New Teradata Solution May End Abandoned Online Sales

Teradata (News - Alert) is working on new Web business intelligence software that can be used in conjunction with contact center applications to enable enterprises to reduce dropped online sales by adding intelligence to interactive voice response (IVR) tools, automatic call distribution (ACD) systems, and live agent interactions. This will increase sales, revenues, and customer loyalty, while lowering costs.

 

The software will be the first application of Teradata’s Interactive Marketing Intelligence solution, being officially launched this week during the Teradata PARTNERS conference in Las Vegas, Nev. Participants received a sneak preview of the software at the event.

 

Interactive Marketing Intelligence provides an integrated approach to handling channel data whether online, e-mail, retail, or mobile that will enable firms to create a more responsive and relevant dialogue with customers. With it for the first time organizations will have immediate access to all historic and real-time customer data. This will ensure more intelligent interactions with customers.

 

A key set of components in the new Interactive Marketing Intelligence application, which is due to be released by year end, is cross-channel reporting and customer insights and analysis.

 

The Teradata application will look for ‘dead-ends’ on the Web and IVR, where customers have dropped out or zeroed out. That will enable contact centers to redesign their applications to minimize calls to live agents and lost high-value buyers.

 

The Teradata solution identifies dropped shopping carts. Enterprises can then use the software to drive dynamic business rules to the ACDs to prioritize inbound calls for high-value purchases to the right contact center agents. Alternatively the rules can drive outbound calls, e-mails, and/or text messages to customers if they ditch their carts.

 

The firm’s business intelligence software can permit a higher-valued customer who is calling about a small purchase to be placed in a priority queue over a lower-ranked buyer who dropped a bigger-ticket product.

 

Teradata tapped into many years of experience with leading edge web clients, such as eBay (News - Alert), Netflix, Overstock.com, and Travelocity, in creating the solution.

 

“A customer who just looked at a plasma TV should get a priority over someone looking at buying a headset,” explains Dave Schrader, director of marketing, Teradata. “Unless of course that headset buyer has purchased plasma TVs and other high-end electronics in the past, and is a preferred customer.”

 

The Teradata solution also looks for and identifies key cross-channel activities. For example it will find out if a customer who had ditched their online cart decided to order it by calling the contact center, or buying the item in a store.

 

The tool can help prevent cart abandonment by tracking inventory across channels. If a customer finds that the item they want is not in stock in the warehouse, the application can search retail outlets, see if the goods are available, and alert them. The customer can call the nearest store that has what they want, and either buy it online, over the phone, or make arrangements to have that good set aside within a limited timeframe.

 

Future applications will also measure and compare effectiveness of marketing campaigns across all channels/media: contact center, Web site, e-mail, and TV. It will use analytical modeling techniques to measure which channels drive the most revenue that will enable firms to optimize channel spend to increase revenue and reduce costs. One example is ‘reduce TV ad spending by 10 percent and redirect 5 percent of that to the Web’.

 

“Enterprises are seeking the strongest ROI possible from their marketing resources,” says Schrader. “Our new business intelligence software will give them the information they need to make better marketing decisions.”