CRM Daily

Wireless Customer Satisfaction Evens Out

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:27:17 -0500

Improvements in customer satisfaction at Sprint Nextel Corp. and AT&T Inc. have narrowed differences among the Big 4 wireless carriers to the point that they're basically even in terms of pleasing their subscribers, according to a study released Tuesday.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index puts Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless within two points of each other on a 100-point scale of customer satisfaction.

That's the smallest spread since the survey started looking at all four companies in 2005. It's also within the margin of error at plus or minus three points.

Last year, AT&T clearly trailed the pack, while Sprint and Verizon led. That was a surprising development for Sprint, which was last as recently as four years ago. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has made improvement in customer service central to his tenure.

AT&T recovered this year, with a three-point increase to 69. It shares that score with T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 carrier by size. Verizon and Sprint are at 70 and 71, respectively.

The survey was developed by the University of Michigan, but is now run by a private company, ACSI LLC. It surveyed about 6,000 households in the first quarter for the annual report.

For the phone companies, the satisfaction index has a limited relevance to actual customer loyalty, which the companies report quarterly. For instance, T-Mobile customers are far more likely to leave the carrier than AT&T's are, even though they have the same score.

T-Mobile is the only company among the Big 4 that doesn't sell the iPhone. That probably matters to customers. The ACSI for the first time published a score for Apple Inc. as a phone manufacturer. At 83 points, it handily outranks other manufacturers measured, including Samsung Electronics Co., HTC Corp. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.

LiveTime Reduces Government IT Resource Costs

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:24:16 -0500

Newport Beach, CA, May 15, 2012 -- The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC), and the Department of Defense (DoD) have successfully deployed LiveTime's Service Manager to provide streamlined ITSM services that save time, and reduce costs of Government IT resources.

With a $14B budget and 142,000 employees, the DoC used disparate IT systems to manage all of its business processes, from Request Fulfillment through to Problem, Change and Release Management. The DoC wanted to standardize on a single centralized service management product and identified the need for a scalable cloud-based solution based on ITIL 3 best practices with seamless visibility between processes and integrated across all business units.

A very high level of security was also a minimal requirement for a majority of DoC implementations, so LiveTime's private cloud solution was selected for DoC's own data centers. The deployment provides DoC management with a single consolidated view of all processes and business effectiveness with unparalleled ease of use.

The DoD has also significantly reduced its overall IT budget after replacing more than six separate Remedy installations with LiveTime Service Manager in a matter of weeks. Vital to the deployment's success was the transmission of data from other proprietary Asset Management systems to a centralized CMDB of internal assets and services for managing military support operations around the globe.

The DoD leveraged LiveTime's extensive web services API to feed the integrated CMDB inside LiveTime Service Manager. The improved transparency allows the DoD to handle a significantly greater volume of requests, incidents and change than ever before, to provide a higher standard of IT Service Management.

LiveTime 7, which is expected to debut in Q2 2012, continues to drive open standards and increase user productivity by offering unrivaled ease of use for an ITIL 3 certified...

Facebook Updates Data Use Policy To Give More Info

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:40:43 -0500

Facebook is updating its data use policy in an attempt to give people more clarity on how the company uses information they share.

As part of the changes, Facebook is also signaling that it may start showing people ads on sites other than Facebook, targeting the pitches to interests and hobbies that users express on Facebook.

The move comes a week before Facebook Inc.'s expected initial public offering of stock. Facebook held events with potential investors this week, including one in Silicon Valley on Friday, and it has posted a version of its road show online. The offering could value Facebook at nearly $100 billion -- more than Kraft, Ford and other major brands.

The policy changes are in response to an audit by Irish data-protection authorities last year, Facebook said Friday. The commission had asked Facebook to be more transparent about how it collects people's data and uses it for advertising, as well as how long it keeps such information.

Facebook plans to notify its more than 900 million users of the changes through advertisements around the site and on its mobile apps. Users who want to dig deeper can read a version of the policy that highlights the changes word by word. Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, will host an online chat Monday to answer any questions.

Egan said the company wasn't substantially changing its business practices, but wants to "err on the side of providing too much information."

Facebook's overseas headquarters are based in Dublin, Ireland, a member of the European Union. This means the company is required to comply with European data privacy laws. Facebook said the changes were also a response to feedback from its users.

As part of the changes to the policy, Facebook has created a section to explain how it uses technologies such as cookies to deliver ads,...

Redpark Cable Simplifies Arduino iDevice Connections

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:13:17 -0500

Emeryville, CA, May 14, 2012 -- Redpark Product Development today announced it is now shipping a TTL Serial Cable that connects iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to Arduino and to other devices with a TTL serial interface. The TTL Serial Cable is a one meter long cable and has a 6-pin connector. It is designed for use with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad (3rd generation), iPad 2 and iPad.

The TTL Serial Cable is used in conjunction with a Redpark serial communications (RSC) library. Together these tools enable developers to write iOS apps that communicate with serial devices.

"There has been a great deal of interest in connecting iOS devices to Arduino", explained Redpark president Mike Ridenhour. "We're pleased to offer a cable that provides a simple and reliable solution."

The Redpark Serial Cable - part number C2-TTL - has an MSRP of $59. Further information about the cable and points of purchase is available at http://www.redpark.com/c2ttl.html.

ABOUT REDPARK

Redpark Product Development engineers accessories used in the consumer electronics industry. Areas of focus include iPod integration and app enabled accessories for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Digital Wallets Take Center Stage at Cell Phone Show

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:38:20 -0500

Cash, coins and credit cards are so Twentieth Century. At least, that's the opinion of the electronics manufacturers, phone companies, banks and credit card issuers that expect cellphones to be the main way consumers pay for purchases in the not-so-distant future.

The trouble is, that vision-of-tomorrow is somewhat blurry, as evidenced at the U.S. cellphone industry trade show held this week in New Orleans. There are a lot of ideas, but little agreement.

The stakes, however, are high.

"Eighty-five percent of the world's transactions are still made with cash and checks. We have a wonderful opportunity to convert those," said Gary Flood, MasterCard's president of global products and solutions, in a keynote speech at the show.

One concept that gets a lot of attention is the "digital wallet" -- a virtual repository for our credit card numbers, receipts, coupons. It's not much different from a PayPal account, which can be linked to different cards. A lot of companies see the wallet as the key to influence in the world of mobile payments, especially if it sits on a cellphone, not just on a PC. Google introduced its Wallet last year. It's available on a few phones that can be tapped against certain payment terminals to complete a payment.

Andrew Lorentz, a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP who works with the payments industry, said at the show that if he had a dime for every digital wallet that's been announced, he'd be rich.

"I can have more wallets than cards," he said.

At the show, MasterCard announced a service that could speed up wallet proliferation even more. The company's idea is to let any company that wants to set up its own wallet.

"The idea behind this is: How do we get more wallets and more innovation?" said Ed Olebe, MasterCard's senior vice president of e-commerce development.

Consumers trust...

Facebook Spawns New Ecosystem of Startups

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:36:16 -0500

To get the true measure of what's often called "The Facebook Effect," look beyond the company. Generally ignored in the klieg lights focused on Facebook's IPO is a growing ecosystem of other startups that are using the social network's 900 million users to launch their own businesses.

The startups already have a much bigger collective economic footprint than Facebook itself. And one sure bet is that an IPO is in the future for many of those still-young companies.

Consider Wildfire Interactive, a 3-year-old Redwood City, Calif., startup that helps the likes of Sony, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Unilever engage their customers through Facebook. Wildfire's customer base doubled to more than 15,000 in the past year, while its workforce tripled to more than 330 people.

"It's like catching a big wave," said Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom, a New Zealander and the former head of a global adventure travel company who founded Wildfire in 2009 with Alain Chuard, a former professional snowboarder. "There is definitely a wave here, which is social media, that is changing the way businesses do everything."

Facebook's ecosystem was at first dominated by social gaming companies, particularly newly public Zynga in San Francisco. But that is changing as fast-growing startups built specifically around Facebook create new ways to find a job, buy and sell merchandise, plan a trip or find new customers--all inside the world's largest social network.

In the San Francisco Bay Area alone are RootMusic in San Francisco, which helps recording artists create fan pages on Facebook; Gogobot, a Menlo Park, Calif., travel service where members can tap the expertise of their Facebook friends to plan a trip; and Emeryville, Calif.-based Rotten Tomatoes, where fans can share movie likes or dislikes.

The Facebook ecosystem already supports at least 18 times more jobs in the United States than Facebook itself, according to one...

Purina's Video Games Purr-fect for Cat Lovers

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:56:57 -0500

Here at Nestle Purina PetCare headquarters, Friskies product manager Shaun Belongie helps create eight flavors of cat food each year.

In 2011, he decided to add to his creative portfolio by devising a Friskies app for the Apple iPad featuring simple video games that humans could play with their cats. True, most cats walk by the iPad and pay no bother. But some of the more curious ones find the floating fish on the iPad screen interesting enough to paw. Nestle Purina's experiment has garnered 500,000 downloads so far. The company [has unveiled] an app for Android tablets, and says it plans to release a seventh game for cats later this year.

St. Louis is the pet food capital of the U.S., thanks to Nestle Purina, created in 2001 when Ralston Purina merged with a subsidiary of Swiss giant Nestle. The PetCare unit is No.1 in market share for dog and cat food, with 47% of pet food sales in 2011, according to market tracker Mintel. Nestle Purina reported pet food sales of $2.7 billion for the first quarter of 2012, up 7.7% from $2.6 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Cats doing funny things in online videos has long been a popular pastime. Nestle Purina's idea was to go to the next level by helping consumers do funny things with their cats via its six games. The latest, You vs. Cat, was released in March.

"There is plenty of cat content on the Internet," says Belongie. "We wanted to make sure that whatever we do as a brand is something folks can't get anywhere else. Games fit the bill."

Belongie says some 300,000 videos of cats playing its games have been submitted to the Friskies' Youvscat.com Web site, which Nestle Purina also shares on its Friskies Facebook page. At press time, cats were in the...

T-Mobile Ads Revert Back to Lampooning AT&T iPhone

Thu, 10 May 2012 08:51:40 -0500

Six months after AT&T's deal to buy T-Mobile USA collapsed, T-Mobile's TV ads are going back on the attack against a favorite target: AT&T Inc.

Philipp Humm, the CEO of T-Mobile, showed off a new ad Tuesday featuring a hapless man on a motorcycle, cruising on a desert road as a woman on another motorcycle blows past him. The voiceover explains that the man represents an iPhone 4S on AT&T's network, and the woman is T-Mobile's 4G network.

The ad recalls other attack ads T-Mobile showed a year and a half ago. They likened the iPhone to a young man, carrying on his back a frumpy middle-aged man who represented AT&T's data network. The message: AT&T's network slows down the iPhone.

Those ads disappeared last spring when AT&T offered to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. That deal collapsed in December after regulators opposed it on grounds that No. 2 carrier AT&T buying No. 4 T-Mobile would reduce competition.

Between the announcement of the deal and its collapse, T-Mobile was in limbo. That hurt the company's brand, and it's now looking at "relaunching" it, Humm told attendees at CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellphone industry's annual trade show, which kicked off Tuesday in New Orleans.

Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's wireless division, was on hand at the same event to give his opinion about the ads.

"It's comparing a phone to a network," de la Vega said. "Everyone gets that, right?"

The iPhone 4S can't use AT&T latest wireless data network, which uses so-called "LTE" technology. Nor could it utilize the top speeds on T-Mobile's network, even if it were available for T-Mobile subscribers.

"That's why this industry has a bad rap, we take the truth and we stretch it," de la Vega said.

Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Dan Hesse, on the same panel discussion, chided both AT&T...

Struggling RIM Unveils New Executive Hires

Thu, 10 May 2012 08:52:58 -0500

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. said Tuesday that it has hired two new senior executives, including a marketing chief, as the company looks to regain market share lost to Apple's iPhone.

RIM said Frank Boulben will be the new chief marketing officer, a job RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins described as critically important for the struggling company.

Boulben, 45, served as executive vice president of strategy and marketing at LightSquared, a wireless company that has been struggling since U.S. regulators moved to kill its proposed nationwide broadband network. Boulben also held senior positions at wireless carriers Vodafone Group and Orange.

Kristian Tear is the new chief operating officer. Tear, 48, was executive vice president of Sony Mobile Communications, a unit of another struggling technology company, Sony Corp.

Heins said both possess a keen understanding of the rapidly changing wireless market and will help sharpen RIM's focus.

The once iconic BlackBerry company is facing its most difficult period in its history. RIM is working on launching a new operating system just as Americans are abandoning their BlackBerrys for iPhones and models that run Google's Android software. Analysts believe RIM's futures depends on the new BlackBerry 10 operating platform due out later this year, although many say it may come too late.

RIM has been without a chief marketing officer since last year and without a chief operating officer since Heins was promoted in January. Heins replaced co-CEO's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis after the company lost tens of billions in market value.

Heins has said that RIM has to improve its marketing. Boulben will be in charge of that.

"RIM is a pioneer in the mobile world and the BlackBerry brand is a global icon," Boulben said in a statement. "We all know how fast the mobile arena evolves and with the BlackBerry 10 platform, I believe RIM...

Tahzoo Employee Creates Razor Mediator Extension

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:36:33 -0500

Washington, D.C., May 08, 2012 -- Digital marketing services provider Tahzoo announces that Alexander Klock, a Technical Consultant at Tahzoo, has developed a template for SDL Tridion�, SDL's Web Content Management� Solution called the Razor Mediator Extension, designed to simplify the code-writing process. Tahzoo partners closely with SDL, the leader in Global Information Management solutions that enable global businesses to engage with their customers. The Razor Mediator is now available on SDLTridionWorld.com.

"We applaud this contribution from Alexander, which will have a significant impact on the ease of coding in the SDL Tridion developer community," said Jan Jaap Kolleman, CEO of SDL Web Content Management Solutions division. "Tahzoo and SDL share the common goal of helping businesses manage their brands, and enrich their customers' experiences. It's gratifying to see an individual on a partner's team go the extra mile toward this vision."

"The process of having an extension published on the SDL Tridion World site included stringent reviews to ensure the highest quality code," said J.G. Staal, COO of Tahzoo. "We're proud to have Alexander as part of our team."

The Razor Mediator provides developers with a new tool designed to cut development time and streamline work flow delivering the power of .NET within Razor Templates. Specific benefits of the Razor Mediator Extension include:
� Quick and easy access to most of your Template Package items and fields right at your fingertips. Because you are now able to do more and write less, the templating process can be done quicker than ever before.
� Open sourced and downloadable from Google.
� Addresses and eliminates many of the limitations and frustrations of DreamWeaver.
� Users are able to use Razor inside of SDL Tridion.
"As a member of the SDL Tridion World community, I was excited to make a...