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TAMPA, Fla. – IBM has announced “IBM ExperienceOne,” a portfolio of cloud-based and on-premise solutions to help users provide deeper customer engagements by combining marketing, sales and services capabilities.
Announced at the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit here, IBM ExperienceOne draws on innovation from IBM research as well as more than $3 billion invested in organic development and acquisitions such as Sterling Commerce, Tealeaf, Coremetrics, Unica, DemandTec, Xtify and most recently Silverpop, a provider of cloud-based personalized marketing solutions.
The new portfolio also taps into consulting, agency and system integration services from the IBM Interactive Experience practice, as well as the company’s $100 million investment to open 10 IBM Interactive Experience labs and add 1,000 employees to help clients deepen engagement through data-driven design.
Built on best practices working with more than 8,000 organizations worldwide, IBM ExperienceOne – known initially by the codename “IBM Elate” – delivers a set of pre-defined engagement solutions delivered with IBM consulting services and powered by its WebSphere Commerce, Customer Digital Experience and Enterprise Marketing Management software. IBM ExperienceOne is now available at www.ibm.com/ExperienceOne.
According to IBM’s recent survey of nearly 4,200 C-suite leaders, more than half said they are reinventing their organizations to drive greater customer collaboration. The study showed companies that outperform peers are focused on delivering customer value through each interaction, including those with downstream partners and suppliers. This deeper engagement is a universal ambition with 90 percent of CxOs expecting to increase customer collaboration, the survey said.
“Smarter Commerce is about helping clients continuously reinvent themselves around the customer experience,” said Craig Hayman, general manager of Industry Cloud Solutions at IBM, in a statement. “IBM ExperienceOne provides a secure and simplified portfolio – including innovation from more than 1,200 partners – to help clients design and deliver more valuable customer engagements. With cloud, on premise and hybrid options, IBM ExperienceOne quickly scales to engage every customer in the moment while protecting their privacy.”
Meanwhile, with IBM ExperienceOne, the company is supporting new engagement solutions sets that help businesses better understand their customers, maximize sales profit and loyalty, and deliver more empowering digital experiences.
Indeed, at the heart of this solution set are IBM’s integrated digital, behavioral, social media and predictive customer analytics offering to help clients identify real-time trends based on internal and external customer data. It features new mobile analytics that can replay individual user sessions on both Android and iOS device apps, enabling marketers and commerce professionals to pinpoint the exact moment when a customer decided to browse, buy or abandon a transaction.
The new solution also helps clients quickly act on insights and maximize customer value using IBM’s enhanced omni-channel merchandising capabilities. It enables merchandising professionals to automate price optimization, maintain real-time transparency and competitive pricing across all physical and digital channels to deliver the right offer to the right customer at the right time.
Moreover, as the gateway to each customer touch point, this solution set is supported by enhancements to IBM’s customer digital experience software. Marketing, sales and service professionals now can more easily leverage dynamic customer, pricing and performance analytics by embedding real-time offers into their mobile, social and rich media experiences. The real-time offer engine automates personalization across the customer experience at scale, increasing engagement, satisfaction and sales, IBM said.
Meanwhile, IBM Interactive Experience also introduced three new cloud business solutions to give clients more flexibility in how they buy and deploy IBM ExperienceOne. These solutions combine consulting services, IBM ExperienceOne software and cloud infrastructure powered by SoftLayer, an IBM company. They include:
· Customer Data as a Service: Enables clients to combine disparate customer data from internal and external sources to improve marketing performance and revenue growth.
· Customer Analytics as a Service: Helps organizations quickly identify new customer trends, anticipate future behavior and suggest next best actions to deepen engagement.
· Digital Commerce as a Service: Allows business leaders to deliver exceptional digital experiences and accelerate time to market for a range of customer engagement solutions from order capture through fulfillment.
Big Blue said leading specialty retailer American Eagle Outfitters is one of many organizations using IBM’s analytics capabilities to better understand their customers as unique individuals, helping to ensure that every interaction is an exceptional brand experience.
“American Eagle Outfitters is a deeply customer-centric company, and we lean heavily on IBM’s customer experience management solution to clearly understand real customers’ experiences, and then work to identify, understand, and remove pain points,” said Joe Megibow, senior vice president and general manager of omnichannel at American Eagle, in a statement. “With IBM’s solutions, we can deliver higher quality experiences for our customers, resulting in more relevant engagements and improved brand loyalty.”
IBM added that seven out of the top 10 commercial banks, financial services companies and U.S. retailers today use IBM’s customer engagement solutions.