positioning strategies. FirstPlace gets an occasional mention in the trade press, but the company's real visibility comes from its ...
THE AUTODESK SUBSCRIPTION LICENSE.
May 11, 2001 ... "When the history of the software industry is written, upgrades will be one of its biggest mistakes." --Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz After two decades of dragging users along a sometimes-rocky upgrade path, Autodesk has declared war on the classic upgrade model. At the company's ...
HOW TO RUN A CUSTOMER ADVISORY BOARD.
May 11, 2001 ... "It's shocking to see how many companies don't pay attention to what their customers are thinking," says Paul Lemberg, an executive coach who works with high-growth technology companies. "They don't want any interaction to develop and they don't trust customers to know anything about the ...
DATA POINTS: PERMISSION-BASED E-MAIL.
May 11, 2001 ... Although spammers get most of the blame for overloading e-mail mailboxes, consumers have currently "opted in" for almost 15% of total message volume in the U.S., according to data compiled by eMarketer, an Internet market research firm. Within another two years, eMarketer predicts, the ...
THE 2001 SOFT-LETTER 100.
Apr 30, 2001 ... [CHARTS AND TABLES OMITTED] When we published our first Soft-letter 100 rankings back in February 1984, the "personal computer software" category was easy to define: Inexpensive, mass-market programs that ran on stand-alone desktop machines like the IBM PC, the Apple II, and ...
NOTES ON METHODOLOGY.
Apr 30, 2001 ... The Soft-letter 100, published annually since 1984, is defined formally as "a ranking of the top 100 personal computer software companies in the U.S., based on calendar year revenues." That definition (which continues to evolve with the industry itself) helps explain why some companies ...
THE INTUIT WEB MAKEOVER.
Apr 13, 2001 ... This month, Intuit will formally relaunch its Quicken.com Web site, a key part of the company's strategy to generate "portal" revenue from personal finance information and services. The site, which went live in late 1997, currently attracts more than four million unique visitors a month--a ...