Customers.com Technologies

How, When & Where Customers Want Personalized Recommendations

By Patty Seybold

As technologies evolve, so do customers’ needs and desires. In the 30+ years that we’ve been chronicling customer-critical technologies, we’ve witnessed an amazing shift in the degree to which marketers, merchandisers, and advertisers can target offers and deliver truly personalized recommendations.

Personalized Recommendations Often Delight! Today, there are amazing (and affordable) technology services that e-marketers can use to personalize the recommendations that we see on their web pages, in the emails they send us, in mobile apps we use, in the SMS messages we receive, and at the point of sale. When well-tuned, these personalized recommendation engines provide amazingly relevant suggestions, offers, and promotions.

When Do You Want Personalized Recommendations. In general, we’ve found that customers react positively to highly relevant and personalized ads. But hate it when they receive irrelevant pop ups at inopportune times. The “when” part of the equation is relatively easy. When we’re looking, shopping, and searching, we’re open to personalized, relevant recommendations. But when we’re engaged in another task, we hate being bothered with offers and recommendations, no matter how personalized they are. But there are times when it’s OK to recommend things to us—e.g., when we’re relaxing, browsing, hanging out, at leisure.

Adobe Recommendations Delivers Personalized Actionable Content

By Sue Aldrich

About a quarter of Adobe’s revenues ($1 billion out of $4 billion) come from its digital marketing solutions. Adobe’s Digital Marketing Suite provides digital marketers with multi-channel, cross-lifecycle marketing and customer experience management tools. The chances are that if you’ve been on the Web or if you’ve used a mobile app today, you’ve already received one or more Adobe-based personalized recommendations.

Personalized cross-device marketing is strategic to Adobe. In November 2011, Adobe announced that it was re-focusing on digital media and digital marketing.

Adobe’s Digital Media Strategy
Adobe’s digital media strategy helps content creators develop and deliver rich content to run on any digital device. As part of that strategy, Adobe has shifted away from Flash and embraced HTML5 and launched the Adobe Creative Cloud for SaaS-provisioning of all the relevant tools that digital designers and developers need, as well as project rooms for sharing work in progress.

Adobe’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Adobe’s digital marketing strategy helps marketers maximize the impact of their digital experiences across devices and media types throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Key to that strategy are the rich tools that Adobe now has for tracking and monitoring customer experience across devices, and for delivery of personalized actionable content, e.g., recommendations to users when and where they will most value them.

This week, Sue Aldrich provides an in-depth review of two of Adobe’s strategic solutions for delivering personalized recommendations: Adobe Recommendations and AdobeTest&Target.

VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent

Today, virtual assisted-service offerings focus on the service. VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent is a good example. Its virtual agents are cross-channel virtual agents that deploy on web, mobile, and social channels and can answer questions that help customers complete activities across all phases of the lifecycles of their relationships with businesses. VirtuOz’ Virtual Agents best capability is the range of virtual agent interaction styles. Yes, these Intelligent Virtual Agents can deliver direct answers of text, links, and images to customers’ questions. But virtual agents can also “converse” with customers to guide them to web pages that contain more complex answers or to have a question and answer dialog that leads customers to answers based on how they answer the virtual agent’s question. And virtual agents can perform tasks with case management and CRM systems on customers’ behalves, acting as customer proxies.

By the way, speaking virtual agents are coming back. Think of Siri. Their best fit is on mobile devices for customer service apps that are narrow in scope. For example, “What’s the status of my order?”

We’ll be publishing more evaluations of virtual assisted-service products in the next several months. Next up is our review of Creative Virtual V-Person. Stay tuned.

~ Mitch

VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent
Powerful and Flexible Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Virtual Assisted-Service
By Mitch Kramer, Senior Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, July 26, 2012

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NETTING IT OUT

VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) is the virtual assisted-service product from VirtuOz, Inc., a privately held, venture capital funded, 10-year-old supplier based in Emeryville, CA, and Paris, France.

Organizations purchase subscription licenses of the VirtuOz IVA for cloud deployment. To date, VirtuOz claims that approximately 25 customer organizations have licensed its virtual assisted-service product.

VirtuOz earns very good grades on our Virtual Assisted-Service Report Card for Virtual Assisted-service—exceeds-requirements grades in all virtual agent technologies (answers, question analysis and matching, and customer service integration) and meets-requirements grades for analytic functionality, product viability, and supplier viability.

VirtuOz IVA is an attractive and useful offering with powerful and flexible capabilities. Use it to deploy virtual agents on web, mobile, and social channels to answer customers’ questions with direct answers, through guided dialogs, or by performing tasks on customers’ behalves within case management and CRM systems.

We recommend VirtuOz for large B2B and B2C organizations in North America and Western Europe that want to add virtual assisted-service to their customer service portfolio to support web, mobile, and social channels for answering customers’ questions across the entire customer lifecycle.

Virtual Agents Are Making a Comeback: How Virtual Agent/Virtual Assisted-Service Technology Is Evolving

We first wrote about virtual agents and their capabilities to deliver what we called virtual assisted-service in 2007 when we published a product evaluation of Human Digital Assistant from H-care, a Treviso, Italy-based startup (now out of business). We felt that virtual agents delivered a useful level of customer service when customers got stuck using self-service facilities and a business wanted to help them by using facilities that were less costly than chat or the contact center. Made sense then. Makes sense now.

We were ahead of the virtual assisted-service curve, a bit ahead of our time. Only a few virtual agents were deployed five years ago. Jenn of Alaska Airlines comes to mind. But many more have been deployed over the past few quarters. Judging by the claims of the current virtual agent suppliers, we think that you could find about 200 customer support/service web sites with virtual agents offering to answer your questions, many of them “working for” the largest businesses—businesses like AT&T, P&G, Symantec, United Airlines, the U.S. Army, and Verizon.

What’s different now? Five years ago, virtual assisted-service offerings focused on virtual agents. Virtual agents used text-to-speech technology to talk to customers, first introducing themselves, then giving customers instructions for entering questions, then voicing the answers. Virtual agents were also animated. They gestured when they spoke. Very cool technology, but customers can read way faster than virtual agents (or even live agents) can speak. The speaking slowed the service. Also, many customers prefer self-service. They’d rather visit a web site than call a contact center. These folks (I’m one of them.) really don’t want to speak with any kind of agent. The are also other significant differences:

• Networks, network connections, and the devices that customers use are much faster now than in 2007. Virtual agents have become faster, too.
• Most virtual assisted-service systems run in the cloud. Businesses can deploy them more quickly at lower initial cost.
• Chat is ubiquitous today. Virtual assisted-service looks a lot like chat.

Need Personalized Recommendations? Peerius May Be Your Solution

By Sue Aldrich

If you sell products and/or deliver content online or via mobile phone, there’s usually a big benefit to being able to provide personalized recommendations tailored to each site visitor. Automated personalized recommendations can double or quadruple the click-through rate on your site, increase the number of products each customer buys, and increase the frequency with which they return to buy again. For the content owner—whether a merchant selling products, a publisher presenting articles, or a marketer presenting offers—recommendation technology means delivering the most attractive item in those few seconds before you lose your audience’s attention.

Web site owners worldwide have yearned for recommendations ever since Amazon started telling us that “people who bought this also bought that” and today tell us “52 percent of people who looked at this bought that; 26 percent bought this other thing.” A decade ago marketers had to spend a great deal to implement recommendations on their sites. Today, recommendation engines can be had for some hundreds of dollars a month and can be implemented in a few days. Don’t you just love SaaS?

Customer Service Suppliers Poised for Growth in 2012?

Each quarter we review the state of the customer service industry by providing updates on the nine top suppliers (after industry consolidation): Astute, Attensity, Consona, eGain, IntelliResponse, Kana, Moxie, Oracle, and Salesforce.com.

The first quarter of 2012 was not a good quarter in customer service. After a big 1Q2011, 2011 faded through the next three quarters as customer growth and financial performance were mixed, and product and company activity were relatively light. The fade has continued into 1Q2012.

But no fading for Salesforce.com. SFDC had another huge quarter, continuing its string of consecutive quarters, the latest better than the previous. IntelliResponse had some large deals and shifted from educational institutions to more commercial accounts.

The surprise in Q1 was Oracle RightNow. After Oracle’s acquisition of RightNow closed on January 25, Oracle RightNow began operating as a Global Business Unit, hiring aggressively and introducing regular, quarterly product releases. When Oracle announced its intent to acquire RightNow on October 24, 2011, we felt and we wrote that, post-acquisition, RightNow could quickly lose its identity and its brand and its product could disappear within Oracle’s very large software portfolio. Not the case. No losers in this acquisition. The new Oracle RightNow is bigger and is growing faster than the old RightNow.

Salesforce.com launched a new entry-level customer service offering called Desk.com, which is based on the technology that it obtained in its September 12, 2011 acquisition of Assistly. The firm also launched Salesforce Rypple, its first HCM/HR application that adds social networking to performance management. The product is based on the technology that came to Salesforce.com in its December 15, 2011 acquisition of Rypple.

In fact, Salesforce.com and Oracle make us optimistic for the remainder of 2012. All of the other suppliers have new and refreshed offerings that can help organizations address requirements, especially for social-service and for customer service processes. It’s an election year in the U.S. The economy, certainly the corporate world, appears to be growing. Corporate growth means more customers, and more customers means more customer service.

Here's my quarterly Customer Service Supplier and Product Update for 1Q2012.

Useful Social-Service Solution: KANA Experience Analytics

Here’s our evaluation of KANA Experience Analytics, KANA’s social-service offering. The product has capabilities for monitoring, analyzing, and taking action on customer conversations on the social web and on internal channels. These four factors should drive your consideration of KANA Experience Analytics:

• Powerful analytics are KANA Experience Analytics’ strength and key differentiator. These analytics automate the categorization of social posts and internal channel messages, speeding, simplifying, and making consistent one of the most difficult tasks in social service.
  
  
• KANA Experience Analytics is tightly integrated with KANA Service Experience Management (SEM), KANA’s enterprise customer service offering. Integration with external customer service systems is not as tight.
  
  
• KANA Experience Analytics delivers high value through attractive pricing, bundled consulting services, and rich capabilities.
  
  
• KANA targets only English-speaking geographies, although KANA’s Analytics’ support English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
  

KANA Experience Analytics is built on technology that came to KANA in its April 2011 acquisition of Overtone as OpenMic.

In fact, acquisitions have played a major role in transforming KANA. While the firm was founded in 1999, since the middle of 2009, the firm has reinvented itself. Same name but a much different and much stronger company, a company focused on customer service.

Here’s the chronology of how Kana reinvented itself:

• Privatization by Accel-KKR. KANA’s biggest company news in 2009 was its October 27 announcement of an agreement to sell its assets and liabilities to Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm, for a cash purchase price of approximately $48.9 million. The transaction was completed on December 23. As a result, KANA’s software and services business now operate as a privately held company under the KANA brand.
  
  
• Introduction of SEM. KANA introduced KANA Service Experience Management on June 30, 2009. SEM is KANA’s enterprise customer service offering. Customer service as a process or as a “Service Experience” is what characterizes, distinguishes, and differentiates KANA SEM.
  
  
• Lagan Acquisition. On October 6, 2010, KANA announced its intention to acquire Lagan Technologies, then a privately held supplier of G2C (government to citizen) software that was founded in 1994 in Belfast, Ireland. Lagan had a customer base of nearly 200, mostly large, local government agencies, worldwide. These agencies use the product now branded KANA Lagan to serve more than 60 million citizens. The acquisition expanded KANA’s target markets to include government organizations and gave KANA a stronger presence outside the US.
  
  
• Overtone Acquisition. On April 5, 2011 KANA announced that it has completed its acquisition of Overtone, Inc., then a privately held social listening firm that was based in San Francisco, CA.
  
  
• Trinicom Acquisition. On April 24, 2012, KANA announced that it had completed the acquisition of Trinicom, a privately held, Wilp, Netherlands-based supplier of cloud-based customer service software. KANA Business Edition, the former Trinicom’s T5, provides contact center, response management, knowledge management, self-service, community, chat, virtual assistant capabilities, and campaign capabilities for small and mid-sized businesses and government organizations. Trinicom has an installed base of 250 customers, mostly in the Benelux countries. This is an excellent acquisition that delivers significant benefits to KANA, to Trinicom, and to their customers. It expands KANA’s customer service offerings to address SMB requirements with a well-proven product suite. It expands KANA’s market reach into Western Europe. And it increases KANA’s customer base and revenue base significantly.

Today, KANA has four product lines that address requirements for multi-channel customer service for businesses and government organizations of all sizes in a wide range of geographies. The firm has a customer base of 850 accounts and a staff of 400 employees. In 2011, KANA had revenues approaching $90 million. In 2012, KANA has reached a $100 million run rate. This new KANA has become a customer service leader.

Good Recommendation Solution for Retailers

By Patty Seybold

If you are an online or multi-channel retailer in search of a good, state-of-the-art recommendation solution, you should consider PredictiveIntent’s Personal Merchant. Your prospects and customers will receive targeted, personalized recommendations on your web site, on Facebook, via email, and on their mobile devices. These personalized recommendations are based on their behavior across channels and visits. The recommendations are personalized in terms of images, navigation, search results, and content selection.

The fact that this solution includes personalized search along with recommendations makes PredictiveIntent attractive to companies seeking both. Only a handful of vendors in the recommendation space also offer a search solution, including Adobe, Baynote, Locayta, and Peerius.

PredictiveIntent’s founders, Neil Hamilton and Stuart Swift, have deep mobile roots. So the solution is designed natively to deliver recommendations to mobile devices.
The company does not offer separate email and mobile products: these capabilities are embedded in the core product. Cross-channel customer profiles further enhance the value of PredictiveIntent’s algorithms in the mobile channel.

Results. The company reports that its recommendation solutions positively impact 27 percent of its clients’ revenues. On average, 14 percent of clients’ revenue comes directly from customers clicking on recommendations shown to them.

Speed of Implementa

tion. The typical timefr

ame for a launch is less than three weeks.

Lets Your Customers Opt Out of Behavioral Tracking. According to Sue Aldrich, “PredictiveIntent has the only recommendation solution we’ve yet seen that allows customers (end-users, visitors) to opt-out of behavioral tracking and have their behavior deleted. Social data is collected and used when visitors have logged in to Facebook. These two features increase the likelihood that PredictiveIntent’s clients will be in compliance with the emerging ‘cookie laws,’ which require user permission before placing a cookie and collecting user information. PredictiveIntent’s blog post, “Cookie Law Solutions” provides an excellent review of cookie laws and compliance.”

PredictiveIntent Recommendations Evaluation
PersonalMerchant’s Strong Architecture and Industry Focus Deliver Revenue for Retailers
By Susan E. Aldrich, Sr. VP and Sr. Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, May 17, 2012

Do You Handle Customers’ Queries via Social Media?

As consumers or as business people, we use the social web to answer questions and solve problems about products, services, and businesses.

For so many of us, Twitter or Facebook have become the primary sources for answers. Tweet first; research later.

Patty Seybold often reaches out for help on Twitter and Facebook: “Can’t access Verizon Wireless voicemail from Europe, any clues?” or “Time Warner Internet down in Boothbay, anywhere else?” or “What’s the best XXXX product for doing YY?”

I personally prefer forums and communities. They’re focused, not so noisy, and they sometimes have notifications facilities. For instance:

The forums on Apple products—iPhone, iPad, and the various Macs—are great for “crowd-sourcing” answers on “how to” questions about using these products.

The mycarstats.com forum helps me diagnose and resolve problems with my 1999 Volvo before I take it to Frank, my mechanic. I replaced the antenna mast myself with help from the forum.

The experts in the communities on davesgarden.com have answered many of my questions about plants and plant care for my very heavily shaded property in Massachusetts. I’ll be planting Astilbe and Hosta this year.

How Do You Collect and Respond to Social Queries?

The fact that customers and prospects are buzzing about their issues, asking questions, and looking for recommendations and advice via the social web creates a problem and an opportunity for most companies. The problem is obvious: how do you know what customers are asking/saying about your brand/and your products if you’re not monitoring the social web? The opportunity is equally obvious: if you can spot and respond quickly to customers’ social queries, you gain their respect and their admiration. Not surprisingly, there are products your organization can use to help take advantage of this opportunity. We call this category of products “social-service” solutions.

Stay on Top of Customer Service Trends & Capabilities

With this report, we complete our eighth year of quarterly updates on the suppliers and products in customer service. We’re pretty sure that it’s the longest-running research series on customer service. You’ve told us there’s nothing else like it. Must be true. We’ve seen copies of it in the hands of suppliers, their prospects and customers, their investment bankers, and the industry press and media.

Latest Update on Customer Service Products & Suppliers
4Q2011 was a mixed quarter for customer service. 2011 was a mixed year. Customer growth was mixed but mostly down for the quarter. Only one of our suppliers — Salesforce.com — improved in both new and repeat customers. Mixed financial performance resulted. However, Salesforce.com had its best ever quarter and year. And IntelliResponse and Moxie had their best years, driven by big earlier quarters.

Key Trends in Customer Service
There are two key trends to note in customer service as of early 2012: social-service and virtual assisted-service.

Social-Service Remains Hot. First, social-service has become a customer service requirement, no longer just a hot trend, and the social web has become a key customer service channel. We call it social-service because it’s about customers using social networks to get answers to their questions and solutions to their problems by monitoring and searching social media.

We’re well into a research series on social-service. We’re looking at social listening and social interaction products and evaluating them using a framework with these top-level criteria:

- Customer service best fit
- Analytic functionality
- Customer service integration
- Viability

Since our last Quarterly Customer Service Update report, we’ve published evaluations of these social-service offerings:

- RightNow Social Experience
- Salesforce Radian6
- Attensity Analyze and Attensity Respond

Our new social-service framework has worked well to identify the strengths, limitations, and differentiators of the offerings. Next up, we’ll be reviewing the social-service capabilities of KANA SEM—capabilities based on the technology that came to KANA in its April 2011 acquisition of Overtone.

Virtual Assisted-Service Is Back. Second, virtual assisted-service is hot again. Three of our suppliers—eGain, IntelliResponse, and Moxie—have virtual assisted-service offerings.

We had done a research series on what we called virtual assisted-service back in 2007. Virtual assisted-service seemed to be an effective way to help customers find answers and solutions when pure self-service facilities did not deliver. But the approach did not get any real traction at the time. We thought that visitors didn’t have the patience to listen to the virtual agents when visitors could read the answers much more quickly than virtual agents could speak them.

Virtual agents are hot again. eGain, IntelliResponse, and Moxie offer them. eGain Chatbot provides avatar-based knowledge-powered virtual assisted service within eGain Service and eGain Sales. IntelliResponse has partnered with Codebaby. Integration between IntelliResponse Answer Suite and Codebaby, lets CodeBaby “characters” retrieve and deliver answers and solutions from IntelliResponse Answer Suite. Moxie Software has partnered with VirtuOz, Inc., an Emeryville, CA based supplier of virtual agent technology. Within this partnership, Moxie and VirtuOz will integrate VirtuOz’s Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) with the Chat and Knowledge components of Customer Spaces, Moxie’s customer service offering.

Perhaps the time for virtual assisted-service has arrived. Once again, we were ahead of the trend.

Here's a short sample of our latest Customer Service Supplier and Product Update - 4Q2011.