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Tag: Dovetail Software

Dovetail Seeker to the Rescue

June 6, 2008 In canvassing the Dovetail and Clarify community on their needs and wishes, one area that continually comes up is a better search capability. Users fall into two camps. The first group has muddled through using Fulcrum or Hummingbird, and is extremely frustrated by its limitations and complexity. The second group attempted to use Fulcrum or Hummingbird, but gave up and now uses nothing. Well, we have the answer - Dovetail Seeker.   Dovetail Seeker is a simple to use search tool that mimics much of what we have all come to love about Google. It allows users to search either the Dovetail or Clarify database. The power of Seeker is that it works for simple basic search in an easy to use Google-like text box, or for more powerful users, it has advanced search capabilities and queries, much like Google…

The Forgotten Space Continues (Unfortunately)

May 19, 2008 I recently read an article that announced an expansion of the relationship between SAP and RIM (owners of the Blackberry) SAP + RIM = CRM2Go. The writer states,             “As a result of what one SAP executive called "co-innovation," a version of the latest SAP CRM software has been rebuilt to natively integrate with the BlackBerry.”   Since we have also been working on a remote capability of our CRM product utilizing Twitter, I read the article with interest, seeking to learn anything that might improve our solution. I also checked out the RIM press release, SAP and RIM Usher In a New Era for Enterprise Mobility, hoping to learn more. What did I learn – That the Forgotten Space is still Forgotten. Let me explain.   This appears to be a big announcement for the two firms, but in…

Customer Satisfaction – Saved by a Technicality

May 8, 2008 Maybe I am missing the goals airlines are trying to achieve with their frequent flyer programs. I thought they were trying to attract loyalty among their frequent fliers and recognize them with a few extra perks (besides free trips), like boarding the plane first, or having your own phone number for service. I guess what I was asking for in return for my loyalty was too much. Let me explain. I just attended the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) Conference in Santa Clara. Ironically, at this conference I listened for two days about best practices companies deploy to provide superior customer support and satisfaction, and here I am writing about a negative experience with my preferred carrier, American Airlines. I was supposed to visit a customer in the San Francisco area, so I booked my return flight out of…

Swim Naked or Provide Good Customer Service in Bad Times

May 2, 2008 While the U.S. suffers through declining home prices and rising unemployment, the Nero's of economics are tuning up their fiddles while trying to determine if we're technically in a recession. Forbes reported this week that,"Regardless of the GDP numbers, data show unambiguous signs of a struggling economy. For homeowners watching prices drop, for the newly unemployed or for businesses with low corporate profits, the current debate over whether the economy is in recession is largely meaningless. What these people want to know is simple: When will it end?"Consumers, apparently worried about rising food and oil prices, are losing hope, canceling vacations and being more careful with their money, as seen in Consumer Confidence Index's drop for the fourth straight month in a row. "Economists closely watch sentiment readings since consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation's economic…

Single Vendor or “Best of Breed”

March 26, 2008 I have talked to a number of companies who have been analyzing their current enterprise software systems structure. Their struggle - Utilize a single vendor to provide all of the enterprise’s needs or choose a "best of breed" approach. Complicating this analysis is that there is a further debate between using a single CRM vendor for all of a company's CRM needs vs utilizing a “best of breed” approach to the various CRM requirements. I might add, this isn't a new debate; it is one that goes back probably a decade or more. I have found the proponents pretty well split down the middle although there have been shifts in momentum tilting more towards one approach vs the other. Early on, many companies jumped on the bandwagon focused on one vendor utilizing one central system. While this concept is great in…

Dovetail Providing Clarify Help – Is it a Risk?

February 14, 2008 I wish I could take credit for all the ideas I communicate, but I can’t, and I have our customers to thank for many of the good ideas we get. We’re lucky that our customers take such an interest in helping us. On a recent trip, I visited a prospect in the morning and we were discussing the possibility of Dovetail taking over their Amdocs support. The senior executive was concerned about the “what if?”. Specifically, “While we may save money from moving our support to Dovetail, what if we have a “real” problem. You don’t have the Amdocs source code, so what if you can’t solve the problem. We won’t be able to go back to Amdocs.” We talked about his concern, and I tried to put his mind at ease, speaking towards our ability to find a workaround…

Practice What You Preach

February 11, 2008 Just image, a company whose business is developing CRM software for Customer Service & Support who doesn’t provide great support themselves. What a contradiction! Lucky for Dovetail and its customers, this situation doesn’t exist. Utilizing my favorite motto, “Actions Speak Louder than Words”, let me cite a recent example that demonstrates Dovetail’s commitment to world-class customer service. A customer opened a support case. We quickly solved the customer’s problem and closed the case. Later that day, the person who handled the support case was on a conference call with the customer on a non-support issue. The customer had to pause to tell a story about what had happened earlier in the day. He said, “I was very impressed when I opened a support issue, and had a response back from Dovetail just 3 minutes later. It was such a fast…

True Customer Partnership – Making a Difference

December 18, 2007 How often have you as a customer heard from your vendor that they want to be more than just your vendor? “We aren’t looking for the quick sale. We want to be your long-term partner”. Sound familiar?We at Dovetail also make that claim, but one big difference is that we back up the words with our actions. As I have said before in my blog, Actions Speak Louder than Words. So, let me tell you about a recent example. I just visited one of our key customers (I haven’t asked their permission so I won’t use their name.). Over a two day period, I met with senior management, both within IT and within the business unit, as well as the key people responsible for the Dovetail environment. I was finishing up with one of the meetings with a senior executive…

Dovetail Bolt for the Holidays

December 14, 2007 We at Dovetail Software have been faithful providers to the Clarify community for over 10 years. It is a unique position as we are a successful software company in our own rights, but we also feel an allegiance to the Clarify community. We compete for the Clarify business, but we also provide to those people who are responsible for supporting their Clarify environment on a daily basis.   With that in mind, Dovetail’s gift to the Clarify community for the holidays is our Dovetail BOLT product (Data Sheet). This is a powerful tool that gives the Clarify users real-time access to their Clarify data from a set of easy-to-use web pages. All you need to do is join our forum (Click to Join) and we will email you BOLT for free. A double bonus, a powerful development tool and a forum that…

Assistance for Dovetail and Clarify Users

September 5, 2007 As I said in one of my previous blog posts, we are often accused of providing free consulting as part of our normal customer service and support (a great problem for our customers). This occurs when our customers call us with a question, through suggestions provided via our Company blog, and even through CRM forums such as the ITtoolbox Clarify User Group . And for those of you who follow me , you know that I believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words, so let me utilize two recent examples from Gary Sherman to validate my claim.   The first occurred when Gary was thinking about a customer’s question regarding their desire to monitor SLAs. There was an easy way out, but that isn’t the way Gary, or our other Dovetail employees work. Our goal is to find the best…