November 2000

BY CHRISTINE J. HOLLEY, INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE

In today's world of one-to-one marketing, permission marketing and the many personalized marketing strategies flooding corporate America, it seems appropriate to reevaluate the technology foundation on which these strategies are built. While only years ago marketing via e-mail and the Web was a rarity, today companies are using these new communication media to retain existing customers and attract new ones through more innovative marketing campaigns. Even the telephone is being used in new ways to more effectively reach customers. Interactive voice response (IVR) and speech recognition are just two examples of creative new uses for this age-old device.

Interaction Management Technology
Like launching a rocket with a slingshot, however, building a new marketing strategy using old communications technology just doesn't make sense. Traditional communication systems were not designed to support multiple media types, let alone provide the kind of interactive, personalized service customers are demanding today. These traditional systems were built on a proprietary, hardware-based telecommunications model. They were comprised of stand-alone devices like PBXs and fax servers, each with its own interface, development tools and reporting mechanisms. These devices were loosely connected using expensive middleware.

As new media types were added, inherit weaknesses of this model became apparent. Troubleshooting became in-credibly difficult with so many potential points of failure, and administration was complex and time-consuming due to redundant resources. Flexibility was severely limited since business logic was hard-coded into the system. This also meant that forklift upgrades were often mandatory even when only a couple of new features were desired.

In response to these traditional communication systems has come interaction management technology. Interaction management technology is based on a unified, not integrated, architecture. It begins with a single platform on which all media types -- including phone calls, faxes, e-mail and Web interactions -- are processed. Since it consolidates interaction processing, it's less expensive and faster to implement. It's also simpler to maintain and administer. In addition, interaction management technology uses a software-based, open architecture so it's extremely flexible.

Improved Marketing Campaigns
Companies building their marketing strategies on interaction management technology are finding many benefits. First, the technology's open architecture enables it to be more easily integrated with a wide range of third-party applications. Many of these applications can optimize marketing campaigns when combined with interaction management technology.

For instance, a common dictate heard among leaders of personalized marketing theory is to "know thy customer." Many companies are using data capture applications to do just this. Data capture applications give companies the ability to append customer information to previously unknown caller records and provide call validation and contact updates for known customer relationships. These applications capture elements of a caller record (e.g., phone numbers, company names, addresses, etc.) via an automated number identification system (ANI), IVR or telephone keypad response. They are then matched against a database and returned in a matter of seconds with complete geographic information attached.

Interaction management technology integrates easily with data capture applications by prepopulating caller re-cords with information from these databases. Interaction management technology takes this information and "pops" it along with the caller record to an agent's computer screen. These integrated solutions enable companies to reduce costs and improve agent productivity by executing direct marketing campaigns without operator intervention or .WAV file transcriptions.

Another marketing benefit of interaction management technology is its unified, software-based architecture. This enables companies to easily customize and reproduce marketing messages based on specific customer profiles. These marketing messages can be automated and incorporated across media types.

One example of this is using interaction management technology's built-in customization tools to embed upsell messages while an Internet text chat request is in queue. Interaction management technology accomplishes this by checking customer profiles against a database simultaneous with a text chat request. Using the customization tools, companies can write business rules that instruct the system to embed a particular upsell message depending on the customer profile.

This same business rule can be applied to phone-based interactions via IVR by instructing the system to play particular upsell messages while a caller is on hold. Business rules can also be used to move certain customers higher up in a queue if, for instance, their profile indicates they are big spenders. When the caller reaches an agent, the system can simultaneously "pop" the agent personalized sales teleprompts suggesting products or services the customer might want to buy based on his or her profile.

The advantage of using interaction management technology to embed marketing messages is that no additional devices or resources are required when they're applied across media types. In addition, these messages can be created and modified in-house and "on-the-fly" so companies can stay in-step with customer needs without costly vendor visits.

Another similar application of interaction management technology is the use of embedded URL links in automated e-mail responses. When a customer inquiry hits the company's knowledge base, certain key words can be identified and then used to generate a specific URL link. For instance, a customer might send an inquiry about a specific product, and the automated response would be returned with not only an answer, but also several URL links to relevant data sheets, graphics or white papers on the company's Web site. The URL link might also enable the customer to request a text chat session or Web callback in order to fulfill a customer request immediately.

An extremely critical point to remember when discussing e-mail and Web marketing applications is to always give the customer the option of interacting with a live company representative. Companies implementing "point solutions" are learning the hard way that an e-mail response or text chat solution only frustrates customers if they can't reach a live person. Companies are then forced to integrate these point solutions with other point solutions to create a marketing strategy that works across media types. This is not only costly, but time-intensive, as well.

Important to successful one-to-one marketing strategies is blending inbound and outbound campaigns across media types. Quickly turning outbound interactions into inbound interactions and vice versa without a lot of extra technology getting in the way is a huge one-to-one marketing advantage. Interaction management technology offers a single platform to process inbound and outbound interactions, thus reducing the time it takes to respond to customers. This architecture enhances customer relationships by creating an open-ended communications cycle that can build on itself, allowing companies to more quickly and more thoroughly understand customer needs.

Perhaps most important, interaction management technology allows companies to perform end-to-end reporting across media types. This is key if multimedia marketing programs are to be fairly evaluated. Interaction management technology provides a single reporting mechanism that can be used to generate reports based on all customer interactions, inbound and outbound -- whether those interactions took place via the phone, fax, e-mail or the Web.

Customer Focus
The bottom-line benefit of interaction management technology is that it enables companies to focus on customer-based marketing campaigns instead of focusing on integration issues related to the technology that drives those campaigns. Many vendors offer communications solutions that support multimedia marketing campaigns. The question is, how many devices are required to make these solutions work? How many resources are required to maintain and administer them? How well do they integrate with third-party applications? How easy are they to customize? Can they track results across media types?

These are the questions companies should be asking as they venture into the world of personalized marketing. A marketing strategy rooted in a unified and flexible communications foundation enables companies to build marketing strategies around customer needs -- not based on technology limitations.

Christine J. Holley is the market communications manager for Interactive Intelligence, Inc., a global communications software company headquartered in Indianapolis. She has worked in the IT industry since 1994 and began freelance writing in 1992.

[ Return To The November 2000 Table Of Contents ]