VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) is a company providing virtualization software[1][2][3] founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. It is majority owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC).

VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, while VMware's enterprise software hypervisors for servers, VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are bare-metal embedded Hypervisors that run directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.
Enterprises need to start taking the social media transactions no lesser seriously than the regular customer engagement transactions when it comes to issues like privacy, response liabilities, customer identity theft, information misrepresentation etc. I recently came across various cases that clearly highlight the need for the same. I will share some of them below in this blog.

Electronic social media platforms is intensifying the visibility, reach and speed with which sentiments and specifics related to customer experience travel the globe. I recall reading a news article sometime back in 2009 where a district judge in Boulder, Colorado (USA) approved the validity of the use of social media tools like twitter and blogs to cover the court trail cases. It highlights how the speed of information dissemination across various walks of life inclusive of personal, business and even legal eco-system is becoming 'cooler' option that allows influence of the information be 'here and now and across'.

So far, policies and regulations associated with the public use of social media are not strongly linked with the legal eco-system, instead mostly managed with 'social' sense only. However, that's not going to last for long given the intended penetration of the social media in the regularized business transactions. While majority of excitement around social media is projecting hypothetical win-win scenarios for business, it equally has a chance to turn into a dirty lose-lose scenario, especially when parties on the both sides (enterprise lobby and customer lobby) get their share of teeth from legal eco-system. I sincerely hope it doesn't get there since it will be so much unsocial really which will defeat the purpose of having the powerful social tools. But I also recognize that complications are unavoidable given the diversity, unpredictability and disparity in the global social fabric. So being prepared is being protected. Let's look at some of these example that came across in recent past:

Case 1 - A customer in Greece publishes the complaint against the an authorized Apple reseller after a dissatisfying experience of customer service; the Apple reseller sues the customer for the charges of damaging the business reputation. You can read more about this story here at mycustomer.com.


Case 2 - An employee posted negative comments about the supervisor for some work-related incident; company fires the employee for internet media usage policy violation. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigation concluded that employee's Facebook postings need to be considered as protected concerted activity and the employer company was recommended to revisit their internet usage policy. Read more about this story on NLRB site here.


Case 3 - A famous celebrity (Courtney Love) multi-tweeted her negative sentiments against a fashion designer; case ends up in a lawsuit against the celebrity. You can read more about this story here at Reuters.

Case 4 - A financial services authority probe into Royal Bank of Scotland concluded that more than 50% customer complaints were mishandled with delays and unsatisfactory explanations. These were not necessarily social media related but consequently bank was fined £ 2.8M. Such cases make the accountability of customer handling on social channels very significant and high-priority agenda. Read more about this story here at mycustomer.com


Case 5 - At Lindsey Oil Refinery in UK, During a dispute between workers and employers resulted in a highs-speed massive strike action that got instrumented through networking groups using websites, social media, text messages and emails across the country. Clearly now both employers and the employee unions need to understand the role of the twitter-generation technology in the important engagement affairs relating to socially sensitive matters.

Case 6 - A cosmetic surgery company (Lifestyle Lift) facilitates fake manipulated review of its product/services by having its employee pretend to be happy customers; the company has been ordered to pay $ 300,000 in penalties. This is possibly just one of the cases that got discovered and hooked. Companies need to take a close watch at their social media marketing practices to find out what is being cooked. Read more about this story at Office of the Attorney General site.

Let me share some of my suggestions to improve the overall accountability scenarios for social CRM. In my view, all of these should be high on the agenda of the social CRM directors to manage it proactively.

1. Establish a temper-proof audit trail of customer/prospect conversations that is protected against manipulation. It is needed to monitor the customer interaction as well as kept handy to be used during disputes involving customer complaints.
2. Revisit the local regulatory laws/policies on freedom of speech and fundamental customer rights to ascertain the appropriateness of your response strategy to customer comments and remarks on social media.
3. Immediately deploy strong (and fair) policy framework for dealing with the internal mismanagement and poor handling of the customer interaction (for that matter on any engagement channel)
4. Enforce specialized mandatory staff training with well formulated policies for customer engagements using online / social media.
5. Refactor your Intellectual Property training to include disclosure of information on social media by your staff
6. Deploy specialized customer engagement task force for high-speed 360 degree damage control using 'pro-social' methods

These are going to make the social media management somewhat heavy-duty but hey, that's still much lighter than dealing with lawsuits and larger market repercussions of mismanaged social media transactions I guess. That's all for this week, have a great weekend.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is important in running a successful business. The better the relationship, the easier it is to conduct business and generate revenue. Therefore using technology to improve CRM makes good business sense.

CRM solutions fall into the following four broad categories.
Outsourced solutions

Application service providers can provide web-based CRM solutions for your business. This approach is ideal if you need to implement a solution quickly and your company does not have the in-house skills necessary to tackle the job from scratch. It is also a good solution if you are already geared towards online e-commerce. For more information see our guide on cloud computing.
Off-the-shelf solutions

Several software companies offer CRM applications that integrate with existing packages. Cut-down versions of such software may be suitable for smaller businesses. This approach is generally the cheapest option as you are investing in standard software components. The downside is that the software may not always do precisely what you want and you may have to trade off functionality for convenience and price. The key to success is to be flexible without compromising too much.
Bespoke software

For the ultimate in tailored CRM solutions, consultants and software engineers will customise or create a CRM system and integrate it with your existing software. However, this can be expensive and time consuming. If you choose this option, make sure you carefully specify exactly what you want. This will usually be the most expensive option and costs will vary depending on what your software designer quotes.
Managed solutions

A half-way house between bespoke and outsourced solutions, this involves renting a customised suite of CRM applications as a bespoke package. This can be cost effective but it may mean that you have to compromise in terms of functionality.
 
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VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) is a company providing virtualization software[1][2][3] founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. It is majority owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC).

VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, while VMware's enterprise software hypervisors for servers, VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are bare-metal embedded Hypervisors that run directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.
Enterprises need to start taking the social media transactions no lesser seriously than the regular customer engagement transactions when it comes to issues like privacy, response liabilities, customer identity theft, information misrepresentation etc. I recently came across various cases that clearly highlight the need for the same. I will share some of them below in this blog.

Electronic social media platforms is intensifying the visibility, reach and speed with which sentiments and specifics related to customer experience travel the globe. I recall reading a news article sometime back in 2009 where a district judge in Boulder, Colorado (USA) approved the validity of the use of social media tools like twitter and blogs to cover the court trail cases. It highlights how the speed of information dissemination across various walks of life inclusive of personal, business and even legal eco-system is becoming 'cooler' option that allows influence of the information be 'here and now and across'.

So far, policies and regulations associated with the public use of social media are not strongly linked with the legal eco-system, instead mostly managed with 'social' sense only. However, that's not going to last for long given the intended penetration of the social media in the regularized business transactions. While majority of excitement around social media is projecting hypothetical win-win scenarios for business, it equally has a chance to turn into a dirty lose-lose scenario, especially when parties on the both sides (enterprise lobby and customer lobby) get their share of teeth from legal eco-system. I sincerely hope it doesn't get there since it will be so much unsocial really which will defeat the purpose of having the powerful social tools. But I also recognize that complications are unavoidable given the diversity, unpredictability and disparity in the global social fabric. So being prepared is being protected. Let's look at some of these example that came across in recent past:

Case 1 - A customer in Greece publishes the complaint against the an authorized Apple reseller after a dissatisfying experience of customer service; the Apple reseller sues the customer for the charges of damaging the business reputation. You can read more about this story here at mycustomer.com.


Case 2 - An employee posted negative comments about the supervisor for some work-related incident; company fires the employee for internet media usage policy violation. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigation concluded that employee's Facebook postings need to be considered as protected concerted activity and the employer company was recommended to revisit their internet usage policy. Read more about this story on NLRB site here.


Case 3 - A famous celebrity (Courtney Love) multi-tweeted her negative sentiments against a fashion designer; case ends up in a lawsuit against the celebrity. You can read more about this story here at Reuters.

Case 4 - A financial services authority probe into Royal Bank of Scotland concluded that more than 50% customer complaints were mishandled with delays and unsatisfactory explanations. These were not necessarily social media related but consequently bank was fined £ 2.8M. Such cases make the accountability of customer handling on social channels very significant and high-priority agenda. Read more about this story here at mycustomer.com


Case 5 - At Lindsey Oil Refinery in UK, During a dispute between workers and employers resulted in a highs-speed massive strike action that got instrumented through networking groups using websites, social media, text messages and emails across the country. Clearly now both employers and the employee unions need to understand the role of the twitter-generation technology in the important engagement affairs relating to socially sensitive matters.

Case 6 - A cosmetic surgery company (Lifestyle Lift) facilitates fake manipulated review of its product/services by having its employee pretend to be happy customers; the company has been ordered to pay $ 300,000 in penalties. This is possibly just one of the cases that got discovered and hooked. Companies need to take a close watch at their social media marketing practices to find out what is being cooked. Read more about this story at Office of the Attorney General site.

Let me share some of my suggestions to improve the overall accountability scenarios for social CRM. In my view, all of these should be high on the agenda of the social CRM directors to manage it proactively.

1. Establish a temper-proof audit trail of customer/prospect conversations that is protected against manipulation. It is needed to monitor the customer interaction as well as kept handy to be used during disputes involving customer complaints.
2. Revisit the local regulatory laws/policies on freedom of speech and fundamental customer rights to ascertain the appropriateness of your response strategy to customer comments and remarks on social media.
3. Immediately deploy strong (and fair) policy framework for dealing with the internal mismanagement and poor handling of the customer interaction (for that matter on any engagement channel)
4. Enforce specialized mandatory staff training with well formulated policies for customer engagements using online / social media.
5. Refactor your Intellectual Property training to include disclosure of information on social media by your staff
6. Deploy specialized customer engagement task force for high-speed 360 degree damage control using 'pro-social' methods

These are going to make the social media management somewhat heavy-duty but hey, that's still much lighter than dealing with lawsuits and larger market repercussions of mismanaged social media transactions I guess. That's all for this week, have a great weekend.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is important in running a successful business. The better the relationship, the easier it is to conduct business and generate revenue. Therefore using technology to improve CRM makes good business sense.

CRM solutions fall into the following four broad categories.
Outsourced solutions

Application service providers can provide web-based CRM solutions for your business. This approach is ideal if you need to implement a solution quickly and your company does not have the in-house skills necessary to tackle the job from scratch. It is also a good solution if you are already geared towards online e-commerce. For more information see our guide on cloud computing.
Off-the-shelf solutions

Several software companies offer CRM applications that integrate with existing packages. Cut-down versions of such software may be suitable for smaller businesses. This approach is generally the cheapest option as you are investing in standard software components. The downside is that the software may not always do precisely what you want and you may have to trade off functionality for convenience and price. The key to success is to be flexible without compromising too much.
Bespoke software

For the ultimate in tailored CRM solutions, consultants and software engineers will customise or create a CRM system and integrate it with your existing software. However, this can be expensive and time consuming. If you choose this option, make sure you carefully specify exactly what you want. This will usually be the most expensive option and costs will vary depending on what your software designer quotes.
Managed solutions

A half-way house between bespoke and outsourced solutions, this involves renting a customised suite of CRM applications as a bespoke package. This can be cost effective but it may mean that you have to compromise in terms of functionality.

Hey anjali, i really thanks to you for sharing the Customer Relationship Management report on VMware and it will also help those who are planning for assignments. Well, i am also sharing a presentation which would help others, so download and check it.
 

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