But what about the types of sales where personal interaction is still critical? As he notes, “With great digital user experiences, companies can generate more levels of interaction, more engagement, and ultimately more sales. In an outstanding piece on Harvard Business Review, Users Are the New Growth Engine , Aaron Shapiro warns CEOs who “won’t acknowledge the impact digital technology is having on their business,” may not be around in five years. Shapiro makes three main points: Online commerce will affect more than half of all consumer purchases by 2012. MORE >>

Sales or support responds with a reply. customer service or sales agent responds in kind. For the last few years our company has been using the term Pre-CRM and we’ve seen it take hold in the marketplace lately. As you know, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a strategy for managing relationship, interaction and contact data about potential and landed customers. An obvious question—if not a flaw—with CRM is: how do you relate to a prospective customer prior to having captured them in your CRM system? Let’s run through a familiar scenario. MORE >>

The near-automated sale of commodity products on the web has, for all intents and purposes, been figured out. But, for ‘considered purchase’ products and services (representing 80% of offline commerce) engagement will be the key to online sales. This retail giant who lives in my backyard accounts for over 30% of all consumer electronics sales. In this example, BestBuy was relegated to perform the role of high overhead (but knowledgeable) product showroom, while the web-based competitor engaged with price and made the sale. The one constant is change. MORE >>

Customer intelligence is a useful weapon for targeting customers based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral traits, which results in better utilization of sales and marketing dollars. In 2006 Mike Vizard coined the term Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) as the counterpart to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Though it has taken time for the idea of VRM to take hold, it will be growing in prevalence in the not-too-distant future. In a recent blog post I discussed how the future of the web is anonymous. Who can blame them? Businesses want control. ProjectVRM Wiki. MORE >>

Third, can you encourage your team to take on a more “sales support” role for your offering during these inevitable slow periods? Asking your customer support team to use reactive downtime for proactive sales support uptime may initially be met with resistance. Discover whether they are nimble enough to become a proactive service extension to prospects that drive more sales. Your customer support team knows the customer; they speak the customer’s language. They sit patiently waiting to attack a customer issue with vigor. &rdquo MORE >>