Sales executives, managers and reps spend countless hours in forecast meetings, yet often find their actual closed revenue falls far from the mark they predicted. With the advanced CRM technology and sales forecasting tools available today, it's a wonder this trend continues.

In retail, the holidays are the best of times and the worst of times. The trick to troubleshooting shipping issues is to manage for the best scenario but expect the worst, especially during peak intervals.

If ever there was a case for conducting online customer surveys, Adam Lasky, global social media coordinator at Spreadshirt, has lived it.

The world is going mobile, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that CRM is mobilizing too. On the other hand, the pace of mobile CRM adoption appears to be blazing, compared to general mobile use. Ironically, it seems that employees are embracing mobile CRM with about the same fervor that they've resisted desktop CRM.

Analytics companies are popping up everywhere as Big Data starts to work its way into more executive conversations. We've been down this road before; analytics isn't a new concept. However, new related technologies and a better understanding of what's at stake for businesses may make this wave a different one. The key is for everyone to get comfortable with the idea of using the new tools to roll their own analytics.

It's fairly common practice today for major brands to have a social media team at the ready to respond to customer complaints on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. The practice is so widespread that a recent Call Center Satisfaction Index (CCSI) report released by CFI Group found that call centers should perhaps be renamed "contact centers."