Join The Revolution? Social Media Revolution Fact or Fiction

This well executed research presentation unleashes a litany of facts demonstrating the incredible speed in which social media has gained users. The video opens with the questions: "Is social media a fad?" or "the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?" Whether or not the presentation answers this question is largely dependent upon how you interpret the many "facts" that were presented. The good news is the folks at Socialnomics have posted all sources on their blog.

Fixing the Mortgage Mess

Only 9%, of the potential 2.7 million homeowners who are 2 months past due on their mortgage, are enrolled in a loan modification program. Of the 235,000 enrolled homeowners, 55% re-default within six months! While this problem continues to drag on the national economy the opportunity to assess and solve for the mortgage crisis hinges on a customer facing strategy focusing on each homeowner’s personal economy. The fact that most mortgage servicers are failing to provide the resources necessary to engage in a customer facing strategy has only made a bad problem worse.

At the foundation of the crisis is the complete lack of customer facing strategies designed to enter a meaningful dialogue with each troubled borrower. Given mortgage servicers are loath to enter a conversation with the customer about real solvency for their personal mortgage crisis, very few people are getting the help they need to stay in their homes. The leading mortgage servicers are doing the country a disservice while taking taxpayer money by failing to address the real issues: extending mortgage terms, consolidating debt and lowering principal balances. At the very least, mortgage servicers should engage the borrower in a personal financial conversation designed to improver their ability to make payments, on time and over time. Unfortunately, most lenders are waiting until accounts are well past due to engage the borrower, many of whom are too far behind to make the necessary changes required to improver their personal economy.

Servicers are currently not willing to engage in serious loan modifications partly because the incentive structure set by the government ($1,000 per modification) does not make sense given the servicers largely bloated cost structure. Furthermore, contracts between the servicers and the owners of the debt do not provide any carrots to improve the overall health of the loan portfolio. In fact, many contracts penalize servicers if the terms of the loans are modified in any meaningful way. This failure by the large services has also been compounded by the tight access to credit preventing debt consolidation plans that would reduce monthly debt payments. In the past, a borrower paying a high rate on interest on personal loans and credit cards could often reduce their debt to income ratio by getting a less punitive rate somewhere else. Today, there is simply no somewhere else.

The vacuum created during the credit crisis has made a significant population of borrowers subject to deceptive marketing practices by companies promising to lower debt and keep people in their homes. This has spawned many discussions in Washington on creating even more regulatory scrutiny and hurdles. For example, The FTC has announced public forums on proposed amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule that would specifically address “debt relief.” These rules have been proposed to “seek to combat deceptive and abusive telemarketing of debt relief services that purportedly can reduce consumer credit card debt and other unsecured debt.” Unfortunately, whatever machinations come out of the FTC generally will carry unattended consequences that may prevent ethical firms from reaching out to troubled homeowners. Policies designed to protect the many may further compound the problem from limiting access.

Evaluating The Experience By NEXIDIA

From Call Center Times: “The Evolution of FCR – Evaluating the Experience, Not Just the Call”- NEXIDIA - While most contact centers rely on quality monitoring and data from telephony and CRM systems to measure first call resolution, these approaches usually don’t explain WHY customers call back. However, your customers DO. In this webcast you will learn how you can use advanced speech analytics tools to gain rapid insight into WHY customers call back for targeted improvement. You’ll discover new and innovative ways of thinking about FCR. For More Information

Market Research Within Limited Budget

With market research budgets experiencing cuts across business verticals it is important to focus on efforts that will yield results at a low cost. The following article by Bonnie W. Eisenfeld in "Quirk's" is a good primer to so effective approaches. Article Found Here

Improve The ROI on Physician Marketing

Times such as these require the sales force to reach more physicians with fewer personnel, PharmaSalesBuilder creates a new sales model that:

· Increases Reach
· Enriches the Physician Detail
· Increases Sales Productivity and Job Satisfaction
· Enhances the Relationship with the Physician
· Provides Disease Management Capabilities for the Physician

PharmaSalesBuilder delivers all these benefits while reducing SG&A expense.

This new physician sales solution combines an interactive Internet presence with a physician support center to provide physicians with a convenient effective way to acquire product information and communicate with the company. Because it is an interactive solution, physicians get what they want when they want it. It changes the outdated physician sales model to an appointment model where the support center generates physician appointments based on physician needs. Successful physician marketing in the future will be centered on developing patient outcomes, increasing compliance and building patient loyalty programs. PharmaSalesBuilder is the cornerstone for this new approach.

PharmaSalesBuilder improves the sales representative’s job quality by allowing sales representatives to spend more time managing their sales territory and less time sitting in waiting rooms. It significantly enriches the quality of the sales detail because the sales rep comes to the office with an appointment.

This interactive sales model has been proven in other industries. Advances in the Internet and high-speed physician Web access makes it the perfect time to pursue this activity. In 5 years all successful pharmaceutical companies will utilize this technology.

Author: Joe Seringer, President ORION Marketing Group, Inc. (210) 694-4114 or see PharmaSalesBuilder.com