CRM Update – Apr 05 : 1:09 pm

You come to this site because we talk a lot about the importance and future of Social CRM and Social Business. Hell, we even called this blog “Social CRM Info” so you’d have no question about what we’re all about. We say a lot of fancy words and I’ll normally attach a clever or inspirational picture to each post to give you something to look at because studies have shown that people prefer pictures to look at in posts.
We desperately want to keep your attention and teach you something in the process, so today I’ll be sharing with you one of the better infographics about the art and history of Social CRM put together by the good people at GetSatisfaction…

Consumers love Woot.com because they’re able to get neat and occasionally even useful items at good prices. The great deals are great for a reason, though. Items from Woot can be surplus, older models, or refurbished. (Sometimes all three.) This is disclosed at the time of purchase and part of the deal. But Erica was under the impression that when you pay $550 for a television set, it should obey its own power button and not stop working entirely after a little more than a year of service…

Today is the day that most Major League Baseball teams begin the 2012 season. And up until Wednesday afternoon, it looked like DirecTV customers in Philadelphia and Chicago wouldn’t be able to watch their hometown teams because of a protracted contract dispute between the satellite provider and the Tribune Company.

On April 1, the Tribune Co. had pulled 23 of its stations from a number of markets around the country. Among those stations are WGN in Chicago and WPHL in Philadelphia, both of which are slated to air today’s season openers for the Cubs and Phillies, respectively…

ClothingTimberland: [Apparel] 20% Off your Entire order w/ Coupon SPRINGTIMELands’ End: [Apparel] Free Shipping on your Entire order w/ Coupon SWIMHQ1 and PIN 2512Hot Topic: [Apparel] $5 Off your $50+ order w/ Coupon HTA5APR12

Computers and Electronics

HP: [Computers] 15.6″ HP 2000z AMD E-300, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD $324.99, free shipLenovo: [Computers] Lenovo M0620 Speakers $16.99, free shipAdorama : [Electronics] [Canon Elph 510 HS 12MP 4X Digital Camera Bundle w/ 1080p Video $199...

Make sure your sales team is avoiding these toxic behaviors.The most successful salespeople are always experts at working with the people in their own firm. They make certain that their company provides the right products, the right support and the right hand-holding, so that the customer has the best experience possible.Some salespeople, however, have exactly the wrong idea. They see the people in their own firm (including their own management) as obstacles or as irrelevant. As a result, they end up irritating the very people who will keep customer happy...

Startup travel search engine Hipmunk already takes price, flight duration and number of stopovers into account when ranking flight search results. Now it’s adding your schedule to the equation.
A mobile app update going live on all of Hipmunk’s mobile platforms Thursday will make it easy to integrate your Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple iCal appointments with flight and hotel searches.
Appointments that conflict with flights will be shown as vertical bars within the app’s timeline of flight results, and the location of those appointments will be plotted alongside potential accommodations within the app’s map-based hotel search results...

Samit isn't a Sprint customer. He doesn't have a Sprint phone or service. He doesn't have a customer number. But somehow he owes Sprint $800 for service that he neither signed up for nor received. See, he had tried to become a customer. After starting the process of setting up Sprint service, someone took down his social security and credit card numbers, then wandered off. Samit received an iPhone that he never asked for, sent it back, and somehow has racked up $800 in phantom phone bills...

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.
Google Unveils Sci-Fi Glasses
After many months of speculation, Google has finally unveiled a prototype of its Google Glasses, a wearable glasses-like gadget which adds a virtual layer of information over our surroundings. The project, however, is still in early stages of development, and Google claims it’s unlikely we’ll see the Glasses on the market in 2012...

The iPod of thermostats is getting its first update.
While the jewel-shaped Nest thermostat, which launched in October, was already well-equipped to satisfy home-energy data enthusiasts, the update allows users to dissect even more closely the patterns of their heating and cooling systems.
Updated iPhone, Android and web apps now provide a visualization of exactly when their energy system has been on and off throughout the day. If energy expenditure differs significantly from the previous week’s average, it lets them know whether the change is due to weather, to the thermometer’s auto-adjustments or to their manual adjustments...

Games are everywhere.More and more businesses are using gamification to create brand awareness and drive user engagement.Gartner, Inc. predicts that more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014.In the last few years, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of companies that deliver gamification services and solutions including Bunchball, BigDoor Media, Badgeville and Gigya.“Gamification typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging...

You can use an image beacon, one that is set by the server and does not use java script. The solution is in the Omniture Blogs somewhere. We track impressions

Hi all, Due to growth within our digital business and the success of our analytics programme, we’re expanding our team here at the Financial Times. We’re

By: Tim Pincelli
The term coupon  has many connotations in the restaurant industry and from what I’ve observed, mostly negative. Traditional print coupons have  security or fraud potential, require additional auditing at server/bartender checkout  and  could lead to misrepresented offers if not properly explained.  They are  also typically expensive to print,  require distribution to thousands with little to no ability to audit or apply success measurements, and as a result typically turn into more of a customer service disaster than they’re worth…

The first round of those massive Yahoo layoffs hit this week, with 2,000 employees getting whacked. The company says the bloodletting will save it $375 million a year, allowing it to restructure in order to survive long enough to lay off more employees at a future time.

USA Today tracked down the email CEO Scott Thompson sent out to employees:

Yahoos -

Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business. The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done…

Instead of individually signing up for a handful of daily deals sites, Bitehunter now lets you use one account to buy from 12 different Daily Deal sites — all without leaving the Bitehunter app.
The startup, which aggregates daily deals based on your location, launched a new version of its app on Thursday.
The initial app was a map where deals could be displayed based on categories such as discounts or daily deals, but the update includes more precise filters for finding deals related to specific types of food and a list of “Top Deals” based on deals nearby you with high ratings…