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  • SAP + Qualtrics – Why Did They Do It?

    SAP + Qualtrics – Why Did They Do It?

    SAP released a compilation video (below) featuring SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith that really sums up well why SAP is acquiring Qualtrics:

    Bill McDermott: First it’s an honor to team up with Brian Smith, a great CEO, and an inspirational leader. We couldn’t be prouder of our relationship with Qualtrics.

    Ryan Smith: This is a once in a generation opportunity and we’re gonna change the whole face of enterprise technology with this combination.

    Bill McDermott: SAP is the fastest growing cloud company in the large-scale business software industry while Qualtrics is the fastest growing business software company in the experience management space. If you combine those two forces you have a juggernaut of cloud growth.

    Ryan Smith: There are two types of data. You have operational data which is telling you what’s going on and what just happened. These are your analytics, this is your CRM product, this is your HCM product. Then you have experienced staff which allows us to get human sentiment in the moment to understand the why, how someone feels. SAP owns the operation systems from end-to-end, we own the experience systems from end-to-end. The ability to combine those and have one single view will transform the way we even think about CRM as we know it.

    Bill McDermott: We want to be the jet fuel that propels them to 193 countries with the biggest business software sales go-to-market force in the world in 25 industries, small, mid, and large alike. Every customer should know that X-Data and O-Data are together now.

    Ryan Smith: We are fired up today is a new beginning and with all the resources from SAP, we’re super excited for that.

    Bill McDermott: And the loyalty effect is what the experienced management of Qualtrics and the operational data of SAP drive. So X-Data, experience, and O-Data, what’s going on in the operations, put that together, you could inspire everyone in the company to take care of everyone outside the company.

    Ryan Smith: I could not be more excited to work with SAP, McDermott, all of the SAP family. The Qualtrics family is excited and we’re going to go do something legendary.

  • SAP CEO on Qualtrics Deal: A Global Growth Juggernaut in the Cloud

    SAP CEO on Qualtrics Deal: A Global Growth Juggernaut in the Cloud

    SAP CEO Bill McDermott says that buying Qualtrics creates a “global growth juggernaut in the cloud, the number one business software growing in the cloud in the world.” McDermott says that he’s here to build a company for the generations, not just for a few days and that this is a fundamentally transformational deal, one that will reshape the entire industry.

    Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith says that combining forces with SAP will change the experience economy forever. “This is by far a once in a generational opportunity and it’s going to change how everyone thinks about cloud and SAAS and CRM and ERP and HCM forever,” said Smith. “Why wouldn’t we want to be a part of that?”

    Both SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith talked about the acquisition on CNBC Squawk Box this morning (Watch Video Below):

    SAP CEO: If You Can Combine X-Data and O-Data You Can Change the World

    We’re reshaping the enterprise application software industry. What led us to this deal is that all CEOs you talk to want to run their companies on an end-to-end basis. They want to deal with their customers in every channel, they want to fulfill, and that requires operational data. SAP touches 77 percent of the world’s transactions, but the operational data doesn’t ask the right question. It doesn’t say, why does the customer feel a certain way about your brand, about your products, and about their experience. This new category called experience management is all about x-data and if you can combine o-data and x-data you can change the world.

    Ryan I have known each other about three months. We spent a lot of time together, a lot of text, a lot of phone calls, and we fundamentally wanted a transformational deal, one that would reshape the entire industry and here we are.

    SAP CEO: If You Want to Survey Somebody You Hire Survey Monkey…

    Have you looked at acquiring SurveyMonkey? No, they do surveys we reinvent customer experiences in a whole new category called experience management. If you want to survey somebody you hire Survey Monkey, if you want to fundamentally change the way an enterprise thinks about its culture, its brand, its products, and its people, now you’re talking Qualtrics, the leader in the marketplace by a factor of 10x. We’ve always bought the biggest and the best one and thankfully with the high trust that Ryan and I developed and our companies developed we’re ready to go.

    SAP CEO: A Global Growth Juggernaut in the Cloud

    When you’re talking about this particular company, Qualtrics, they’re growing at 40 percent on a year-over-year basis in the cloud. They have a very serious go-to-market strategy, but it’s modest in size. We’re growing at 41 percent year-over-year in the cloud and we have a very large go-to-market machine, more than 15,000 people touching the customer every day. If you combine that rate of growth you have a global growth juggernaut in the cloud, the number one business software growing in the cloud in the world. So digest that dear shareholders.

    We’re saying and we’re very clear on this, we’re going to grow total revenue in double-digit, operating income in double-digit, not to mention being the fastest growing cloud company in the world. So today this will be digested. Now they’ll know, why did he do a big one when he said he was more likely gonna do tuck-ins? Because I never thought I would get Qualtrics and it takes some skill to pull deals like this off and convince a great entrepreneur like Ryan that he’s better off with SAP than going it alone when he’s 13x oversubscribed in his IPO.

    SAP CEO: I’m Here to Build a Company for the Generations

    So that’s what took a little bit of time and when we pulled it off together this weekend we were literally crossing each other in the air at 39,000 feet, so this was high-stakes. Now that we’re here, we’re doing all-hands meetings, we’re talking to the media, we’re talking to the bankers, and I expect the stock to do extremely well as the day progresses, and more importantly in the mid and the long term. I’m here to build a company for the generations, not just for a few days.

    Qualtrics CEO: We Created the Experience Management Category

    We were planning on ringing the bell on Thursday. I was home this weekend just to kind of take a little break after a week on the road it was going really well. We were 13 times oversubscribed with the best still ahead of us and then we had an opportunity to combine forces with SAP and change the experience economy forever. I think in my conversations with Bill it’s something that we only dreamed of that we could make this happen. It’s pretty special.

    We’ve been doing this for 16 years. We transformed the entire experience management category, we’ve created it. We’re powering the feedback for 14 different airlines, 200 financial institutions, and we’ve really created this category to go do something big, that was the goal. We never had a financial reason to go public, we bootstrapped our company longer than anyone and we had no investor pressure. We’re one of the only companies that has been cashflow positive and high growth since its inception. The reason why we were going public was to create this massive new category.

    Qualtrics CEO: A Once in a Generational Opportunity

    When Bill approached us with a once in a generational opportunity that we could take all the power of Qualtrics and our 9,000 brands and have that sit alongside SAP and have every ounce of customer feedback go into the entire product process with an ERP system, reshape how the world thinks about CRM, and everything that we’re doing to power all the employee experience of the whole world that’s all available overnight. That’s something that we couldn’t turn down and we chose to be here.

    Our IPO was already way oversubscribed, it was gonna take off and everyone was looking at us saying, hey this is the next $20 or $30 billion dollar standalone company. But we want to win and this is what winning looks like and we’re going to reshape the entire industry and Bill’s on board and we’re excited.

    We were pretty set on going public and so it wasn’t till this opportunity came through this weekend where we said, hey look, this is by far a once in a generational opportunity and it’s going to change how everyone thinks about cloud and SAAS and CRM and ERP and HCM forever. Why wouldn’t we want to be a part of that? We couldn’t be more excited and like I said this is a pretty special team with Bill and me.

  • SAP CEO: It’s All About the Customer Experience

    SAP CEO: It’s All About the Customer Experience

    SAP CEO Bill McDermott, in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg talked about enterprises moving to the cloud, competing with Oracle’s new autonomous database, competing with Salesforce, and its huge business in China:

    SAP Has Taken Over the Enterprise Database Market

    Do you have a major move to the cloud? If legacy companies haven’t fully invested themselves in the cloud where they’ve converted their revenue streams more to cloud than on-premise I think you will see them make bold moves to get cloud-ready. No choice, that’s where the customer wants us.

    We obviously have taken over the enterprise database market with HANA. HANA has many of the characteristics that you mentioned (referencing Oracle). HANA can take data from any source, everything that is either structured or unstructured and data from any source in the enterprise. HANA is running the biggest enterprises in the world now with 25,000 customers at mass scale. We like our HANA database very much.

    It’s All About the Customer Experience

    We see a fourth-generation of CRM where we go beyond the current market participants. Basically, they focus on sales, marketing campaigns, things that essentially take money out of the customers pocket. What we want to do is focus on an omnichannel ecommerce world where we connect the demand chain because our customers are social, mobile and on the run. They shop in every channel, direct to consumer, wholesale, retail. We want to connect that demand chain to the supply chain so that we have a complete end-to-end business.

    Why is this so important? We are not just talking about CRM, we are talking about customer experience. The way CEOs think about their brand, their products, their human capital, their customers. All of the people inside of the company have to be completely committed to the customers outside the company. This is what we call fourth-generation CRM. It’s all about the customer experience.

    We’d Like to See China and the US Cooperate

    The most important thing is that we get paid to run businesses and work in an environment where we let government do what government does. All government leaders have to do what’s best for their country and best for their constituents. These tariffs are obviously a serious situation. You have the two largest economies in the world with $30 trillion in combined economic firepower that right now are at a little bit at odds with each other.

    It’s good, as we saw in today’s tweet, it was stated that at the G20 President Xi and President Trump will sit down and talk. That’s very encouraging to the market. Markets like certainty. So certainly we would like to see China and the US cooperate. It’s good for supply chain, it’s good for business.

    China is Regarded as SAP’s Second Home

    Germain engineering is highly regarding in China, as it is in the United States and around the world, but we do particularly well in China. China is our fastest growing market. We think that China is easily regarded as SAP’s second home in terms of market receptivity, ecosystem growth in China, and our long-term prospects. We think China will end up being the biggest market in the world soon.

    We have the most sophisticated data privacy in the world. We acquired a company called Gigya where we have billions and billions of customer records. We protect your privacy, we don’t let customers actually engage you unless you agree that you want to opt-in on various offerings from our customers and they serve their customers. We follow the same reference architecture, the same high-security standards and cloud standards in China that we do in Europe, the United States, and every other theater in the world.

    We are very confident in China in the way enterprises can serve their customers in China with high-security standards. We recently announced a very important partnership with Alibaba and that is a cloud partnership that will not only impact our growth in one of the fastest growing regions in the world.

    We Are Very Diverse and Highly Inclusive

    We actually have appointed in the last 12 months two women to our Executive Board, not just because they are women, but because they are great leaders. That would be Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan. If you look at our company we have a third of our workforce that is female and we also have a third of our leaders that are female.

    We are very diverse and highly inclusive. One of the things we really enjoy is what we have done with Autism at Work and now we have dedicated one percent of our hiring to autistic folks, at least on the spectrum somewhere, to help our workforce be highly productive and diverse. That extends also to the solutions that we have. If you look at success factors, the number one human capital solution in the world, we have a business without bias mentality.

    Computers don’t have bias. In the way we build the algorithms in the software they eliminate bias from the hiring process. The computer doesn’t have a bias. It looks for the best candidates and it fills an algorithm or model that the company is trying to get at. If you want 40 percent of your workforce to be diverse and inclusive, the model is built to do that for you. You don’t leave it up to humans, you let the software do the work and then the human judgment comes in at the final phase of hiring. It’s changing companies everywhere.

  • Heathrow Airport: How We Achieved a 20% Email Open Rate and 25% Click Through via Adobe

    Heathrow Airport: How We Achieved a 20% Email Open Rate and 25% Click Through via Adobe

    Analytics and Optimization Lead at Heathrow Airport, Stuart Irvine, says that email is still the key driver for them in marketing and personalizing the customer experience. Irvine said that Heathrow sends over 6 million emails monthly and that working with Adobe Campain has enabled them to move their opening rates to over 20 percent with 25 percent click-through.

    Stuart Irvine, Analytics and Optimization Lead at Heathrow Airport, recently talked about their use of Adobe products and services and how they have driven their evolution in digital marketing:

    Engaging 80 Percent of Our Customers Digitally

    We have 78 million customers a year and we are targeted with engaging 80 percent of our customers digitally. Certainly, we need to raise pre-awareness of our products and services before someone arrives at the airport.

    We have strong commercial targets that we need to hit and the Adobe Experience Cloud allows us to get from acquisition through to activity to after the trip activity. This allows us to tailor messages as someone moves through the airport experience to make sure that we deliver relevant push messages or relevant content throughout their journey.

    Email is Still the Key Driver for Us

    We work a lot with geolocation where we have over 11,000 beacons around the airport. Tools like Adobe Campaign allow us to move through that journey and keep that contact regular. We implemented Adobe Campaign three years ago with integration partner Acxiom, a long-term data partner. Adobe Campaign, as a truly omnichannel tool, has allowed us to really ramp up activity across channels.

    Certainly, email is still the key driver for us. We send over 6 million emails every month and Adobe Campaign has allowed us to personalize a lot more emails and make sure we get the right offers to the customers. We’ve worked with Adobe Analytics for 8 years and we now capture all of our online data. That’s all passed to Adobe Audience Manager which allows us to drive personalization at scale and deliver relevant and contextual experiences.

    Adobe Professional Services Has Been a Key Advantage

    I think the Adobe DAM, obviously with the integrations with Creative Cloud, can offer us huge process improvements. Working with Adobe professional services has actually been one of the key advantages for us. They have the knowledge to make the best value of the integrations between all of the solutions to really deliver experiences at scale we need to have automated processes.

    Moving More Towards Personalization

    We have a lot of faith in the Adobe Sensei platform and the machine learning there. We’re just opening up our homepage to automated personalization to try and bring through some subcategories of products that we’ll get a much better cut through with our customers. Now we’re moving more and more towards personalization, recommendations being the key focus areas for target.

    Adobe Audience Manager has been a key driver behind that. It is really a game changer for Heathrow Airport given our investment in the rest of our tech stack. Audience Manager really brings that all together and allows us to deliver an omnichannel experience.

    Open Rates Are Now Above 20 Percent

    We’ve seen open rates go from the low teens to above 20 percent, some great results there. We have over 25 percent click-through rates on some of our emails, which is a fantastic number to achieve. We’ve been able to increase average retail spend per passenger from £5 ($6.48) to £8 ($10.38). With our rewards customers, we see that they travel at least five times a year they have an average spend of £140 ($182) per visit. Adobe Campaign has been key to building that relationship.

    Our journey with Adobe has been a great experience. We’ve moved through from basically analytics eight years ago, but actually, the development of Adobe’s roadmap has continually evolved and that has driven our evolution in digital marketing as well.

  • You Need Smart Analytics that Drive Better Actions

    You Need Smart Analytics that Drive Better Actions

    At the recent Salesforce Dreamforce conference, Salesforce announced Einstein Plus, a visually improved no-code version of their artificial intelligence platform. Prior to announcing this new product release, Ketan Karhanis, SVP & GM of Salesforce Analytics discussed why AI insights are potentially transformative to businesses who have the guts to trust them.

    Ketan Karhanis, SVP & GM, Salesforce Analytics at Salesforce talks about the need for smart analytics in businesses in order to drive better actions:

    Technology is Simply an Enabler

    We must be clear about one thing, technology is simply an enabler. Real transformation requires trailblazers. We live in a time of tremendous technological change with lots of good stuff happening AI, AR, voice. This is not about the technology, it’s simply about you. The single biggest question is how does all this enable your success and what does this mean to you?

    You all know the world of business applications, such as sales, service, marketing, you know this world very well. Then there’s the world of analytics, some call it visualizations and some call it reporting,. No matter what you call it it is important because it’s crucial to see what is happening in your business and why.

    AI and Analytics Need to Come Together

    Now we have AI, the game-changing power of AI insight. What does that mean? Now we can get a glimpse of the future. We get predictive and prescriptive, very exciting technology. But are you going to be swivel chairing three different boxes, three different logins, different stats for everything, one stack for ML, one stack for visualization?  

    That’s probably not going to be fun because here’s one simple thing we need to realize, these are not three separate boxes they are facets of the same experience. AI and analytics need to come together and they need to be infused in your business applications.

    You Need Automated Discovery

    What you need is not just a digital experience but an intelligent experience where analytics is built right in and if done right analytics becomes invisible but you get the benefits of it, and the benefits are pretty spectacular. We are drowning in data, lots of data everywhere. Making sense out of millions of data points in sub-second speeds to derive insights, that’s kind of hard, our brains are not really wired to do that.

    You need automated discovery. Automated discovery helps you discover the story in your data and the intelligent experience comes built with automated discovery. Insights have to be outcome focused.

    You Need Smart Analytics that Drive Better Actions

    Of course, you need charts which tell you about the past, but you need recommendations and explanations. You probably don’t need yet another dashboard which tells you what happened. You need better outcomes for the future and you should not settle for incomplete. From visualizations to predictive to prescriptive you need it complete in one experience.

    You need smart analytics. AI stands for actionable insights because an insight which does not lead to an action is just a dumb chart. That’s why connecting to the business process is key. Insights need to drive better actions.

    You need to be able to leverage your existing teams and bring them to this new world of no-code AI, of a completely different way of interfacing with your insights. AI’s role is amplifying your effectiveness, it’s about augmenting your skills but how will you trust it. That’s why accountability is key, transparency is key, and you need all of this.

  • Verizon Business Markets CIO: We Have to Humanize Technology

    Verizon Business Markets CIO: We Have to Humanize Technology

    The CIO of Verizon Business Markets, which is Verizon’s small business segment, says that “We have to humanize technology.” What Rajeev Chandrasekharan is talking about is Verizon’s push internally to modernize the customer experience and to make it less frustrating.

    The Verizon Business Markets CIO says that they are modernizing and becoming more customer-centric with the help of Salesforce CRM and other tools. Their goal is to ensure that the customer’s concerns and information follow the customer, regardless of who at Verizon the customer is speaking with.

    Rajeev Chandrasekharan, CIO of Verizon Business Markets, recently discussed how they are reimagining the customer experience at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco:

    The Three Pillars for Industry Transformation

    Our industry is seeing a lot of need for transformation and if you really look at it there are three different pillars. One is we’re engineered for scale and not for speed to market. We do something well and we are big and now that whole equation is changing with needing to get to the market quickly with products. The second aspect is we’ve been around for a while and use different kinds of technologies and we need to refresh them so we need to start using some of the cooler capabilities that exist.

    Lastly, there’s a lot of pressure on us with all the other industries, the digital unicorns, trying to provide this amazing customer experience and it’s not good enough now just to provide service or be a commodity. The intersection of those three needs is creating a need for a huge digital transformation.

    My role here in Verizon Business Markets is while we launch new products try to build digital business and try to leverage all of this technology and customer experience while we penetrate newer customer segments.

    Verizon Business Markets in the Midst of a Digital Transformation

    Generally, when you do a digital transformation there’s a lot of work and a lot of investment and the question companies always have is how much is it worth to go change everything that I’ve done? Luckily for us since we have multiple business units we pick the small business unit and said we see a tremendous potential here for new products and for penetration of the market so the investment is well justified. So go, do not compromise on things, drive this digital mobile first omnichannel thinking to the extreme and build something that’s like a beacon for all the other business units to follow.

    We’ve taken this to a place where revenue is going to be generated and when you have a promise of being able to grow the top-line it’s easy to justify all the work that goes into it. The other aspect is we’ve got a lot of buy-in from the top on trying to do things differently, so we’ve tried to put together a few rules of how we want to operate. We call them the big rules. Then build on that, where we’re trying to make sure the whole organization is saying, don’t fall into the trap of doing things the old way and make sure we focus on these big rules. Culturally and then opportunity wise Verizon Business Markets, the small business segment, becomes a fantastic place to try out this concept and we’re going all-out.

    This is a Customer-Centric Digital Transformation

    This is a customer-centric digital transformation. We started with the customer, we looked at the product research, we looked at the capabilities and then we decided what platform we wanted and what processes we can change. We also challenged ourselves by saying that we need to break our own rules and do something different. For example, if you’re going to get into a house differently and you can’t get to through the window, you can’t build another door, you can’t break in and you have got to use the key, then different about it? We challenge ourselves to break those rules.

    That customer in mindset is what we are struggling with and that’s the one thing I would say that we didn’t have, the digital native aspect, the customer-centric aspect as much. We have that in our service, in our network, and in our products, we have amazing stuff. When we top it off with this we’re going to be in a good place.

    We Have to Humanize Technology

    I think we have amazing products and services so innovation is constantly going to happen there. The two things that I see is operations are going to become digital with artificial intelligence and those sort of new age technologies, which is very important for you to be competitive in the marketplace or you’re not going to survive against your competition. Then, the most important thing is the way you go to deliver capabilities to a customer.

    We have to humanize technology. The customer is basically saying what do you think, what do you say, what do you do, and we then turn it into some garble technology talk. We need to operate as a digital entity and make the customer feel like we as a company are doing one-on-one personal services for you in think, say, and do.

    We’re giving you intelligent recommendations, executing your orders, and we are communicating with you effectively. That is going to almost take you back to the olden days of manual stuff which were one-on-one but without the human and instead with technology. That is the sweet spot for us going forward.

  • Vlocity Thriving on the Salesforce AppExchange Focusing on Industry Verticals

    Vlocity Thriving on the Salesforce AppExchange Focusing on Industry Verticals

    The Salesforce AppExchange is where companies can find third-party applications that run on and integrate with the Salesforce platform. David Schmaier, CEO and Founder of Vlocity, a Forbes Cloud 100 Company, says that Vlocity is the fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform.

    Companies leverage Vlocity Industry Cloud apps to extend the power of the Salesforce platform.

    Vlocity CEO and founder David Schmaier discussed his companies amazing rise in an interview at Dreamforce:

    Vlocity Has 5 Industry Verticals Built on Top of Salesforce

    Vlocity is the single fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform. The app exchange has 4,000 companies that do basically everything you can do possibly with the world’s number one CRM platform and cloud platform Salesforce. What we do is we build five industry verticals on top of the Salesforce platform; communications and media, insurance, healthcare, government, and our newest addition is the energy business. We take what our regulated businesses and we make them digital.

    I came to my first Dreamforce in 2013 and I was looking around for opportunities. Some friends had built a company called Veeva, which is the biggest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and they do pharmaceutical and life sciences CRM. I came to Dreamforce to find the next Veeva and when I found was astonishing. Back then there were around 2,700 companies on the AppExchange and I saw CPQ, CGI, Middleware and Document Management, but no other industry vertical applications.

    There was only one back then and yet it was the largest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and the only one to go public. You didn’t need to be a Ph.D. in computer science to figure out that there was an opportunity to build another Veeva, a bigger Veeva, which we call Vlocity.

    Vlocity Transforms Industries to be Modern, Digital, and Customer Centric

    We named the company Vlocity because we’re fast, but we try and we’re trying to improve the agility of our customers. A good example of this is last night we were with New York Life Insurance which has rolled out about 18,000 users of Salesforce and Vlocity in about a year and they do it all in a mobile-first way.

    Before they would go in and talk to you about life insurance in your kitchen with pen and paper and now they just tap on their phone to sell life insurance. We’ve taken the whole process and made it mobile first and made it digital so they can connect with their customers in a whole new way. That’s the kind of capabilities that we provide for people. We call it digital, we call it agile and it’s all available now on the mobile device.

    Vlocity Announces New Mobile Products

    We’re announcing two new mobile products. The first is a visual studio where I can point and click and drag and drop and I can put in a companies logo and I can build high fidelity rich mobile apps and I can deploy them really really fast versus having to custom build them. We simplify the development process and allow you to point-and-click and put your colors and your branding and your logo and roll out very high fidelity mobile apps.

    The second part is we’re coming up out with a new app for consumers so that when I want to browse my bill or look at my usage or add devices or buy the new iPhones that just came out I can do that all from a branded consumer mobile app that’s that comes out of the box and ready for use. We’re doing a lot of things in the mobile-first area.  

    Vlocity Integrates AI and Siri

    I’m excited about Salesforce’s big announcement this week where Einstein and Siri are now best friends. We were in parallel working on these mobile apps and because our software’s all built 100% native and additive on the Salesforce platform all that great work Salesforce is doing with Einstein and Siri we get for free.

    Now we can ask Siri questions about paying the bill or understanding usage or adding the new iPhone and I can do that all through the voice capabilities that Salesforce has added to the platform. The platform keeps getting better with analytics, with Einstein, now Einstein meets Siri, and we’re just thrilled to be part of this great ecosystem.

  • How adidas is Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    How adidas is Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    Digital marketing is changing and adidas is working to make it integral in connecting with their customers and to really change their lives in a positive way. Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at addidas, says that “The beauty is with digital is we can create relationships at scale.”

    The company is reaching out and connecting with customers in a personalized way via their app that they launched last year and have recently announced major new features.

    Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at adidas discusses the company’s new digital marketing strategy at Dreamforce:

    Digital Brings the addidas Core Principals to Life

    We spend a lot of time really listening to consumers in focus groups and through lots of studies in order to really understand what their needs are and how we can serve them better, particularly using our digital channel. It started really with our core belief as a company that through sport we have the power to change lives.

    Then we asked ourselves the question if digital is a focus and clear priority for us how does digital actually bring that core to belief to life? The beauty is with digital we can create relationships at scale. We can really connect with the consumer and match their needs using digital in a way that we could never do before.

    Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    When we talk about interacting with the consumer we look at how we can make a difference in their game, in their life, and in their world. We look at how we can hit home on all of those fears and then ultimately in digital create an experience that’s premium, connected, and personalized.

    Premium is about inspiring love for the brand and desire for the products. Connected is about taking all the touch points that they can interact with us in a physical or in an online environment, and there are a lot, that we’re actually seamless and really interacting with them in a consistent way. Personalized, because in our brand there are so many sports to talk about, but I need to talk with you about what’s relevant for you, not what’s relevant for someone else.

    I can’t just blast out a communication anymore and hope that it’s interesting for you. I need to respect the interactions we’ve had together across any touch point and make sure I bring what’s relevant to you in that particular context but also what’s interesting in terms of your profile. We really want to create that relationship that creates value and meaning that hits home on what’s most interesting for the consumer.

    Announcing the Launch of a New addidas Membership Program

    We have some exciting news that we’ll talk about during Dreamforce this week which is about a new membership program that we’re launching in the US and then later will expand that in other countries. It gives us the ability to really engage and hit home on what’s most interesting for a consumer. They might be looking for value, they might be looking for experiences, or they might look to actually give back and be part of broader causes. Depending on what’s most interesting to them we can expose that in our ecosystem and reward them for those interactions but also give them the chance to interact as well.

    I think to be relevant in today’s world with the proliferation of brands and experiences that are out there we have to have something that’s really meaningful that consumers will come back to again and again. They have to also see how we are represented as a brand and have a way to interact and connect with that as well. We’re looking across all the experience to have something that’s sticky and makes it seamless and easy to use. If you want to buy something you can do it quickly and easily but we also make the experience a positive one.

    The App Changed the Paradigm

    We launched the app last year and we’ve now rolled it out in 18 countries which is a very small space of time for a massive global rollout but also expanding the features and the capabilities in the app. It’s a great example where we really tried to change the paradigm and how we develop things because when we initially launched the app we put out there a starting point, we had a very clear strategy how the app would enable us to create a connection with the consumer to be even more personalized. For instance, with the newsfeed, they can really surface what’s personally relevant for that consumer where we can talk with them about new releases and new things that are coming.

    At the same time, we only launched it as a starting point, so almost like we put out the very first version of a car. We wanted consumers to give us feedback in mass.  We did consumer testing to build the app extensively but when you really get it out there and people start using it they tell you what’s really interesting and what they want more of. Through that experience we realized some of the things that we might prioritize in our backlog, actually, we need to elevate some other topics that are more important to the consumer.

    The adidas Digital Strategy for the Future

    I think for us ultimately with our digital strategy the first part is how do we create that ever-tightening relationship that has meaning and value from a consumer perspective and really hits home on those three pillars of premium, connected, and personalized. How do you really surface that in a meaningful way?

    Take something like a product description. How do we really have the product descriptions and offerings so that if you’re interested in sports we will help you find exactly the product that you need for the sport that you’re interested in? We will also educate you and bring you back at different points in time to help you find out what you need when you need it, or with an engagement program. Ultimately, like the membership program, that it has something that’s sticky, that you can give back to something, even more, you can participate in events and experiences.

    For us, a lot of it’s really deepening those experiences but also exploring new technologies and new areas. Omnichannel was kind of the original wave which happened and  I said it was the freight train that came past us a couple of years ago. Now we’re also looking at what those next freight trains are, whether it’s technologies like blockchain or experiencing picking up a new channel. For example, we’re working extensively with Salesforce on automation, how we can automate consumer experiences. Take something as simple as a consumer service interaction. How do I make it so easy for you, no matter if you talk with us via Messenger, WhatsApp, online, or in the app itself, that we can respond to those questions fast and easy but not have to have thousands of agents all the time on the call?

    I would say the interesting complexity but also the opportunity comes from that connected sphere. How do you connect all of those different things that are relevant? If you participate in one of our communities how do we also reward that interaction through a membership program? How do we build that seamlessly into a sales or commercial experience as well? That’s really part of that opportunity and that multi-year journey that we’re on and really expanding.

  • How to Use Data to Become Incredibly Customer Centric

    How to Use Data to Become Incredibly Customer Centric

    Steve Stone, former CIO of L Brands and Lowes, recently discussed how retailers can use data to serve their customers better and become incredibly customer-centric:

    Retail Grew Up Differently

    When you think about retail, retail grew up differently. We started with stores and then we eventually added e-commerce. We were also very much notorious best-of-breed in the way we build our applications. Over time, you’ve got this technical debt where information about the customer and information about the product is stored in many different places.

    When you’re trying to build an integrated seamless frictionless customer experience it’s very hard to do that if your information is disjointed. One of my favorite sayings is if the plumbing isn’t right it doesn’t matter how nice the experience is it just isn’t going to work. This is a huge challenge for retailers and it’s where technology really has to play a role, not only to combine the information but to find ways to add speed and agility to the entire process.

    Data Key to Meaningful Customer Experiences

    I’ve always said data governance isn’t exactly sexy but it’s it’s what really drives the ability to deliver those types of meaningful customer experiences. With the focus now today on the customer experience with the Internet of Things and with all these new technologies coming at us and especially with the advent of AI and machine learning, we now see that data has to be right, the hygiene has to be great. Suddenly, master data has become a vogue term in retail and in consumer products.

    I think the biggest problem a lot of companies find is they’ve got to find a place to start. You’ve got to get that starting point. Picking an experience, an experience that you want for the customer, and then flowing back through, where are all the interaction points of data, where does it originate, and where is it getting corrupt? Cleansing that and building that one experience we’ll start you on your journey.

    Be Customer Centric, Not Product Centric

    After that, it’s really getting into the plumbing and understanding your data and understanding the customer. It’s always amazing when we build these great customer experiences, but they’re built more for us and not for the customer. At L Brands we always put the customer first. Be customer centric, not product-centric. How do we integrate, how do we become customer first in everything that we do?

    We’re really at the point now where the technology exists to do this right. The integration platforms such as MuleSoft are really strong now that allows you to stitch together your applications plus build an extensible layer where applications can change quickly. That experience becomes one where if I’m a customer and I walk into a store and you don’t have the product I want there’s no problem. The product will still be at my doorstep the next day or hopefully that day.

    Knowing Your Customer

    I’m online and I want this product and I don’t want to have to wait for it to come from your distribution center in Detroit or Wisconsin. I want it and I’m in California and I get it in a couple of hours because the retailers are able to use the inventory in those local stores.

    As a customer, you know me regardless of the channel, whether I came to you via the call center or whether I came to you in a store or online. You know me and that’s to me where retailers have to be. I don’t think that’s differentiating as much anymore, instead, I think that’s becoming the table stakes.

    You can’t compete against the past, you’ve got to compete against what the future is going to be. I see retail changing so much from inventory, from the customer, and even the whole level of personalization that we’re trying to offer to the customer now. The customer is going to be asking for things that we would never have dreamed possible and yet in a few years we’re going to be delivering it.

    The Best Retailers Cater to Their Customers

    Retailers that I really admire are Costco, Lilly Pulitzer, Ulta Beauty, Tractor Supply, they have a really great connection with their customer. They cater to that customer and they’re building out technology capabilities that really allow that customer to operate on their terms, not on the retailer’s terms, and I just think that’s so powerful.

  • Marriott Using Salesforce Einstein to Reinvent the Hotel Experience

    Marriott Using Salesforce Einstein to Reinvent the Hotel Experience

    Salesforce Co-founder & CEO Marc Benioff announced at the Dreamforce conference a new partnership with Marriott that is going to bring the power of artificial intelligence into the hotel room via a phone app. This new Marriott app will connect directly with a Salesforce Einstein powered customer database that knows the customer’s preferences and will be accessible via Siri and other voice recognition platforms.

    Marc Benioff provided some interesting details of the Marriott and Apple partnership and in a discussion with CNBC’s Jim Cramer at the Dreamforce conference:

    Marriott Using Salesforce Technology to Reinvent the Hotel Experience

    Every company has to rethink who they are in the fourth industrial revolution. This includes Marriott, that’s why Arne Sorenson is here, the CEO of Marriott, and you are going to see in the keynote a whole new vision for the future of Marriott. All the technology, everything they need to do to connect with their customer in a whole new way via Salesforce.

    That includes the ability to check into a Marriott with your digital key right on your phone, and then the ability to talk to Siri and order your favorite sandwich. In the Salesforce customer database, we will know you want a turkey sandwich and we are going to bring it to your room. Then if you tell Siri to lower the lights and put the room temperature to 67 degrees the lights go down and the temperature adjusts.

    Salesforce Einstein Radically Empowering the Customer

    How does it know, where does it get all the data, how does it have the customer background, it comes from Salesforce, we’re the backend. This is what the conference is about, helping these incredible people, our trailblazers, know how to build these systems. We had to build something amazing first. This isn’t voice recognition that we did. We had to build something called Salesforce Einstein, the number one artificial intelligence platform in enterprise applications. We now are doing billions of Einstein transactions every day giving the ability for our customers to radically use artificial intelligence to make them more productive and smarter about their customers.

    We are connecting Einstein to Siri or Einstein to any other voice platform, then we take that voice recognition and we are able to move it to the database. Don’t forget, when I say I want my favorite sandwich, Siri knows what I’m saying with my voice, but then we have to take that and retrieve it or insert into the customer database. That’s the magic, that’s Einstein Voice, it is the glue, the middleware that links all the voice systems that you are using in your home and your phone with the number one CRM in the world Salesforce.

    Marc Benioff Say the Economy is Ripping

    The economy is ripping. There is incredible demand from customers to rebuild their systems, they’re benefitting from the tax breaks, they are benefitting from a huge economy that is growing at rates they’ve never seen before. Even here in San Francisco, our unemployment now is below 3 percent. That’s amazing!

  • Adobe Creating an Industry Around Digital Engagement and Customer Experience Management

    Adobe Creating an Industry Around Digital Engagement and Customer Experience Management

    Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, recently discussed on CNBC about how Adobe is working to actually create a brand new industry focused on digital engagement and customer experience management. I thought this was interesting in that this makes Adobe a CRM company competing with the likes of Salesforce, rather than what most people think when they hear the name Adobe, a company providing creative, marketing and document solutions.

    Much of this new focus will rely on their AI solution, platform Adobe Sensei, which you can read more about here.

    Narayen’s expands on Adobe’s intent to be a CRM leader in the excerpts below:

    We really believe that what’s happening is that every enterprise wants to in real time engage with customers. When you think about what CRM used to be, CRM was more about a record that was in a relational database. That is not as important as what you do with that customer information and how you make action out of it.

    That’s where the Adobe and Microsoft partnership is so valuable because together with what they have done with Azure and the ability for people to process the data at the pace at which they want and what Adobe has done. We enable people to attract customers to your platform. We allow you to engage it. We think we’re actually creating a brand new category and industry which is all about digital engagement and customer experience management, far more critical than what a record might store.

    We continue to think that content and data and how content and data come together is really where this magic happens. You’ve walked into a retail store you’re accessing an application on a mobile device and it’s all about what’s the right content that’s being delivered based on the intelligence.

    I think it’s a dramatically different approach that Adobe has pioneered and I think it’s companies like Adobe and Microsoft and SAP who actually see this vision for what’s happening in the world.

  • Could Your Small Business Benefit from Using Chatbots?

    Could Your Small Business Benefit from Using Chatbots?

    The mindset of the modern consumer is one of urgency and convenience. Businesses that reply to queries and concerns quickly and without hassle generally earn more customer loyalty and have better brand reputation. And thanks to chatbots, more companies can now be online 24/7 to meet their customer’s needs.

    Chatbot is an amalgamation of the words “chat” and “robot.” Basically, a chatbot is a computer that can have a written conversation with a customer, either online or via SMS. They are used primarily for customer service, marketing, and sales. Most large enterprises have already incorporated chatbot technology into their daily operations, and a growing number of mid-sized and small businesses are following suit. But could your business benefit from using a chatbot? Here’s what you should consider:

    1. You’re Having Difficulty Providing 24/7 Customer Service

    Many businesses want to be able to provide their customers with support 24/7, but are unable to do so because of cost and human limitations. Chatbots go around these constraints. They can remain running all throughout the year. This means there will always be someone to interact with your customers regardless of the time of day.

    2. You Need New Ways to Interact With Customers

    It seems that there’s an app for everything these days. However, people can only devote their time to a limited number of apps, particularly messaging platforms. Instead of rolling out a company app or relaunching your website, you can deploy your chatbot on a messaging site. These robots can be programmed to provide personal and meaningful conversations with customers. What’s more, they can present your brand in much the same way that a real person would.

    The Sydney Opera House’s “Seal Bot” on Facebook Messenger is great at engaging people. It shares facts about the venue’s history as well as information about any upcoming performances or events.

    Image result for sydney opera house seal bot

    Meanwhile, customers can have a dynamic discussion with Nike’s Messenger bot as they customize their sneakers based on their preferred color scheme or while checking out the shop’s different shoe styles.

    Image result for nike messenger bot

    3. Efficiency is a Company Goal

    Chatbots can help make your business run more efficiently. You can automate tedious tasks and free up your employees for more crucial or creative ones. You can also program your chatbot to handle your employees’ human resource concerns, like sick leaves or questions regarding attendance. Bots can even be integrated into programs like Slack. They can assist in managing team projects, streamlining conversations and keeping tasks organized.

    4. Cart Abandonment is Becoming a Concern

    Abandoned carts are a problem a lot of online retailers are familiar with. There are instances when a customer is finalizing their purchase, gets interrupted and is forced to abandon the transaction. Chatbots can cut down on these missed purchases by giving customers gentle reminders. They can even be programmed to suggest other products that could interest the buyer.

    Image result for chatbot cart abandonment

    5. You Want to Build a Better Relationship With Millenials

    Millennials have different expectations when it comes to customer service.  Research revealed that the majority of millennial consumers prefer to resolve their customer service issues by themselves, and 69 percent feel good when a problem is solved without having to talk to a customer service representative. They prefer self-service solutions that chatbots can provide. If your company caters to this demographic or you want to target them, then automating your customer support is a good move.

    Chatbots can provide you with two key benefits—market presence and good customer service. These two things can make a big difference if you’re the owner of a small or medium-sized business. But make sure you first take the time to come up with a strategy for using a chatbot efficiently and in a way that also communicates your brand’s vision and personality.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • 5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM Right Now!

    5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM Right Now!

    Customers are the lifeblood of any business, which is why companies should have clear strategies regarding their customer relationship management (CRM).

    One way to do this is by using CRM software. These programs gather all the data regarding your customers and prospective clients in one place. It can also assist you in going digital with your marketing plans and sales funnels, thereby saving your company some much-needed resources.

    CRM can also boost productivity and efficiency, encourage employee cooperation, and improve customer satisfaction. However, there’s so much more that a CRM can do for your business.

    5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM

    1. Develop a Solid Contact Information Hub

    Tracking down information about a client or a prospect is challenging and time-confusing, especially if you have to look at multiple programs. Investing in a reliable CRM system will keep all the information you need in a centralized location.

    More importantly, a CRM solution will keep individual files of every customer, and these can be added to every time a staff interacts with them. Employees can add data regarding phone calls made to the customer, emails sent, contracts signed, etc. Every team member can have access to this data and be able to update it so everyone is on the same page.

    2. Ensures Reliable After Sales Support

    Brands know how important it is to keep their customers. However, ensuring they remain happy is a job that extends beyond closing a deal.

    Let’s say an irate customer made a complaint but your support team says the issue has been resolved. How will you know which side is right? This dilemma happens when there’s no clear documentation or steps on how to provide reliable after-sales support. You could lose customers and prospects because of this.

    CRM can prevent this from happening as it allows you to track the status of clients and add support tickets. If the support team fails to resolve a complaint or misses a deadline, the software will send notice to the relevant manager. Action can then be taken before the problem escalates. It also ensures that everyone on the team is held accountable and provides you with a way to track an employee’s effectiveness.

    3. Reduces Risks Created by Turnovers

    Employee turnovers are inevitable in every company. Unfortunately, these situations do create risks for a brand. Let’s say a new sales representative takes over; the sudden change could result in dropped deals, prospective and existing customers not being contacted, and missed sales targets.

    These risks can be reduced with CRM. In the event of a customer service or sales rep turnover, the system can shift accounts and leads to other sales personnel or support representatives in just minutes. The smooth transfer of responsibilities also means the odds of someone dropping the ball drastically goes down.

    4. Reduces Carbon Footprint

    The right CRM software will reduce your company’s carbon footprint since you’ll be doing away with paper. The software will assist you in managing your mail, projects, and other documents, and keep it on one platform that you can easily access. More importantly, all your company’s sensitive documents will be stored in the cloud or on a secure server. This ensures that crucial customer information won’t be lost, misplaced, or destroyed accidentally.

    5. Assists You in Planning Ahead

    Managers are only too aware of the hassle of a team member forgetting to follow-up a lead. This type of problem is resolved with a CRM tool. The software can help you plan any sales and marketing activities in advance or set-up tasks that you need to accomplish daily. The system will also remind you of pending tasks and the time frame for it.

    Never underestimate what CRM can do for your business. With it, you can turn your company into a more efficient and profitable venture. It will also give you an advantage over your competitors in today’s multi-channel business environment.

  • Facebook Improves Admin Tools for Groups, Introduces Enterprise Collaboration

    Facebook Improves Admin Tools for Groups, Introduces Enterprise Collaboration

    Facebook has launched several updates for its Groups to help admins manage them efficiently and keep communities safe. The rollout of new tools, controls, and additional features are in line with the company’s focus on creating engagement in various communities on the site.

    With more than a billion members across millions of active groups, Facebook is putting in an effort to help community managers handle nearly every activity each day. That’s why admins will now have a dedicated customer support service to handle queries and reported issues. And with more people on board, Facebook intends to give quick feedback as well. For now, the free service is only available to selected group admins on iOS and Android in English and Spanish but will continue its rollout in the coming weeks.  

    Another tool that will benefit group admins is the launching of an online educational resource. The live site contains short tutorials, product demos, and actual case studies drawn from the experience of fellow admins. Done in audio and video formats, content on the learning portal aims to give a better understanding of how Facebook and Groups work.

    As Facebook promises to build resources according to its users’ needs, the company has introduced two admin tools. One new feature will allow community admins and moderators to inform members of their rule violations that merited removal of the post. Admins and moderators can even add comments in the activity log when a post is taken down.

    Another update is allowing admins and moderators to choose certain Facebook users, otherwise called pre-approved members. Whenever they post, their content will no longer require approval since they are tagged as trusted members. This means less moderation of content for managers and more time in connecting with others.

    Apart from creating communities, Facebook wants to bring social networking to the workplace as well. Called Workplace by Facebook, the collaboration tool is one of the many available in the market now. It faces stiff competition from Slack, Atlassian’s Stride, and Microsoft’s Team, but none of them have a userbase that comes close to Facebook’s over two billion.

    Facebook is banking on its partnership with identity management developer Okta to bring in more business accounts and convince larger companies that Workplace is an enterprise app. With the proposed integration, employees can securely sign in Okta and gain easy access to Workplace and other cloud apps.   

  • Salesforce is Working on a Blockchain Product, Could Be Released at Dreamforce 2018

    Salesforce is Working on a Blockchain Product, Could Be Released at Dreamforce 2018

    Cloud computing company Salesforce is reportedly working on a blockchain product. If all goes well, the San Francisco-based company might even announce the newest addition to its services during Dreamforce, Salesforce’s yearly customer conference.

    The alleged blockchain product was revealed during an interview conducted by Business Insider’s Julie Bort with both of Salesforce’s co-founders Parker Harris and Marc Benioff. The interview touched on various topics before touching on the company’s foray into blockchain technology.

    According to Benioff, the decision to tap into blockchain technology was due to serendipity. The 53-year-old Benioff recounted how he was at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland when he got to talk with a participant from a crypto conference that was being held at the same time. The fortuitous conversation soon led to Benioff thinking about Salesforce’s stand on blockchain and its “strategies around cryptocurrencies and how will we relate to all of these things.”

    Benioff said that the more he thought about the technology, the more it cemented his belief that Salesforce can utilize blockchain. A sudden epiphany had him realizing a way to put blockchain and cryptocurrencies to work in the company.

    “A lot [these ideas] comes from paying attention, listening,” Benioff said. “There’s new ideas coming all the time.”

    Salesforce’s chief is hoping that they will be able to roll out a “blockchain and cryptocurrency solution” by Dreamforce. The company’s yearly customer conference is set to be held in the City by the Bay from September 25 to 28.

    Blockchain is an electronic ledger that is utilized to track digital currencies like Bitcoin. However, it can also be used in a more general role. The technology, which is becoming increasingly popular, can also track anything of value and record transactions in an irrefutable way. A lot of states are already legitimizing blockchain technology. Arizona, for instance, has amended a bill that validates data stored and shared on blockchain.

  • 5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits eCommerce Businesses

    5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits eCommerce Businesses

    Over the past few years, more people have turned to online shopping instead of brick-and-mortar stores because of convenience. In 2017, eCommerce businesses accounted for 9.1 percent of US retail sales during the fourth quarter, higher than the 8.2 percent share of the previous year.

    Amidst online sales growth and positive prospects of eCommerce, nearly half of the industry’s revenue comes from Amazon. This prompted other online retailers to tap into artificial intelligence, or AI, in gaining an edge over the eCommerce giant through personalized shopping experience. In utilizing AI for their businesses, retailers gain critical analytical data on consumers, allowing them to improve customer experience.

    From effective marketing strategies to efficient sales process, here’s a look at how using AI will benefit online retailers.

    1. Easier Product Searching

    Most sales online begin with a search, and if the results displayed are not relevant, this can prompt customers to look somewhere else. Keyword-based search is the usual method for websites to return a list of items based on entered words and description. However, this might not be the most accurate way to generate relevant results.

    To address this, a visual search engine powered by AI allows customers to send an image instead and discover similar products on your website. High-end retailer Neiman Marcus first announced said feature on its mobile app in 2015, recognizing the customer’s need to find related results based on photos.  

    Related image

    Image via Neiman Marcus website

    2. Better Customer Understanding

    Feedback, whether posted on social media or review sites, allows businesses to quickly gain valuable insights about their products. Although 40 percent of sales and marketing leaders acknowledge that word of mouth is crucial to a brand’s success on social media, less than half of these companies use this information for their customer analytics.

    By using AI and natural language processing (NLP), retailers can sift through every online feedback, be it positive, negative, or neutral, to learn more about customer expectations and respond accordingly.   

    3. Personalized Marketing Strategy

    AI-powered recommendation engines filter relevant information from numerous data about a buyer’s interest, preference, and behaviors on the site. Based on timely insights gathered, an online merchant suggests items uniquely patterned after your recent activity and past purchases on the site.

    This shopping experience mimicking the personal feel of brick-and-mortar stores translates to customer satisfaction and spending. In fact, retailers with personalized strategies have observed sales growth of 6-10 percent, two to three times faster than others that don’t, according to Boston Consulting Group study.

    4. Immediate Customer Service

    Chatbots and virtual shopping assistants, powered by AI, provide direct and quick customer engagement. For eCommerce businesses, chatbots can be used to automate customer service messages, send order-related information, resolve issues, and interact with clients in real-time. By using NLP to understand meaning and context of your customers’ messages, these virtual assistants can take on your brand’s personality and voice in creating human-like interaction.

    Image result for chatbot customer service

    Image via livingactor.com

    In a survey done by Oracle on 800 sales and marketing leaders, about 80% want to use chatbots in their businesses by 2020 as a way to automate some processes and improve customer experience.

    5. Systematic Sales Process

    Prior to social media, sales strategies include cold-calling and ad placements in the hopes of targeting the right market. These days, AI is used to gather patterns and numbers to help businesses convert queries to actual sales through data-driven feedback.

    Nowadays, people turn to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for shopping inspiration—a trove of data for AI companies like Yotpo to utilize in developing digital marketing tools. With proper use of user-generated content, customers discover products in a subtler, more natural way.  

    “Artificial intelligence programs can scan through millions of events to find patterns and correlations that we just would not notice on a day to day basis. So it might notice a correlation between sending a specific pitch deck to prospective clients before calling them results in better conversions,” Uzi Shmilovici, chief executive officer of Base CRM, explained.

    Digitally native retailers have recognized the importance of creating personalized shopping experience through the use of AI as a way to give them an edge over others offering the same products. By leveraging AI-driven innovations, smaller eCommerce businesses, as well as bigger retailers like Amazon, get the leg up in attracting and retaining their customers. 

  • Salesforce Wants to Buy MuleSoft, $6.5 Billion Offered for Acquisition

    Salesforce Wants to Buy MuleSoft, $6.5 Billion Offered for Acquisition

    In today’s ultra-competitive business environment where customer satisfaction is key to success, every company needs to have a proper Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy in place to stay ahead of the competition. This explains why the services of CRM-focused cloud computing companies such as the San Francisco-based Salesforce is in demand as they help other businesses polish their brand’s image while tapping into the full potential of their existing clientele.

    But even CRM experts must evolve with the changing times to stay on top of the game, and this sometimes includes the plain old mergers and acquisitions route. Recently, Salesforce announced that it is willing to shell out some serious cash to buy API expert MuleSoft.

    The deal is valued at a whopping $6.5 billion, which is expected to be finalized by July this year. At $44.89 per MuleSoft share, Salesforce is even willing to pay 36 percent on top of the current market price to sweeten the deal. However, it won’t be a pure cash transaction; Salesforce will pay $36 in cash as well as 0.0711 of its shares for every MuleSoft share.

    Given the multitude of applications available to businesses, MuleSoft makes it easier for companies to connect, utilize and make sense of the jumble of data generated by their horde of apps and devices. The company is an industry leader in terms of integrating different APIs, making them work seamlessly in any cloud-based platform. Obviously, the company’s technical expertise is invaluable for Salesforce’s CRM and marketing services.

    Aside from tech, the deal will also bring MuleSoft’s clientele within Salesforce’s reach. As an industry leader in cloud integration, Mulesoft runs a globe-spanning operation with around 1,200 clients across 60 countries, which includes Fortune 500 firms such as Coca-Cola, VMware, GE, Accenture, Airbus, AT&T, and Cisco.

    The deal is ultimately geared toward improving Salesforce’s bottom line and, hopefully, help the CRM giant meet its rather ambitious revenue target. The company aims to increase its annual revenue to $60 billion by 2034. While MuleSoft only posted $300 million for its 2017 sales, Salesforce could tap into its tech expertise to improve its service and further boost its future revenue.

    [Featured image via Salesforce]

  • Google Adwords Introduces ‘Chat Rate’ Metric for Click-to-Message Ads

    Google Adwords Introduces ‘Chat Rate’ Metric for Click-to-Message Ads

    To get the most out of marketing campaigns, it is sometimes necessary to do some tweaking and fine tuning before your ads connect with their targeted audience. For this reason, marketers must gauge the performance of their ad placements which can be gleaned from the reports provided by the ad platform showing data and statistics on specific ad metrics.

    Google Adwords is giving advertisers more ways to determine the performance of their click-to-message campaigns by introducing new ad metrics for the product. In a recent blog post, the company announced the addition of three new performance insights which will be available via Adwords’ message reporting service.

    The report will now contain the click-to-message ad’s Chat rate. With this data, marketers will be able to measure how often people will actually start a conversation with your company after seeing your message extension.

    example of a click-to-message ad

    Adwords also introduced a new performance insight called Chat start time which is basically a timestamp marking the time at which user initiates contact. Businesses might find the new ad metric very useful especially when it comes to scheduling their message extensions to maximize the performance of ad campaigns. For example, a company might learn from this metric that chat volume peaks at noon and, therefore, know that it should allocate more manpower during that time to answer customer queries.

    Lastly, there is also an insight on the number of messages exchanged between a business and a user during a single chat session. This could be helpful in determining which type of campaigns are able to generate longer and, hopefully, more in-depth conversations.

    The new performance insights will be available to Adwords clients in the next few weeks. However, they will initially roll out only to some areas such as the US, Australia, Canada, Brazil, France, and the United Kingdom.

    Introduced in 2016, click-to-message ads are considered to be the text message version of the older click-to-call ad formats. They will allow users to get in touch with an actual representative of a business instead of a mere chat bot resulting in a more natural interaction.

    [Featured image via Google Adwords]

  • Salesforce Acquires CloudCraze, a B2B eCommerce Software Startup

    Salesforce Acquires CloudCraze, a B2B eCommerce Software Startup

    Salesforce has added another tool to their CRM applications with its upcoming acquisition of CloudCraze, a Chicago-based eCommerce platform.

    The news was announced on Monday by CloudCraze. While the terms of the deal with Salesforce was not disclosed, it was revealed that the two companies had already signed an agreement.

    CloudCraze president Ray Grady pointed out in the company’s announcement that the B2B industry is slated to grow to $1.2 trillion and that it’s crucial for businesses to grab this opportunity. He also added that “the addition of CloudCraze to the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Salesforce and its customers can now take advantage of this shift to digital commerce, enabling business buyers to browse and purchase online as easily as consumers shop today.”

    The deal between the two companies is not surprising considering how intertwined CloudCraze and Salesforce are.  Salesforce built its B2B software on CloudCraze’s platform and its investment division also supported CloudCraze’s $20 million round in 2017. Insight Venture Partners also backed the Chicago startup during its latest funding run.

    Last year’s investor round gave CloudCraze the needed capital to scale its business and expand its team. The company’s software helps businesses produce online revenue and remain connected to their customers effortlessly. Companies that use the platform can instantly see all the relevant customer data and quickly share it across various channels. Companies like Coca-Cola, GE, Kellogg’s, and L’Oreal are all using CloudCraze.

    This is far from the first startup that Salesforce bought. About two years ago, the company purchased Demandware. It also absorbed Chicago startups Gravitytank AKTA, InStranet, and Model Metrics. The company also acquired SteelBrick in 2015 for $300 million.

    CloudCraze will be Salesforce’s second acquisition for the year, after taking a break from buying startups in 2017. The company acquired Attic Labs in January. It’s still unknown if Salesforce will be going on a buying spree again this year, although the company has been very open about its new revenue goals. Acquiring fast-growing startups is one sure way to hit their mark.

    [Featured image via Salesforce APAC YouTube]

  • Quick Guide to Choosing the Right CRM Software for Your Business

    Quick Guide to Choosing the Right CRM Software for Your Business

    Building and maintaining positive relationships with customers is a key factor in a company’s success, regardless of what industry or niche it’s operating. While this might not be a challenge for a small business or a local company, it will inevitably become a consideration as the business expands and the operations side becomes more complex. At this point, a Customized Relationship Management (CRM) software is needed.

    Why Use CRM Software

    CRM software was initially designed to help companies develop and maintain relationships with new and current customers. It has since evolved into a powerful tool that allows companies to manage accounting, marketing, sales, point-of-sale (POS), vendor and other operational data in one user-friendly solution.

    There are a lot of reasons why companies should use a good CRM software:

    • Cuts Costs: There’s a wide range of affordable and solid CRM software out on the market today. A comprehensive CRM software can also help reduce cost. Its integration features mean the company doesn’t have to purchase or implement different tools to run operations.
    • Saves Time: Automating a big part of your operations is one major reason for using CRM software. It frees key personnel from repetitive tasks and gives them more time to grow the business.
    • Enhances Email Marketing: CRM can help companies reach more people.The software makes it possible to send massive amounts of personalized emails. This can lead to a boost in the email marketing program’s open and click-through numbers. Some CRM software even provides detailed reports about the email marketing campaign, including particulars like clicks, opens, bounces, spam, and opt-outs.
    • Assists Sales Team to Hit Goals: Employees can also track their performance with CRM. The software can give the team insights into their quota attainments, critical sales date, deal valuation, and employee commissions. A feature like this can present sales personnel with a clear picture of their sales pipeline, starting from the first customer contact up to the final sale.

    4 Things to Consider When Choosing CRM Software

    The good news is that there are numerous CRM software that can manage specific businesses. For instance, there’s free software for small companies and others that are designed for startups or expanding businesses. Each has its own pros and cons and price tag, making it challenging to pick the best one for your needs.

    So how do you choose? Consider these four tips:

    1. Pick a Responsive CRM That can Grow With Your Business

     Before you even start looking into the different CRM software, evaluate your current and future needs first. Think about where you see your business in 6 or 10 years. Consider things like what sales channels you might add, how much you project your company to grow and what it will entail for your sales and marketing team, as well as your consumer base. Then choose a CRM software that’s responsive and has the capacity to adapt to your needs.

    2. Choose Software That is User-Friendly

    Every CRM tool and software has different levels of complexities that suit various business needs. If you choose a CRM that’s difficult to use, then you might end up wasting money on something that doesn’t help expand your business. Choose software that’s user-friendly instead; one that can make it easy for you and your team to access needed data, which can be seamlessly integrated with your marketing strategies, and which will boost your sales team’s productivity.

    3. Select a CRM Solution That is SaaS-Based

     SaaS-based CRM solutions are swiftly gaining ground among CRM systems. One major advantage to using this system is that you don’t need to shell out huge sums of cash on your first investment. You also have the option to scale up the package you chose to fit your different business needs. More importantly, an SaaS-based CRM solution utilizes cloud hosting, which gives you easy and immediate access to all your crucial data. Any upgrades and maintenance of the system will be done by the service provider, enabling you to concentrate on your business and on using the CRM software to your advantage.

    4. Test the Software Out First

    Never make a purchase or make a deal with a CRM developer without testing the product first. This will give you and your team the opportunity to check out all the features and see if it will deliver what it promises. A dry run of the software will also demonstrate whether it can integrate smoothly with the other tools you utilize for your business.

    The right CRM software can give your business a big boost. It’s a big investment so it’s crucial that you carefully consider the benefits it provides and how you will select which solution to use.

  • 4 CRM Trends to Watch Out for in 2018

    4 CRM Trends to Watch Out for in 2018

    There’s no denying that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has changed a lot since the 1990s. These days, CRM software is the go-to tool for managing business relationships and closely studying customer data and interactions.

    CRM systems are continuously evolving, but what can it offer businesses next year? Here are four CRM trends to watch out for:

    Artificial Intelligence to Become More Intelligent

    Image result for chatbotAI is here and from the looks of things, it’s not going anywhere. It will even be making serious strides in terms of how companies will be doing business. From deep learning to machine learning, AI is expected to have a greater hand in evaluating and changing business systems so companies can get their expected results.

    AI assistants are already being utilized in the consumer environment, but analysts are predicting that businesses will benefit from this program by automating the repetitive and mundane parts of the marketing or sales cycle. So expect to see more companies taking advantage of AI chatbots as more businesses begin to see the benefits of using them as the first point of interaction with their customers.

    Intelligent Security to Become Even More Vital

    Image result for data securityResearchers believe that more security applications enhanced with AI will appear in 2018, especially with the upcoming implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union.

    The passing of the GDPR is expected to strengthen data protection for citizens, and AI-enhanced security apps can help marketers ensure that their clients are complying. AI can help by alerting companies of expiring consent that they need to take action on. Or they can warn of possible exposure due to customers moving to another country with a different set of regulations.

    Intelligent security is also essential to fight data breaches and other malicious hacking, especially now that hackers are getting smarter and bolder.

    Augmented Reality Will Make Its Presence Felt

    Image result for augmented realityA more sophisticated augmented reality technology is expected to be seen in 2018, and with it are more instances for its use.

    Market analysts agree that there was a lot of studying and experimentation with AR in 2017. Because of this, there were a lot of use cases developed in marketing, sales, and service for AR. It’s inevitable that companies would use AR more and 2018 might just be the year this technology breaks through in the sales and marketing business.

    Companies can utilize AR to showcase in greater detail large products, like furniture and automobiles. Architects and designers can also use it to preview layouts or designs. Meanwhile, marketers can even use AR to develop interactive campaigns and complement advertisements with virtual reality.

    Digital Market Will be Reinforced and Transformed

    Image result for digital marketingData enhancement tools, email syncing, and VOIP connections used to be features that companies would like to see in CRM systems they’re eyeing, but things are different now and 2018 is expected to bring even better enhancements.

    On top of that, industry leaders will continue to try and exert their dominance on the market. Niche vendors will attempt to fill vertical-specific systems while third-party applications try to integrate with CRMs to supply more capabilities. Experts believe that the market will see a growth of third-party vendor space as more businesses develop applications and products that would be offered in exchange stores.

    Companies like Sugar CRM and TenFold have already started on this trend. The former has rolled out HINT, a software that automatically searches the internet for company and personal information while the latter is developing a VOIP/CRM/ marketing connector with features like smart agent AI and Zoom meeting integrations.

    It’s still too early to determine what CRM trends will really shake up 2018, but users and businesses can expect to see more focused AI capacities, new uses for AR, and more offerings from vendors as they compete to set themselves apart from their competitors.