How customer voice
drives business

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Business Process Management Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Business process management brings together a systematic method of managing business processes. The overarching goal is to improve process efficiency to gain competitive advantage through reducing costs, reducing response times and increasing revenues. The goal is primarily about gaining business efficiencies by optimizing business processes across the organization. The search for improved efficiency is not new, but what distinguishes BPM is that the processes to be optimized are typically cross-functional and frequently cross company boundaries too. BPM products come in several different varieties from simple workflow, to full-scale BPM, to low-code app development platforms. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Pega Platform Pega Platform is a comprehensive, unified BPM suite, most suitable for larger enterprise customers. It includes case management, predictive features, and also has strong mobile capabilities. The company has also built a series of marketing applications that run on top of the […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Time Tracking Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Time tracking and scheduling apps are used to record and analyze time spent by contractors and remote workers on projects and tasks, as well as to create schedules for hourly employees and track hours worked. They allow users to monitor and optimize productivity and expenses, create reports, and generate invoices. On a basic level, they replace paper schedules and timesheets. Data collected includes employee names, dates, and times with pay rate, location, department, and project. The goal of time tracking systems is to allow companies to accurately distribute resources, calculate payroll estimates, and report how employee time is spent. Some of the products in this category are geared towards employers who need to manage employee time on projects/shifts, whereas others are geared towards freelancers and consultants who need to record time worked and expenses so that they can invoice their employers. Here are the […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Customer Experience Management Platforms. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Customer Experience Management (CXM or CEM) Platforms take a myriad of approaches to improving interactions with customers–from collecting and analyzing customer feedback, to unifying customer data across channels/touchpoints and providing personalized content–so products in this category do not have directly comparable features. Their core competencies range from surveys to help desks, A/B testing and personalization, usability testing, and user onboarding. But they all share the goal of helping you increase customer satisfaction and foster a positive relationship with your brand. Different tools may be right for you depending on whether your focus is the pre-purchase experience, the post-purchase experience, or both, and whether you plan to execute CXM initiatives that are more productized or more service-based. Reviews can help you dig in to really understand which products are being used by companies of different sizes and industries, and by different departments and roles […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Business Intelligence Tools. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Business Intelligence emerged with the development in the 1980’s and 1990’s of data warehouses and OLAP processing that enabled extraction and viewing of data from multiple points of view. Business Intelligence has developed rapidly since then, and the importance of “big data” in gaining competitive advantage in today’s economy has made the technology more critical than ever. Data discovery and visualization tools have shifted the emphasis away from centralized, legacy systems with an emphasis on data governance, towards a more agile approach providing ad-hoc data exploration and intuitive visual renderings of data. As in other technology domains, there has also been a gradual shift to the cloud, along with an emphasis on tools for the general business user, rather than IT or data modeling experts. An increased emphasis on data discovery, agility and business user self-service is evident in all of the following tools. […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Accounting, Tax and Budgeting Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Financial accounting and budgeting is a methodology for recording and classifying a firm’s financial transactions, including reporting and analysis of these transactions. Accounting transactions are encompassed by the general ledger, which is a complete record of financial transactions over the life of a company. Accounting software automates transactional record-keeping processes so that transactions can be completed and tracked more efficiently and accurately. Accounting software is primarily back-office software concerned with record maintenance and regulatory compliance. This category of software has been slower to move to the cloud than many other software categories, but SaaS is now becoming the dominant delivery model. Integration, particularly with banks and clearing houses, is increasingly important in eliminating the need for manual data entry. The following products represent a range of very different product types. Some like QuickBooks Pro are on-premise products, while others like Xero are […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Configure Price Quote Tools. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Configure Price Quote (CPQ) tools are used by sales teams to generate product quotes and manage product configuration during the proposal process. CPQ tools institutionalize sales knowledge and product constraints, and can help determine pricing in complicated negotiations.  By semi-automating quotes, they save time for salespeople, who can then get accurate quotes to their customers more quickly. Integrations (to CRM, contract management, accounting, or product information systems, for example) are an important element in achieving these benefits. Feedback from other sales organizations on how well integrations support automation can be very helpful for buyers who are evaluating whether a product will help with efficiency, productivity, and consistency at their own organization. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Apttus Configure Price Quote Apttus was designed to help sales representatives create quotations for customers based on standardized pricing and configuration rules. It also offers […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Web Conferencing Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Web conferencing software allows companies to conduct business remotely and are particularly helpful for companies that have customers and employees all around the country or globe. Web conferencing software often goes beyond video conferencing, extending into presentations, or webinars, recording, and collaboration. Audio and video quality, reliability, scalability, and ease of use–especially for participants joining a call from outside the organization–are major considerations for buyers, but they can be difficult to assess before implementing a web conferencing system. Feedback from users at other similar organizations allow buyers to get a sense of performance and usability ahead of time, so they can make a more confident decision about which product will work best for them. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Zoom Zoom allows for online meetings while simultaneously enabling collaboration and file sharing. Reviewers highlight the strong video quality for teams of all […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Construction Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Construction software helps general contractors, subcontractors, and building companies manage different phases of the construction process, including bidding, estimating/takeoff, project management, building information management (BIM), job site data collection and reporting, document management and collaboration, accounting, and client management. Some vendors in the space offer a portfolio of different tools that cover most or all phases of construction, while other vendors offer a lighter weight product focused on a specific need, like safety or collaboration on building plans. Many businesses in the construction industry are just getting started with construction software, partly due to limited IT resources and expertise. Often construction employees aren’t as comfortable implementing or using new digital solutions when they’re used to pen and paper processes, so usability and ease of adoption should be among the top considerations when evaluating construction software. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Procore Procore is […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Nonprofit Constituent Relationship Management Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Traditionally, many nonprofits have used proprietary or home-grown databases or Excel spreadsheets to manage fundraising and donor relations. Nonprofit Constituent Relationship Management Software allows nonprofit staff to view and manage all relationships affecting the mission of the organization including volunteers, members, affiliates, partner organizations, and the board, in addition to donors. These systems store constituent data in one centralized location ensuring comprehensive planning and consistent messaging across all constituents. Although the general value proposition is similar across all products in the category, products differ significantly in price point and level of complexity. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Raiser’s Edge NXT Raiser’s Edge NXT is a cloud version of Blackbaud’s well-known Raiser’s Edge fundraising platform. The platform does not yet have feature parity with the original Raiser’s Edge platform, but has advantages in terms of usability and analytics, both of which are frequently […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Remote Desktop Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Remote Desktop Software, or Remote Administration Software, allows users, usually IT professionals providing maintenance, to gain access to a computer remotely when physical access is not possible. The typical scenario is when an IT technician takes control of a remote machine to troubleshoot problems, install patches or perform other maintenance tasks. Remote access tools are also sometimes used to provide remote access to a personal computer if, for example, someone is traveling and needs to retrieve a file. Although these tools are all broadly similar, there are feature and pricing differences and some products are free. More advanced or paid products tend to have enterprise-level features like secure access, user management, broad platform support, automatic connection, file transfer, VPN connection management, session record, etc. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated TeamViewer TeamViewer offers remote support and web conferencing capabilities. It offers an array […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Project Management Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Project Management Software is designed to increase efficiency by allowing users to organize projects and resources and delegate individual tasks, as well as assign deadlines for deliverables. Most Project Management platforms also support collaboration by providing communication and document management features. Different platforms are better suited for different departments, PM methodologies, workplace cultures, technology environments, and scales of work. Reviews from people like you can help you sort out which product will work best for your company’s needs. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated JIRA Software Atlassian JIRA is specifically designed to help software development teams manage tasks. In JIRA’s framework, projects are a collection of tasks or issues that get prioritized, assigned, and tracked across team members. Reviewers find the time tracking features and the collaboration features helpful, and say JIRA supports an agile project strategy well.   “JIRA is a perfect […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Recruiting Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Recruiting Software assists hiring managers and recruiters by automating steps to identify and hire job candidates. It streamlines the processes of searching for, attracting, interviewing, and onboarding new personnel. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Recruitment Management Systems (RMS) fall into this category. User feedback on recruiting software can help buyers evaluate flexibility, scalability, ease of integration with other talent management and HR systems, and what the candidate experience is like–important factors that determine whether a product will work well for their recruiting needs. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Oracle HCM Cloud   Oracle HCM Cloud is a talent management suite that provides human resource management features, payroll management, and HR reporting features, in addition to the typical recruiting and ATS features. Reviewers find the suite’s advanced analytics and reporting features useful, and appreciate the ability to customize the system to their processes. “…very […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Content Management Systems. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. A Content Management System (CMS) allows a user to quickly manage and publish content for a variety of website types, including blogs, corporate websites, and ecommerce sites, without needing the expertise of a developer. Most CMS products offer a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor with pre-built templates, layouts, and themes, along with other features like search, tagging, SEO, content versioning, and scheduling. In reality, different CMS products require more or less technical skill, depending on the integrations/plugins, amount of custom styling, content types, and size of the website an organization plans to deploy. Reviews can provide helpful insight for buyers into ease of use versus website complexity, and what (if any) development resources were required with each CMS. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Adobe Experience Manager dobe Experience Manager is a business content management solution that supports multi-site content creation, management, and deployment. Users […]

Today, we awarded the 2018 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Corporate Performance Management. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. They are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, site traffic, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Corporate Performance Management Software is sometimes seen as an extension of Business Intelligence (BI). BI tools collect data from multiple internal systems and external sources for analysis, and usually answers questions about past performance such as what happened and why. Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is equally focused on data as an aide to decision-making, but is more forward-looking and is primarily about managing an organization’s performance. The focus of  CPM is on forecasting, budgeting, financial planning, what-if analysis, and dashboards to show progress towards individual and project performance KPIs. The CPM market is relatively mature, and most of the following tools have overlapping functionality. However, there are significant differences in emphasis. While many tools do both, some tools are more focused on the financial accounting cycle, while others are more focused on organizational performance and strategy. Here are the winners: Overall Top Rated Anaplan […]

You already know you need to meet your customers on their turf: social media. But successfully engaging them isn’t as simple as creating an account across every platform and shooting outbound posts into a void. Nowadays, your social media needs to be a customer service nerve center, sensitive to every mention of your brand, as well as a tool used to aggregate data about customers so you can learn what they really want. That’s where social customer relationship management comes in. Your social media efforts shouldn’t be detached from your overall customer engagement strategy. Marketing, sales, and support all have occasion to interact with customers on social media; a social CRM strategy will help you organize these interactions so that you can learn from them. With the right tools and savvy execution, you can use branded social media to stretch your influence and deepen your understanding of your audience. What is Social Customer Relationship Management? A social customer relationship management strategy is a coordinated effort between an organization’s marketing, sales, and customer service departments to better engage with customers and increase brand awareness. Social CRM isn’t just about gathering data and making the sale. It’s about creating a two-way conversation […]

Generally, no product wins on all dimensions. When you’re shopping for business software, you’re probably weighing reality against a set of ideal criteria, and preparing to make a few trade-offs. You might not get all the bells and whistles if you have a tight budget, for example. Or the product that’s easiest to use may not have all the features you want. But what’s important to you before you make a purchase may not align exactly with your future self—the one that has to deal with making the product work for your organization. We recently asked buyers at two different stages what is (or was) most important to them. The results reveal subtly different priorities that are important to bear in mind as you make your selection decision. Learning from other buyers’ and reviewers’ experiences could help you feel more confident in your decision and know what to expect from your purchase. First we asked buyers who hadn’t yet made a purchase to tell us which three criteria (from a list of 11) were most important to them. The top three answers were finding a product that shows measurable results (chosen by 39% of buyers), can adapt to fit your […]

Business Intelligence is Just One Flavor of Analytics Business Intelligence (BI) is a critical tool for understanding what is happening in a business, even if recently it has been somewhat eclipsed by emerging technologies that extend the promise of BI-type analytics far beyond its roots in business reporting and dashboards. Both BI and more recent technologies like data science platforms are predicated on gaining business insight based on data analysis. The primary function of BI tools is to explore past trends in a business’s historical data and compare data across time, or evaluate the impact of certain events on the bottom line. Machine learning and data science tools, on the other hand, use algorithms to understand and predict a business’s future performance. The kind of analytics provided by BI tools is often referred to as “descriptive analytics”, meaning that they describe in some detail what has already happened. But this is just one flavor of analytics. BI today is best considered as one component of a continuum of analytics capabilities which are different, but complementary to each other. From Descriptive to Prescriptive There are several other types of analytics in addition to descriptive analytics. For example, diagnostic analytics tries to […]

The secret to talent management boils down to one simple concept: hire (and keep) the right people. Of course, if it was that easy, you wouldn’t be reading this guide! A practical and efficient talent management strategy aligns with company goals and positions your business to recruit talented people that blossom into engaged, active long-term employees, eventually forming the next generation of company leadership. However, superior talent management programs go well beyond business buzzwords. In fact, they can be the key ingredient that transforms an organization into an industry leader. Because successful talent management strategies integrate cohesively with company culture, mission and future goals, they are able to build the kind of workplace that everyone—including the best talent—wants to be a part of. Of course, a corporate culture like that doesn’t happen on its own. It’s the result of careful planning and collective action. Everyone—from human resources managers to the CEO right down to the newest hire—must be wholly invested in employee development as an integral factor in company advancement. Human resources not only needs backing from the executive team, but also a genuine connection with each employee. Naturally, this kind of authentic and cohesive work environment requires investment.  But […]

Slack is a popular team collaboration and group messaging platform that allows members of an organization to coact and comment on projects in real-time. Searchable message archives let new team members, or members from different departments, become easily apprised of ongoing conversations and developments on relevant topics. Recently, Slack added a feature allowing users from different companies to collaborate as well, via Shared Channels. According to Slack reviews from authenticated users, the tool features fun gifs, a user-friendly interface, and the notification functionality gets you quick replies from colleagues, making collaboration easier and faster. But every organization is different. Despite its trendiness and noted strengths, the pricing or features of Slack may not suit every company’s culture. If there’s a gap between your needs and what Slack provides, here are nine other collaboration tools to consider. The first few listed allow for more formal task and project management, while the others are more focused on VoIP and video calls or file sharing and document review. Project Management 1. Asana Asana is a free web and mobile project management app that can help keep an entire team in the loop on who’s doing what and when. You can organize your tasks […]

There is no denying that open source software has emerged as a powerful force in the development of modern enterprise technologies. Some of the hottest developments in software technology have emerged with strong links to the open source movement. A good example of this is the Internet of Things (IoT), one of the most talked about technology developments in recent years. Open source software plays a key role in its emergence: It is Linux-based, and open source networking standards make it possible for smart devices from different manufacturers to talk to each other. But although open source software is in the vanguard of many emerging technologies, it will not necessarily eclipse more traditional proprietary software. Get a group of techerati in the same room to discuss the relative merits of open source versus proprietary software, and you’re bound to elicit some strong opinions. However, regardless of where you stand in the open source vs. proprietary debate, you probably use tools every day that were developed with open source programs. Many in the tech industry argue that the collective action of open source development results in better programs and code—an argument which does carry some statistical weight. On the other hand, […]