Confirmit’s recently announced acquisition of CustomerStat will enable the company to provide a more comprehensive Voice of the Customer solution set for customers, according to Confirmit officials.
“One of the critical developments in the [evolution of] the Voice of the customers is the use of customer feedback,” Karine Del Moro, Confirmit marketing director told Loyalty360. “In the CRM days, companies thought they could get all of the answers from customers only by looking out. Now they are getting an outside-in view with customer feedback.”
Being able to have the outside-in view combined with CRM and other technologies designed to measure customer experience is driving the consolidations in the loyalty industry, including the recent acquisition by Confirmit as well as the previous Confirmit aquisitions of Techneos in 2011 and Pulse Train in 2007, said Michael Wooh, Confirmit chief marketing officer.
Techneos Systems specialized in mobile feedback, survey and market research solutions. In 2010 the company powered the collection of over 15 million mobile surveys, the only company to do so via mobile applications across major platforms, including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows.
Pulse Train added the following products and technologies into the Confirmit platform, enhancing the capabilities of the overall combined product set:
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Bellview Fusion CATI (including dialing technology), introducing telephone as a new channel / mode
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Pulsar Web, adding deeper analytical capabilities
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Data Central, bringing new data processing capabilities
Confirmit’s acquisitions reflect market activity of large companies like IBM and Salesforce that are trying to provide more comprehensive 360 views of the customer, Wooh added. “It’s the evolving process of monitoring customer experience. This is why some companies have added chief customer officers. Vendors are responding to developments in the market.”
With the combination of the Confirmit Horizons platform, Confirmit Voices model and CustomerSat solutions Confirmit expects to deliver a best-of-breed, comprehensive suite of services to companies top “operationalize” the Voice of the Customer to improve business results.
“Companies started a few years ago collecting the customer feedback,” Del Moro said. “Where the shift lies is in delivering the Voice of the Customer information to the right people in the right time and in the right format to make business decisions.”
That supports what Lynn Christensen, CustomerSat chief development officer, said when the business transaction was announced. “This acquisition is a great step forward for both businesses. It consolidates our already strong positions in the market and enables us to grow and innovate at a pace that wouldn’t have been possible for the companies individually. Customers of both CustomerSat and Confirmit will derive real benefits from this move.”
Many of those benefits won’t be realized for some months, however, as the two companies work to integrate their technologies as well as their personnel, Wooh said.
As a result of the acquisition, Confirmit now employs more than 350 people across 11 offices, and has more than 700 customers.