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Top SalesTech News of The Week

Rakesh Nair
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Top SalesTech News of The Week

Last week saw one of the world’s most extravagant tech conferences at San Francisco. As we head towards  Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday let’s refresh our memories.

Quote of the Week

What SalesTech Star Readers Liked Most This Week

The Showstopper Post of the Week

Good Morning California, Let’s See What Twitterati Say About Dreamforce 2019

Popular News Pieces of the Week

Salesforce to Add Einstein Voice Skills to Every App and Customer Experience

Salesforce announced it will expand the capabilities of Einstein Voice Assistant for all roles or industry, giving every app built on Salesforce a voice. This will be powered by new Einstein Voice Skills, which will equip admins and developers to create custom voice apps across the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform in just a few clicks.

Salesloft Now Automatically Syncs Your Contact’s LinkedIn Data on CRM

SalesLoft, a leading Sales Engagement Platform, announced it is now offering automation rules to take action on the new LinkedIn Sales Navigator Data Validation capability announced last week. Joint customers will be able to better connect with their prospects and customers.

Apple and Salesforce Ignite Productivity and Learning on the Best Devices for Business

Apple and Salesforce announced the launch of two flagship apps from the world’s #1 CRM: the redesigned Salesforce Mobile App and new Trailhead GO learning app, delivering rich customer experiences with features exclusive to iOS and iPadOS.

Now Adobe Experience Platform Innovations Power CXM

Adobe announced new innovations to deliver great customer experiences at scale, with the power of Adobe Experience Platform, the industry’s first open and extensible platform for Customer Experience Management (CXM).

Aviso Launches New Version Of AI-Guided Sales Platform

Aviso, the pioneer in AI-powered forecasting and sales guidance, unveiled version 2.0 of its platform. This coincided the launch of an industry-wide #NoCRM campaign that challenges the efficacy of legacy sales technology. Aviso urged companies to reimagine sales experience.

Popular Findings of the Week

‘Artificial Impact’: Only 12% of CRM Users Actually Use an AI-Based Tool

New Study: Only 11% of Brands Can Effectively Use Customer Data

 

Vision.bi launches Bento Insights to Address BI Needs of B2B SaaS Companies

STS News Desk
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Vision.bi launches Bento Insights to Address BI Needs of B2B SaaS Companies

The Solution Was Created by Vision.bi, a Leading Consulting Firm in the Fields of Data Management, Business Intelligence, and Cloud Software.

Vision.bi announced the release of Bento Insights. This new analytics platform is tailored to fit the internal data needs of growing SaaS companies that require to store, transform, manage, and share data efficiently.

Vision.bi’s team of product managers, and data engineers worked with some of the worlds fastest-growing SaaS startups over the past decade. It is this know-how which gave birth to Bento Insights. The solution is designed for B2B tech companies, which often use similar tools such as Google & Facebook ads for marketing, Salesforce for Sales, Zendesk for Support, etc. In addition, they share most reporting KPIs, data challenges and infrastructure requirements.

Read More: UserTesting Study Reveals What 11 World-Class Companies Do To Be Customer Experience Leaders

Sigal Lavid, VP Growth & Strategy said : “I am very excited to present Bento Insights. We carefully put all the analytics platform pieces together – from cloud warehousing to data orchestration to visualization. The result is an amazing, risk-free solution for B2B tech companies that can be deployed in weeks, creating a perfect data-driven ecosystem for teams to scale.”

Bento works with premium technology partners including Tableau (visualization), Snowflake (cloud services) and Rivery (data pipeline). This enables Bento to provide a best-in-class technology stack for SaaS companies. The platform uses predefined data pipelines that load data from all third-party data sources via external API’s using Rivery as the IPAAS. In addition, full DWH tables are populated using Snowflake as the DWH database. Finally, Bento connects the data to predefined dashboards, offering an entire visualization environment using Tableau.

Read More: Nintex Drawloop DocGen And Adobe Sign Power Digital Document Workflows

Vision.bi is part of Keyrus SA  and provides advanced data services, helping companies leverage their data to make informed, data-driven decisions to create better products with greater value for their customers. Based in Tel Aviv, the company has over 60 software engineers that help more than 300 companies worldwide create, improve, and orchestrate their data processes with world-class technology partners to create the perfect business insights.

Read More: MindTickle Releases Readiness Value Assessment Tool To Calculate ‘Return On Readiness’

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Varicent To Relaunch as Independent Sales Performance Management Company led by Founder Marc Altshuller

STS News Desk
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Varicent To Relaunch as Independent Sales Performance Management Company led by Founder Marc Altshuller

Growth Investors Great Hill Partners and Spectrum Equity to Acquire Leading Provider of SAAS-Enabled Sales Solutions

Great Hill Partners and Spectrum Equity have signed a definitive agreement to acquire assets of IBM’s sales performance management business and operate it as an independent company. Following close of the transaction, the new company, Varicent Software (“Varicent” or “the Company”), will relaunch and be led by original Varicent founder, Marc Altshuller. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2005, Varicent pioneered incentive compensation and sales performance software. IBM invested to develop the technology that has been recognized as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales Performance Management for six consecutive years.

Read More: Appirio, MuleSoft Partner To Provide Digital Transformation Solutions

The Company, to be headquartered in Toronto, intends to provide SaaS-enabled operational and analytical tools through IBM Cloud that automate the creation, calculation, analysis and transparent distribution of sales incentive management compensation plans used by hundreds of mid-market and enterprise companies.

The Company expects that its integrated platform will help solve critical pain points for sales, finance and HR constituents by centralizing previously complex, time-consuming and manual compensation processes to gain analytical insights and align sales behaviors to strategic goals. Varicent’s unique software is designed for the end-user and is configurable to any industry or variable compensation model.

“I’m incredibly excited to work alongside so many great people who have been at Varicent since the early days along with the great talent IBM has added to the business,” said Altshuller, who, following close of the transaction, will become CEO of Varicent. “Collectively, their in-depth knowledge of the business and strong, ongoing customer relationships will help us capitalize on the opportunity for growth in the large, fragmented sales performance marketplace. Combining deep expertise with sector-specific experience and support from our new investment partners, Varicent will be well-positioned as the premier solution provider in the market.”

Altshuller previously led Varicent to become Canada’s fastest growing company in 2010, according to PROFIT 100 Magazine, and a Deloitte Fast 500 fastest growing software company in North America the same year.

Read More: ‘Artificial Impact’: Only 12% Of CRM Users Actually Use An AI-Based Tool

“Organizations with large sales operations are increasingly looking for a more streamlined and efficient performance and compensation management process that provides key benchmark learnings through easily-digestible data. Varicent’s innovative solution for legacy manual and complex sales processes combines a user-friendly, integrated platform with best-in-class processing speed and performance,” said Derek Schoettle, Operating Partner at Great Hill, who will join Varicent’s board.

“We’re confident that combining Marc’s proven leadership skills with Varicent’s experienced professionals   will build a strong leadership position in this large and addressable marketplace,” added Drew Loucks, Partner at Great Hill Partners.

“Varicent has a cultural history of innovation and service as evidenced by strong customer and employee satisfaction metrics,” said Chris Mitchell, Managing Director at Spectrum Equity. “We are thrilled that Marc is returning to the Company, and we look forward to providing the guidance and strategic resources to drive focused financial support for Varicent’s research and development, operations and go-to-market strategies for long-term sustainable growth.”

The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019. Sidley Austin LLP served as legal advisor to Great Hill Partners.

Read More: UserTesting Study Reveals What 11 World-Class Companies Do To Be Customer Experience Leaders

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

LogMeIn Finds that 85% of Customer-Facing Teams Are Frustrated with Lack of Technology Needed to Meet Customer Expectations

STS News Desk
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LogMeIn Finds that 85% of Customer-Facing Teams Are Frustrated with Lack of Technology Needed to Meet Customer Expectations

Global Study Reveals Rising Customer Expectations Are Outpacing Adoption of AI Tools That Drive Efficiency and Improve Customer Experience

 LogMeIn announced the results of a global study conducted in partnership with Ovum to understand how support agents are faring in the age of ever-rising consumer expectations. The findings reveal that the vast majority of surveyed agents believe that the technology tools provided to customer-facing employees are not evolving as quickly as their needs are.

Today’s customers expect agents to have increasingly detailed knowledge of products, services, and company policies so they can achieve first contact resolution (FCR). However, the reality is that only 35% of agents say this is possible, as the majority (57%) do not have any AI tools, and more than half (53%) do not use a knowledge base.

Read More: Samasource Secures $14.8M Series A Funding To Further Scale Business And AI Capabilities

The study surveyed 750 customer-facing employees, customer experience (CX) managers, and content managers in seven countries across North America, EMEA and APAC, and found that agents in physical locations are worse off than their counterparts in contact centers. Only 30% of field agents have AI tools compared to 44% in contact centers, and the unpleasant result for customers is that 20% of interactions require a call-back and 13% get transferred.

“We know that there is a direct correlation between agent frustration and customer discontent, and 85% of customer-facing employees expressed a very high degree of frustration because they can’t meet customer expectations,” said Ken Landoline, Principal Analyst, Ovum. “As the study highlights, all customer support employees need to be better equipped to meet rapidly growing customer expectations. Employees want to step up but are hampered by mediocre training and outdated, inefficient tools. Clearly this needs to change, or customer loyalty and revenue will ultimately suffer.”

AI-powered knowledge management tools offer a powerful solution to customer-facing employees working inside or outside of the contact center who need instant access to company information, and 56% of surveyed knowledge base users are either extremely or very satisfied with them. Knowledge bases reduce the amount of time it takes to find information (66% think they are easy to search) and serve as a single source of truth for employees across teams and departments. LogMeIn, who commissioned the study with Ovum, is already working closely with companies to help reduce internal escalations by up to 30% with Bold360’s Advise solution, which leverages AI-powered knowledge management.

Read More: Demandbase Promotes Chief Revenue Officer Gabe Rogol To CEO

AI deployments for customer service and support also go beyond knowledge management. The majority are for automating routine tasks (60%) and assisting agents in real time (50%), followed by AI for customer journey mapping. Seventy-five percent of agents have a feedback system in place to advise management of issues they are facing during the course of their workday, and one-third utilize automatic pop-ups that recommend helpful next-best actions.

Yet, AI adoption is still in early stages. The majority of managers who participated in the survey are still formulating their AI strategy (38%) or only have an early-phase strategy in place (28%). The dominant approach to implementation is to put ad hoc point solutions in place for a few selected use cases (44%).

“A lack of tools for customer service agents creates a vicious circle: staff can’t meet customer expectations which creates employee frustration, turnover, and of course, a poor customer experience,” said Ryan Lester, Senior Director of Customer Engagement Technologies at LogMeIn. “Even though powerful technologies like AI-based knowledge management tools can reverse the trend, adoption is slow and it’s hurting these organizations. Poor customer experiences have a negative impact on sales and repeat business, so this is a pressing issue that businesses need to address at the highest levels.”

LogMeIn delivers industry leading solutions designed to empower companies to deliver smarter, more personalized customer engagement and support. Supporting over 1 billion customer interactions every year, LogMeIn is helping companies transform how they interact with their customers in real-time, creating experiences that drive increased satisfaction and brand loyalty.

LogMeIn, Inc.simplifies how people connect with each other and the world around them to drive meaningful interactions, deepen relationships, and create better outcomes for individuals and businesses.

Read More: ‘Reps Are Tired Of Roadblocks In Providing Better Customer Service’

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Sales Figures of First-Holiday Shopping Event Released

STS Staff Writer
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Sales Figures of First-Holiday Shopping Event Released
  • Outside China, Single’s Day and Click Frenzy popular at Australia, Singapore and S Korea.
  • *Apparels and accessories most sold items during Single’s Day
  • *Aussie consumers browse on phone but sales converted through desktop, tabs least used

Rakuten Marketing on released findings from data collected on Single’s Day and Click Frenzy which for the first time ever, fell over three consecutive days (Nov 11 – 13).

Read More: Samasource Secures $14.8M Series A Funding To Further Scale Business And AI Capabilities

The data revealed that the new back-to-back shopping format did not stop consumers from spending, with record-breaking sales recorded by both Alibaba and Click Frenzy. Within the Rakuten Marketing affiliate network, Single’s Day orders rose by 83% compared to 2018 with the average order value (AOV) sitting at $149.21.

Click Frenzy orders also increased this year by 54% and the AOV sat slightly lower at $133.85.

Outside of China, Single’s Day orders were primarily driven by consumers in Australia (26%), Singapore (15%) and South Korea (11%), indicating the growing popularity of the sales event outside of its origin country and into new regions.

Desktop accounts to most of the order

For Australian consumers, desktop accounted for the highest amount of orders for both shopping days (53% for Single’s Day and 58% for CF) followed by mobile (45% and 40%) and a mere 2% of orders were made on tablets for both events. During Single’s Day, more clicks were generated on mobile (50%) rather than desktop (48%) suggesting that consumers initially browsed deals on their mobiles but ultimately converted on their desktops.

Read More: Demandbase Promotes Chief Revenue Officer Gabe Rogol To CEO

On Single’s Day, apparel & accessories proved to be the most successful vertical, accounting for the majority (43%) of Australian orders. This was followed by beauty & personal care (9%) and footwear (8%). Consumer preferences were similar during Click Frenzy, however, overall, apparel & accessories dropped 4% as did beauty & personal care by 3.1%.

 “Click Frenzy and Single’s Day are continuing to gain traction and grow in popularity. These sorts of shopping events have shifted the e-commerce landscape, changing consumer expectations and shopping habits for this time of year,” said Anthony Capano Managing Director International at Rakuten.

“It’s vital for marketers to be across consumer trends within these sales periods which is why Rakuten Marketing is dedicated to bringing this data to light. With Black Friday and Cyber Weekend this week and sales continuing through to the end of the year,” he added.

Marketing’s data provide a great opportunity for retailers and e-commerce marketers to be well-informed for decisions ahead, he said.

Read More: ‘Reps Are Tired Of Roadblocks In Providing Better Customer Service’

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Global Gaming Leader Meets Individual Player Needs in Real Time and Achieves 96% Engagement with Swrve

STS News Desk
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Global Gaming Leader Meets Individual Player Needs in Real Time and Achieves 96% Engagement with Swrve

Vivid Games, Creator of Real Boxing and Godfire, Acts on In-Game Behaviors, and Leverages Data to Drive Retention, Revenues, and App Store Ratings.

Swrve, the world leader in real-time, relevant customer engagement announced that global leader in mobile games, Vivid Games has generated over $2.3 million in upsell revenue by delivering deeply relevant, hyper targeted in-app messaging to players at optimal times for engagement.

Read More: Salesforce To Add Einstein Voice Skills To Every App And Customer Experience

Vivid Games is an award-winning global leader in mobile games, and Poland’s largest game developer. Their dedication to developing visually outstanding games that connect players in moments of delight has earned the studio awards such as Best Indie Developer, Best Polish Game of the Year, and Apple’s prestigious Editors’ Choice for work on popular games like Real Boxing and Godfire.

Since partnering with Swrve in 2015, Vivid Games has relied on Swrve to build, segment, and deliver hyper-targeted communications to players at global scale. With Swrve, the team at Vivid Games have a real-time advantage when meeting individual player needs, acting on new in-game behaviors, and gathering key insights for useful campaigns.

Read More: Automobili Lamborghini Accelerates Trust And Authenticity With Salesforce

“Swrve has allowed us to connect with millions of players with smarter messaging and perfect timing. The real-time in-app messaging we send with Swrve doesn’t look or feel like marketing messaging—they’re rich and on-brand enough to be seen as another level of the player experience,” said Jacek Kwiatkowski, Head of Analytics at Vivid Games. “This alone has created $2.3 million in upsell revenue and produced valuable lifts in app store ratings, which is very positive for our brand.”

Swrve is the marketing and customer engagement platform that helps leading brands confidently scale communications over millions of customers in real-time.

Vivid Games is a leading mobile games development studio in Poland. With our global reach & world’s best mobile boxing franchise under our belt (Real Boxing), we are here to produce top-notch mobile entertainment.

Read More: ZoomInfo Acquires Seattle-Area Startup Komiko To Further Automate Go-To-Market Success

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Independent Manufacturers’ Representatives Finally Get the Sales Data They Need

STS News Desk
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Independent Manufacturers’ Representatives Finally Get the Sales Data They Need

Sales professionals struggling to extract useful intelligence from high volumes of data can now take advantage of an innovative, new software solution to support the sales process with rich, segmented customer insights. sales-i, a leader in sales enablement technology solutions for manufacturing and wholesale distribution companies, and Forte Group, an international software and services consulting and delivery specialist, have joined forces to create a powerful new data consolidation service to provide manufacturers’ representatives with timely, relevant sales insights, spanning multiple products in a single, easy-to-use application.

Read More: Atento Comes Up With Fresh Strategies To Lead CRM Space With Better Customer Experience

These outsourced sales operations typically receive transactional data in multiple formats from manufacturers, making it difficult to get a consolidated view on how a customer’s account is performing.

By automatically assimilating multiple report sources and formats into the sales-i platform and removing the need for time-consuming data entry, independent sales representatives can now access valuable sales insights at the touch of a button on the device of their choice anywhere at any time.

Read More: Appirio, MuleSoft Partner To Provide Digital Transformation Solutions

Commenting on the development, Jason Lundy, Global Head of Sales & Marketing at sales-i, says:

“Understanding a customer’s buying behavior can take many hours, or indeed days, making it difficult to identify when a customer is trending down or stops buying a product line. Multiple data sets can also lead to inconsistencies in the accurate and timely reporting of sales.

“This solution addresses a real challenge in the marketplace that has existed for some time, giving teams unparalleled sales data and actionable insights to ultimately drive better sales and customer relationships.”

Vera Kimmi, Partner at Forte Group, said, “We’re excited about this partnership, which means manufacturers’ representatives can custom-tailor the robust sales-i platform to their unique business needs.

“With our custom software integration, sales-i is a unique tool within the market that helps sales teams work smarter and offer value to their customers.”

Read More: ‘Artificial Impact’: Only 12% Of CRM Users Actually Use An AI-Based Tool

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Sales Training Companies Richardson and Sales Performance International to Be Merged

STS News Desk
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Sales Training Companies Richardson and Sales Performance International to Be Merged

Kartesia has announced the completion of the acquisition of Richardson, a global sales training leader headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, which will merge with Kartesia’s existing portfolio company, Sales Performance International (SPI).

According to Laurent Bouvier, Managing Partner, Kartesia, “The numerous complementary assets between these two industry leaders is compelling and will provide an unrivaled suite of capabilities and global coverage to empower enterprise sales organizations.  The combination of SPI and Richardson creates a comprehensive portfolio of classroom and digital learning, technology enablement, and industry expertise to drive improved sales performance and increased growth for global companies.”

Read More: Samasource Secures $14.8M Series A Funding To Further Scale Business And AI Capabilities

John Elsey, CEO of Richardson, and Jürgen Heyman, CEO of SPI, said, “The sales training industry now has a strategic market leader that can provide scalable, end-to-end learning and enablement solutions that drive measurable sales results.  The combination of our two companies provides our customers with globally proven sales methodologies, cutting-edge digital learning technology, CRM-based sales execution tools, and, most importantly, a way to objectively measure ROI.  We are delighted to join forces to drive long-term, measurable sales results for our customers around the world.”

Founded in 1978, Richardson is widely recognized for its excellence in driving superior sales skill improvement with its Consultative Selling approach and Connected Selling Curriculum.  The curriculum is delivered via a best-in-class, blended learning approach with Richardson Accelerate, the company’s digital learning platform.  The platform combines an active learning methodology with an exceptional user experience to drive engagement and adoption of new skills.

Read More: Demandbase Promotes Chief Revenue Officer Gabe Rogol To CEO

Founded in 1988, Sales Performance International is the proprietary owner of the Solution Selling® sales process and methodology.  Solution Selling® and its related methodologies deliver a step-by-step approach that teaches sales professionals not only what to do, but how to change the way they sell and apply new behaviors that align with the buyer journey.  SPI augments learning and digital reinforcement with CRM-embedded enablement tools that ensure effective execution and measurement of outcomes.

Kartesia is an independent and privately-owned provider of capital solutions focused on small and middle-market companies across industries. Over the past ten years, the team has invested over $2.4bn in over 100 companies. Kartesia has offices in London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Paris.

Read More: ‘Reps Are Tired Of Roadblocks In Providing Better Customer Service’

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

New Salesforce E-Signature Solution Maximizes Security, Speed, and Cost

STS News Desk
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New Salesforce E-Signature Solution Maximizes Security, Speed, and Cost

S-Docs, Inc. Releases a New Salesforce Electronic Signature Solution, S-Sign, to Complement Its Popular Document Generation App

S-Docs, the leading Salesforce document generation app, announced the launch of S-Sign, a new e-signature solution built entirely on the Salesforce Platform. Built to maximize electronic signing speed, security, and cost savings for Salesforce users, it is available today to S-Docs Unlimited Edition Customers.

Read More: Samasource Secures $14.8M Series A Funding To Further Scale Business And AI Capabilities

S-Docs is the leading document generator for hundreds of enterprises such as Unilever, United Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle and more. Salesforce users benefit from S-Docs’ native infrastructure, which provides added benefits like faster document generation, superior reliability, enhanced security, and additional cost savings.

“With the launch of S-Sign, S-Docs’ new e-signature feature, we can now extend a full-service solution for our clients’ digital document needs. We’ve mastered the speed and simplicity of generating complex documents, and now with S-Sign, clients can easily sign those documents anywhere. A huge benefit is that the solution is built entirely on the Salesforce Platform so client data never leaves Salesforce, providing our customers with a security advantage not found in other solutions that don’t have the same native architecture,” said Dan Pejanovic, CEO of S-Docs.

Read More: Demandbase Promotes Chief Revenue Officer Gabe Rogol To CEO

S-Sign features standard electronic signature components like a drag’n’ drop interface, so users can easily add signature prompts to documents. An end signer will have the option to execute documents in-person, via email or mobile by drawing their signature directly, or by adopting a signature from a list of pre-selected fonts. All executed documents will be routed to the respective parties and stored in the related record in Salesforce.

Since S-Sign is under the S-Docs portfolio, the benefits of using a 100% native Salesforce application carry over. S-Docs clients state that “S-Sign is very user-friendly,” and the set-up is a breeze since it mimics the look and feel of Salesforce. The pricing structure is another huge competitive advantage. Dan Pejanovic elaborates, “since we don’t pay for external or 3rd party servers, we’re able to extend those cost savings to our customers. The native infrastructure allows us to be more competitive. And, we don’t price per-envelope or per-document, so it’s incredibly cost-effective.”

Read More: ‘Reps Are Tired Of Roadblocks In Providing Better Customer Service’

 

Write in to rnair@itechseries.com and psen@martechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

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