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Good morning, Marketers, how are you making things easier for the customer?
In the martech space, enterprise vendors like Pega are attempting to simplify the UX for business customers who use their CRM. You’ll see this thread in many product announcements but we have more details on the Pega news below.
Meanwhile, for consumers, an established channel like email is still capable of innovation. Email platform AppMail, for example, is offering real-time updates that allow customers to do more without having to open a browser or download an app. We’ve already seen Google trying to add more interactivity to emails with its AMP for email, though that is currently a Gmail-only feature.
But the message is clear here. Whether like Pega you’re using data to add a personal touch, or adding interactivity to email like in the case of AppMail, the key to improving customer interactions is simplifying the experience. So here’s my question to you: How are you making your customer’s lives easier? Let me know at cwood@thirddoormedia.com.
Chris Wood,
Editor
Pega announces new products, more low-code capabilities
Following last month’s announcement of enhanced AI capabilities, the BPM to CRM platform Pega today revealed a series of further product enhancements. These included a new release of the Pega Infinity platform by the end of Q2 and new low-code capabilities, empowering citizen developers to design UI for apps. The theme running through these announcements is, as Pega CEO Alan Trefler put it, “crushing complexity.” He said: “Pockets of low-code citizen developers will continue to spring up across the enterprise.” This is a positive development. But will it lead to an explosion of apps, systems and processes?
A key element in addressing this complexity is Pega Process Fabric, previously available on a limited basis, but available to all users with the new platform release. Fabric establishes workflows across applications, allowing users to manage all their work in a unified worklist in a single location, eliminating constant screen and system switching. Fabric doesn’t just stitch together workflows from Pega apps, but allows plugins from third-party apps such as Salesforce.
Pega also boosted its low-code offering, adding out-of-the-box best UX practices to its app authoring capabilities. The aim is to make UI and app design accessible to business teams as well as professional developers. Assistance to citizen developers includes re-usable design templates, and the opportunity to set up automated brand guidelines across the app.
Why we care. Almost 40 years in the business process space contributes to Pega’s strong differentiation from Salesforce and other players in customer experience management. What’s distinctive is what Trefler calls a “center out” approach, placing AI-driven decisioning at the heart of the Pega offering, with front-end channel choice and back-end data management as essential but secondary elements in the platform.
Pega’s proposition to marketers is that it’s time to trade preconfigured customer journeys and pre-set campaigns for the ability to meet customers with next-best-actions in real time. Right or wrong, it’s a singular vision.
Keeping customers glued to email
Yesterday, we delved into a question any email marketer is probably asking: What do consumers want out of email?
One thing they likely want is to be able to do as much as possible without having to exit the email.
That’s one trend marketers are following by loading up email with personalization and update capabilities. It makes intuitive sense. It’s more convenient than having to download an app to complete tasks.
Just prior to the pandemic, South American airline LATAM introduced a way for travelers to check in, choose seats and select meal options, all directly within the email they received from the airline.
As a result, LATAM saw a 37% increase in conversions, according to a case study by interactive email platform AppMail, which provided the technology for the campaign. They also found that 90% of users interacted with the email for at least 18 seconds.
Why we care. AppMail’s solution allows real-time updates in email that make it possible to choose seats on planes. But this capability within emails doesn’t just apply to airlines. AppMail also makes it available for e-commerce applications where inventory, pricing and other details can be used to build a digital storefront within a customer’s email. By implementing this, they avoid the risk of losing customers when they jump across other channels like apps, browsers and texts.
Advertisers can now bring their customer segments into Microsoft Advertising via a new integration
A new integration between Dynamics 365, Microsoft’s customer data platform, and Microsoft Advertising now enables advertisers to target their customer segments via customer match. Along with that integration, the company also revealed that customer match is out of open beta and available in all markets except the EU, U.K. and China.
The integration can facilitate audience segmentation and targeting for those that use Microsoft’s platforms, and customer match is a useful way to use your own first-party data to get your message out to audiences, regardless of what happens as we move away from third-party cookies. Interestingly, Google also announced instant match rates, a new feature for customer match on its platform last week.
Quote of the day
“You can tell more about a company by how it treats its customers on their way out, than on their way in.” Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot co-founder and CTO