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DSC Tech Library
This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to CRM Applications and Customer relationship management software and products. Providing customer service is vital to maintaining successful business relationships. Accurate and timely information provided in a professional manner is the key to any business and service operation.
Telemation, our CRM software application, was built on this foundation. But the flexibility to change is just as important in this dynamic business environment.
Telemation call center software was designed with this concept from the very beginning.
That is why so many call center managers, with unique and changing requirements, have chosen and continue to use Telemation CRM software as their solution.
Our Telemation CRM solution is ideally suited for call center service bureaus.
Hidden Costs of Online CRM
The following is an extract from the article "Hidden Costs of Online CRM" by Erika Morphy from CRM Daily:
"It is low in cost, it delivers enterprise-level functionality, and it spares a company the ordeal of an extensive implementation project.
"It" is hosted software -- and many say this once-fledgling software space is now in its prime as more and more both buyers and sellers jump on the bandwagon.
To be sure, much of what vendors of these products and services say is true. Online software is cheaper -- at least, for the first few years -- and it is far easier to deploy. As an added bonus, new versions of these applications have made integration , configuration and customization easier than ever before.
Strategic Costs
That said, it is important for users and potential users to understand that the total cost of ownership of these applications may be higher than they imagine. For example, while the current generation of online software has become extraordinarily customizable -- certainly compared with its earlier counterparts -- the customization is still a cost outside of the monthly subscription rate.
"Oftentimes, companies will look at an ASP as a band-aid solution or quick fix, but to get the proper value from it, a company still needs to configure, possibly customize, and integrate the application," Sheryl Kingstone, senior analyst with the Yankee Group, told CRM Daily.
It is not so much a case of an aggressive vendor deliberately leading a prospective customer astray -- although surely this has happened here and there -- as it is about the costs of integration. But, just like the story that played out with on-premise enterprise-software providers, online vendors' total-cost-of-ownership calculations tend to get low-balled, too.
"A company must pay the strategic costs of integration and customization -- no matter if it is a premise-based or hosted application," Kingstone says. The problem with the latter, she says, is that too many companies assume these costs will be less because the application itself is less expensive.
Disconnect in Expectations
Such misunderstandings by customers -- and between customers and vendors -- no doubt are going to grow as subscription-based software and services continue to expand. Recent figures from IDC show that worldwide software-subscription license revenues totaled US$19.9 billion in 2003. By 2008, the firm predicts, the category's revenues will reach $42.9 billion -- a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent.
Friction between vendor and customer already exists, Amy Mizoras Konary, program manager of IDC's software pricing, licensing and delivery group, tells CRM Daily.
For example, she says, most customers expect -- not hope, not wish for, but expect -- continual improvements in the software on a quarterly or at least six-month cycle, an expectation that is factored in to the cost a company is willing to pay for hosted software.
"Because customers have the choice not to renew on a monthly or quarterly basis, the company has to continually market the application over and over again to its installed base," she notes. Some vendors are happy to oblige, rolling out upgrades and new versions -- often at the same subscription price -- every quarter or so. But when it comes to a product like Microsoft CRM, the company tends to dole out upgrades or enhancements almost on a par with its desktop software......"
To view the entire article, visit www.crmdaily.com.
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