Heard & Overheard

"Everyone is protective of their information. Everyone's got some Big Brother angst." --Steve Johnson, CEO, ChoiceStream "The fact is that mostly 'low-value,' low-skill calls are a natural target for offshore." --Jon Anton, Ph.D., director of benchmark research, Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality "Gold is stored in customer service data. It's the best source of data and yet the hardest to get quality access to." --Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder, RightNow Technologies "Building a database of your customers doesn't guarantee success any more than building a product database guarantees you'll sell more products." --Eric Schmitt, senior analyst, Forrester Research "Everyone is protective of their information. Everyone's got some Big Brother angst." --Steve Johnson, CEO, ChoiceStream "The fact is that mostly 'low-value,' low-skill calls are a natural target for offshore." --Jon Anton, Ph.D., director of benchmark research, Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality "Gold is stored in customer service data. It's the best source of data and yet the hardest to get quality access to." --Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder, RightNow Technologies "Building a database of your customers doesn't guarantee success any more than building a product database guarantees you'll sell more products." --Eric Schmitt, senior analyst, Forrester Research "As a marketer I'd love to spend more of my money on the people who are interested and less on the people who aren't." --Mark Battaglia, senior vice president of marketing, Initiate Systems "The most common mistake in database marketing is operating with incomplete data, pounding the same set of customers or prospects over and over again, while missing an entire other set." --Kermit Yensen, CEO, the Massini Group "Customers are expecting the companies they work with to provide increasing levels of customer service--and want to be pleasantly surprised with an offer or service that is specifically attuned to their needs and interests as a consumer." --Alton Adams, managing partner for Accenture's customer insight domain "A lot of what we're trying to do these days is to take data and turn it into information; then turn information into insight; and then insight into sales and marketing action that'll drive revenue from new and existing customers." --Tom Gaither, vice president of marketing, D&B Sales and Marketing Solutions