The Bottom Line - your source for business insights and tech inspiration

Well, CRM as we have thought about it for the past decade or more is 'out'.  The drive to be customer-centric, and meet customers 'where they are' (rather than where we left them last), is evolving the platforms we use to engage with them. At the same time, this evolution is supercharging the way our employees access and use data to collaborate with each other, and be more prepared to offer amazing service and experiences that drive business success. Add to that the positive impact of AI in the form of Microsoft Copilot, and all of a sudden the customer engagement landscape is looking pretty exciting.  

The key thing to remember with all this change is that learning is a lifelong undertaking. Staying curious will serve you well when it comes to understanding adopting these new tools and technologies to help your business.

Tools for engaging better with customers, while enabling faster, smarter, happier collaboration for staff, hold the power to deliver huge wins - no matter what area of the business you're in, or what your role is.  We've captured 6 different stories to demonstrate the value of Customer Engagement & Collaboration (CEC) for a range of business leaders - if your role isn't represented here, and you're interested in finding out how CEC can benefit you, please get in touch!

For...the CEO While predictability may not delight you in other aspects of your life, as a CEO running a business, you probably find it has considerable appeal. And that fondness is likely closely followed by your appreciation of effective risk management and organisational transparency.   Your customers also value these same attributes. They want to know what to expect from your business and feel confident that your service will live up to their expectations every time...	For...the CFO While your CIO ponders the weight of technical debt hanging over the business, you’re probably thinking about how to avoid investing in technology that costs you more to run and maintain in the long term than it returns in value.   As CFO, that requires a strategic view of how you invest and in what. That includes understanding why choosing a standalone system (e.g., a CRM) - no matter the promise of savings - without...
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For...the CIO Business transformation continues to be the way forward for any CIO charged with improving business outcomes. According to McKinsey, as much as 71% of the impact of business transformations depends on technology.   However, the excitement of investing in a technology that delivers a significantly better ROI than your old CRM must be tempered with the understanding that failing to...	For...the CMO As CMO, you are accountable to many stakeholders in the business for campaign outcomes. However, instead of working smarter and more strategically to raise the bar, your team is tied to the unproductive processes adopted when forced to work with non-integrated marketing technology. And despite all good intentions, the results can be hit-and-miss, at best.   The case for a single integrated marketing platform, with all customer databases and information in one place (think age, location, communication preferences, emails opened, past transactions, customer issues raised and...
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For...the CXO As CXO, you’re all about the experience. It’s up to you to ensure that your customers (and employees) experience such positive feelings about your brand that it results in long-term loyalty. But when your data is in segregated silos, that can be a challenge.   Let’s imagine that you're not across your service incidents – through no fault of your own. You simply have zero transparency of what’s happening in your service centre. But in the meantime, the business has a product ready to push out to market despite not really knowing how effective it is and how customers will respond to it...	For...HR & People Leaders As technology moves at light speed career lifespans will surely shorten. And to stay relevant, we will all need to adopt new technologies and evolve.   The same can be said for those who work in organisations who are technology-forward. In adopting technologies, not only do (much) better business, there’s also the opportunity to equip employees with the knowledge and skills to stay relevant and valuable – and in turn drive even more...
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Traditional CRM technology has evolved significantly in the past 5 years, along with how businesses engage with their customers, and collaborate internally. The pressure to create personalised, meaningful and timely experiences for customers is huge. And yet, the amount of information, from an ever increasing array of platforms and systems, that customer facing employees need to access and stay aware of makes it difficult to deliver those experiences.

Customer Engagement and Collaboration services and practices, supplemented by Artificial Intelligence (such as Microsoft Copilot) are changing the game, whether you're on the 'selling' or the 'buying' side of the equation. What does this mean for businesses, and how can you take advantage of these new tools to stand out from the crowd? Customer Engagement and Collaboration specialists Kristy Brown and Jonathan Rickard from Fusion5 answer these questions and more in the latest in the 'Spotlight On' series.

0:18 What is 'CRM' and where did it come from?

2:00 What's the difference between 'old school' CRM, and Customer Engagement solutions we have today?

5:48 How do Customer Engagement insights help business leaders and decision makers?

16:15 Should we be worried that AI might make humans redundant in the Customer Engagement equation?

16:56 What is Fusion5 doing to help our customers to be ready to work 'with' AI?

19:06 How have you seen businesses use AI to genuinely change the game?

25:04 If anyone is considering making AI part of the way they do business, what advice would you give them?

We regularly host online and in-person events to help people stay aware of the latest innovations and opportunities that exist to improve your business.

Please check the AU and NZ events page regularly as we'll post these events there when they are open for registrations, or let your Account Manager know that you're interested.

Blogs, ebooks, videos...we publish interesting, entertaining, and educational bits and pieces all the time - here's a selection of our latest offerings.