Letter From the Editor Michael Maoz - 4 October 2001 In this month's edition of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Spotlight, we look at personalization, a trend that will be affecting the essential nature of customer interactions over the next five years. We ask some crucial questions: As businesses automate an increasing number of functions in order to reduce costs, how will they continue to give the customer the personal touch? And, what will be the relative importance of customer strategy, software applications and the science of human behavior in successfully personalizing business transactions? The opportunity to foster customer loyalty through personalization is enormous — people are creatures of habit and tend to repeat interactions where they feel safe, understood, highly valued and trusted. Furthermore, businesses that have successfully executed personalization strategies across more than one channel (e.g., a call center and the Web) have seen improvements in loyalty from those customers ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent. Because clients who use multiple channels are of statistically higher value to the business, the potential rewards are enormous.  Read more

Michael Maoz

	Overview Personalization Strategies Are Critical to Reassure Wary Customers by Michael Maoz - 26 September 2001 A lack of visionary leaders that understand personalization will slow widespread adoption of technologies and innovative processes to personalize interactions. Enterprises risk jeopardizing relationships with customers.

Personalization Is the Key to Successful Branding by Walter Janowski and Adam Sarner - 1  October 2001 Enterprises pursuing brand differentiation will achieve top-of-mind recognition through the effective use of personalization techniques in their branding strategies.		Sales Configuration's Role in Personalization by Robert Desisto - 1 October 2001 Enterprises that try to apply rules-base personalization engines to sales configuration problems will fail. Successful enterprises will match appropriate sales configuration capabilities to their manufacturing processes.
What Is Personalized Customer Service, Anyway? by Esteban Kolsky - 1 October 2001 Enterprises have now begun to tap the potential of customer service personalization. By leveraging appropriate customer data and proactively managing relevant service events, enterprises can enhance their customer relationships.		Testing Web Personalization's Value to General CRM by Whit Andrews - 3 October 2001 Investments in online personalization can drive improved communication across all channels, taking advantage of the Web's richness and traditional methods' pervasiveness.
Gymboree Takes Small Steps Toward Personalization by Adam Sarner and Walter Janowski - 1 October 2001 Gymboree began its Web initiative as part of the dot-com hype, but quickly realized its potential for gathering customer data. It now hopes to use the Web to learn about customers' needs and to tailor personalized messages.
Previous Spotlights Effective CRM Requires Sound Segmentation 4 September 2001 CRM Application Suites Arrive ... Barely 17 August 2001 CRM: What’s Right for Customers Is the Correct Approach 9 July 2001 CRM at Work: Eight Characteristics of CRM Winners 19 June 2001 In an Unstable CRM Applications Market, Don't Panic 19 April 2001 Relationship Value is Measured by Mutual Advantage 26 March 2001