Home Blog Page 5147

HERE Launches AI-Based Live Sense SDK to Keep Drivers Informed of Unexpected Road Hazards

As an SDK Which Incorporates AI Capabilities, Live Sense Will Enable Customers to Create Multiple Software Applications for Hardware Devices

HERE Technologies, a global leader in mapping and location platform services, announces the availability of the HERE Live Sense SDK, a new software development kit (SDK), currently in beta, designed to give drivers real-time insight in order to be able to make informed decisions on upcoming obstacles, road infrastructure or driving conditions, without cloud processing or the need for connectivity.

Through the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), HERE Live Sense SDK turns devices with front-facing cameras, such as smartphones, dashcams or vehicle cameras, into highly intelligent vehicle sensors. By continuously scanning the driver’s environment, devices can then detect objects on the road, such as other vehicles, pedestrians or cyclists, road infrastructure such as traffic lights and road signs and potential hazards such as potholes, road closures or construction zones.

Read More: Workato And Zendesk Collaborate To Bring Enterprise Automation To Critical Support Processes

Based on what has been detected ahead, HERE Live Sense SDK provides information through both audio and visual notifications, which will help the driver make an informed decision of which action needs to be taken next. All of this happens in real-time on the device itself, without the need for data processing in the cloud or for connectivity. HERE Live Sense SDK also has the ability to detect changes in reality versus the onboard map to keep drivers informed of a change in speed limit, for example.

“Driver safety is paramount in everything we do. Today there are still millions of commercial and passenger cars on the roads without the necessary technology to keep drivers informed about potential hazards. The HERE Live Sense SDK will help to change that”, said Angel Mendez, Chief Operating Officer at HERE Technologies. “It detects objects, behavioral changes and road conditions that can lead to such situations and notifies drivers in time to take action.”

Read More: Socialbakers Adds Vital Ads Transparency And Control Tools To Its Platform

HERE Live Sense SDK uses multiple AI/ML detection models, including:

Road Basics: Detection and classification of objects on the road.

Road Alerts: Recognition and notification of braking vehicles, pedestrians and bicycle detection.

Road Hazards: Detection and classification of unexpected hazards along the way, with changing conditions, including road closures not yet detected on the map, construction zones and road works.

Road Signs: Detection and classification of speed limits and other signs.

As an SDK, these models can be implemented into an application or hardware device, providing customers with AI capabilities. The HERE Live Sense SDK has been created to benefit all drivers and is available for automotive & HW OEMs, fleet and ride hail operators and app developers. It is now available in beta for Android and will soon be available for iOS. In addition, HERE is already working with customers on the first commercial implementations of the SDK.

Read More: Confirmit Announces 2019 Air Award Winners

UJET Releases E-Book on How Millennials and Generation Z Are Transforming Customer Support

Detailed Resource Highlighting Tips and Insights for Businesses to Fuel Growth and Marketplace Position Among Emerging Demographics

UJET, Inc., a leading provider of customer support communications and solutions, announced the release of a new e-book detailing how Millennial and Generation Z communications and technological preferences are reshaping customer support. The c, The Expanding Wallets and Purchasing Influence of Millennials and Gen Z, focuses on how businesses can deliver an efficient and effective support experience to these two influential and growing demographic groups.

Read More: Jon Imperato Appointed As Maxim’s Vice President Of Worldwide Sales And Marketing

In order to align customer support with these groups’ preferred channels and tendencies, while still providing an immersive, engaging, and one-of-a-kind experience for customers of all generations, UJET has identified the following keys for business to adopt:

  • Optimize Support for Smartphone Users
  • Offer Messaging Support That’s Instant and Mobile
  • Provide Self-Service Options for Easy Fixes
  • Offer Fast Response and Resolution
  • Optimize for Social Media Connectivity
  • Personalize the Experience

“The importance of customer experience has never been higher, and is being led by Millennial and Generation Z consumers,” said Anand Janefalkar, Founder & CEO of UJET. “As more consumers view experience as an essential aspect of the products and brands they love, companies must find innovative and personalized ways to connect with their customers and resolve issues faster.”

The time to digitally transform customer support and experience is now. Adopting technology-related assets can empower support teams to break down silos and reshape business models, setting themselves up for success as more Millennials and Generation Z professionals ascend into critical roles and decision-making positions.

Read More: Higher Logic Expands Executive Suite With New Chief Customer Officer And Chief Marketing Officer

Join the Webinar: How Millennials and Gen Z are Reshaping Customer Experience

Customer service consultant Micah Solomon, who writes about millennials as customers in his Forbes Media book, Your Customer is The Star, will join UJET’s Founder & CEO Anand Janefalkar to discuss the growing influence and purchasing power of Millennials and Generation Z and how to capture their loyalty through unique, personalized, and one-of-a-kind experiences.

Date: Wednesday, October 16

Time: 10:00 a.m. PST/1:00 p.m. EST

Speakers: Micah Solomon, Anand Janefalkar

Read More: People.Ai Moves Up To #51 On YC Top Companies 2019 List

SugarCRM Announces Fall ‘19 Release with Laser Focus on End Users

Latest Enhancements Support Mission of Helping Companies Create Customers for Life  

SugarCRM Inc., the company that helps organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences, announced new powerful product features with the Fall ‘19 release, placing an emphasis on self-service, automation and collaboration. These enhancements will result in increased customer satisfaction, lead conversion rates, and cost reductions.

“We are relentlessly innovating on our products,” said SugarCRM CEO, Craig Charlton. “We move with a sense of purpose, and the objective of this release is to enhance the experience of our customer’s customers.”

A key new feature of Sugar Serve is the Self-Service Portal, which allows Sugar customers to provide branded experiences for their customers where they can find answers to issues, create and track service cases, communicate with customer service agents and perform other pertinent functions related to case management.

Read More: Momentum Telecom Awarded 2019 INTERNET TELEPHONY Hosted VoIP Excellence Award

Other highlights of the release include new features across the Sugar portfolio:

Self-Service

  • SugarCloud Insights: Provides visibility and monthly email notifications to customers on their SugarCloud storage consumption across Sugar Sell, Sugar Serve, Enterprise and Professional

  • CRM Sync Dashboard: Provides more visibility into the status of data synchronization between Sugar Market and Sugar Sell, Enterprise, and Professional, allowing for better alignment between marketing and sales functions

Automation

  • SugarIdentity: Now available for customers in EMEA and APAC, SugarIdentity has also been enhanced to enable automated user lifecycle management with external identity provider services and support Single Sign On with Sugar’s Outlook Plugin (OPI) add on

  • Sales process automation: Sugar Sell includes workflows that help customers automate key business processes, such as lead routing with new business centers, discount approval flows, and automated pipeline reminders

Read More: Zendesk Delivers The Future Of Conversational Business With Sunshine Conversations

Collaboration

  • Collaboration via mobile: Allows customers to access the Sugar comment log from their mobile device to add comments, view interaction history, and collaborate with team members on accounts, opportunities and support cases to stay in sync at all times

“We’re excited about the Fall ‘19 release, which follows on the heels of unveiling our newest products, Sugar Discover and Sugar Connect,” added Charlton. “This announcement goes hand in hand with our overall vision and commitment to anticipating and fulfilling needs before customers realize they have them.”

Read More: Zendesk Launches New Community Product, Gather, To Provide Trusted And Transparent Support At Scale

Bynder Launches Digital Brand Templates and Enhanced Brand Guidelines to Power More Dynamic Brands

New features empower marketers and designers with streamlined workflows and the ability to create on-brand content within minutes

Bynder, the global leader in digital asset management (DAM), announced the launch of Digital Brand Templates and enhanced Brand Guidelines, designed to accelerate content creation and empower more creative, agile brands without compromising consistency.

Bynder

Bynder The insatiable demand for digital content challenges brands to create more than ever before, often with the same or fewer resources. Without the right technology in place to scale creative processes, marketers and designers will continue to play catch-up with content production, rather than focusing on content performance.

Read More: At 50%, Connected TV Hits New High Of Video Ad Impressions Served By Extreme Reach

Digital Brand Templates accelerates digital content creation for brands by transforming creative files from Adobe Photoshop and Sketch into reusable, customizable templates. This gives creatives more time to tackle their hefty to-do lists, and marketers have the power to bring content to market faster than ever before. Marketers can quickly produce their own content for high-velocity channels like web banners and social media ads or customize existing designs, such as assets for market-specific or regionalized campaigns, without straying off brand.

In addition to Digital Brand Templates, the enhanced Brand Guidelines takes the guesswork out of brand compliance. The growing number of stakeholders involved in building a brand makes consistency difficult, especially when relying on a static PDF to communicate brand standards. With digitized Brand Guidelines, brands have an online resource to manage how their teams create, access and share brand assets. This single source of truth for logos, fonts, rich media and instructions for usage helps brands maintain consistency within their organization and across customer touchpoints.

Read More: Inside Marketing Boosts Sales Performance With Vonage

“Modern marketers require the freedom to create the assets they need, the moment they need them,” said Kevin Broom, Chief Product Officer at Bynder. “In an increasingly digital, on-demand world, the marketing mix requires volume and speed for success. Brands can’t afford to be slowed down by designer backlogs. At Bynder, we developed Digital Brand Templates and revamped Brand Guidelines to empower marketers to create more while keeping pace with their audiences.”

“Templates is a great way to achieve efficiency and brand consistency, which is what I’m after as a Brand Manager,” said Sarah Roozendaal, Brand Manager at paint and coatings powerhouse AkzoNobel. “Templates are such an easy way for our users to get done what they need to get done. If they need a web banner or an image for social that already has our logo on it, they just want to go in, get the template, change the picture or text and are done. That’s great!”

These new and updated features are the first in a series of upcoming platform updates under Bynder’s new product leadership and revamped product vision. In 2019, the company welcomed Chief Product Officer Kevin Broom and Director of Product John Koenig, bringing a combined 30+ years of experience in product leadership.

Read More: R2i Hires Mark Eddy As VP Of Channel Partnerships And Strategic Alliances

Calabrio Accelerates Contact Center Freedom by Introducing Agent Self-Scheduling Technology

Evolution of employee self-service supports Calabrio vision to help customers achieve a flexible, fair and digitally optimized workplace

Calabrio, the customer experience intelligence company, has announced the launch of Self-Scheduling for agents as part of the organization’s mission to disrupt and evolve the contact center market with enriched human interactions. The new workforce management (WFM) technology combines the benefits of planning optimization, intraday automation and agent self-scheduling to empower employees and drive contact center performance. This latest innovation follows the June 2019 acquisition of Teleopti by Calabrio and supports the combined company’s vision to build a new global standard for customer experience intelligence by creating a flexible, digitally enabled workforce.

Read More: RingCentral To Become Exclusive Provider Of UCaaS Solutions To Avaya In Strategic Partnership

Available to both cloud and on-premise customers, accessible to agents on-the-go via mobile app or on their desktops, Self-Scheduling allows agents greater workplace autonomy. They finally have the power to change their schedule, such as organizing lunch with a co-worker—all without impacting service levels in the contact center. Sophisticated algorithms automatically check staffing levels against key performance indicators (KPI), service level agreements (SLA) and skills requirements, while special permission-based parameters allow managers to set non-overwritable activities. Reducing the demand on resource planners and managers for intraday monitoring and request-handling gives them the freedom to focus on higher-level tasks and customer experience objectives. Managers and planners can keep control of their contact center environment at all times but with heightened flexibility and less manual monitoring.“While the concept of self-service for shift preferences, overtime or time-off is nothing new, our latest innovation marks the first time that agents have the power to manage their own schedules as events happen during the day,” said Magnus Geverts, vice president of product marketing and management at Calabrio. “Self-Scheduling introduces new levels of flexibility that give employees the freedom to focus on delivering exceptional customer service while helping to reduce harmful attrition rates that rack up recruitment and onboarding costs for businesses. It’s the critical next step toward realizing our goal of humanizing the workplace.”

Read More: Avaya Announces Strategic Partnership With RingCentral To Accelerate Transformation To The Cloud

Self-Scheduling will be showcased for the first time at Calabrio Customer Connect (C3) in San Antonio, TX on October 13-16.

“It’s no surprise by now that engaged agents are fundamental in developing customer loyalty, so enhancing the employee experience is equally foundational. Just as we talk about the need for a customer experience that is personalized and frictionless, the same stands for employees,” said Shep Hyken, chief amazement officer at Shepard Productions, and customer service expert and keynote speaker at C3. “Technology like Calabrio’s Self-Scheduling is a meaningful move toward true agent empowerment as employees can tailor their schedule to their life.”

Read More: Box Strengthens Partnership With Adobe To Further Boost Cloud Collaboration

Campaign Monitor Launches CM Commerce, an Email Marketing Solution for Growing Retail Businesses

1

Campaign Monitor—a provider of powerful yet approachable email marketing software and a part of the CM Group family of brands—unveiled CM Commerce, a new product offering built from the popular ecommerce platform, CM Commerce. This new product offering is designed for retail businesses interested in accelerating their growth through the use of advanced email marketing, including customers such as Cafe Joe and Pastreez. CM Commerce helps these companies overcome the specific ecommerce challenges faced in their growth process by giving them the ability to easily create professional, automated email campaigns that streamline engagement throughout the customer lifecycle, increase conversions and build trustworthy brands.

“CM Commerce is one of the most highly rated and highly reviewed applications in the Shopify store”

“CM Commerce is one of the most highly rated and highly reviewed applications in the Shopify store,” said Wellford Dillard, CEO of CM Group. “Bringing them into the CM Group portfolio as CM Commerce is another step towards our strategy of having an ideal solution for every marketer and organization. With this acquisition, we now have an offering for ecommerce businesses at each stage of their growth journey, beginning with CM Commerce and continuing with Sailthru as they expand their business and increase in sophistication.”

Read More: Adam Petrovsky Joins ConvergeOne As Regional Vice President, SOCAL And Utah

With CM Commerce’s deep integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and Big Commerce, small business owners can easily integrate their storefronts with the platform to begin utilizing features such as abandoned cart emails, post-purchase surveys, and product reviews. Additionally, the platform guides users through every step in campaign development with pre-built workflows for a wide range of email marketing tactics from simple to advanced. CM Commerce also offers users the ability to track key ecommerce metrics like conversion performance, list growth, and average order value.

“Small business owners, especially those who rely on ecommerce to drive sales, are often boot-strapping their businesses. They typically don’t have access to expert marketing resources. CM Commerce is here to change that,” said Cody Bender, chief product officer at CM Group. “We set out to make it as easy as possible for ecommerce businesses to get started with email marketing. Between the turnkey integrations we offer with the most popular ecommerce platforms and a library of ecommerce-focused pre-built campaigns, businesses can start sending email campaigns almost immediately.”

Read More: Bison Names Jason Weinstein Chief Executive Officer

“CM Commerce has been a game-changer for a small company like ours where our marketing team is just two people. With the pre-built workflows and email automation, CM Commerce allows me to focus on running our business — without needing to worry about our email because it runs itself,” said Aron Schoenfeld, CEO of Cafe Joe USA. “Once we connected our Shopify account and activated the CM Commerce tools, our overall conversion rate shot up by 60%. We’ve seen a $58 return on investment for every dollar spent.”

Read More: RingCentral To Become Exclusive Provider Of UCaaS Solutions To Avaya In Strategic Partnership

SalesAgility’s disruption Of The CRM Market Continues With Announcement Of New SuiteCRM 8 Functionality

Suitecrm 8, Salesagility’s New State-Of-The-Art Solution Will Bring a Modern and Flexible Platform to the CRM Market Whilst Maintaining Our Commitment to Open Source.

SalesAgility, the authors and maintainers of SuiteCRM, the world’s most popular Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application, has announced plans for the release of SuiteCRM 8. Currently under advanced development and planned for initial release in Q1 2020, this state-of-the-art solution will bring a modern, powerful, secure and flexible platform, while continuing SalesAgility’s commitment to keep SuiteCRM 100% Open Source.

Read More:  RTB House Launches New Dynamic AD Banner Creatives Called Snippet Ads

SuiteCRM 8 will be the largest launch of SuiteCRM to date with the primary focus being on user experience, scalability and flexibility. Designed for all devices and screen sizes and optimized for touch on mobile, SuiteCRM’s new user interface (UI) will deliver new interactive visualisations and a fresh foundation on which future features can be built. Combining the power of enterprise class CRM with state-of-the-art presentation technologies, SuiteCRM’s new UI is intended to help users more rapidly and efficiently access key customer insights and to drive streamlined operations across all customer touchpoints.

“SuiteCRM 8 is a game changer in the CRM Market, by providing an open source CRM that users will love without breaking the bank on proprietary software. SuiteCRM 8 will help businesses put customers first by enabling them to sell, market and service smarter and to scale CRM deep into their organisations.” said Dale Murray, CEO of SalesAgility.

1st Release:

The aim of the SuiteCRM 8 version 1.0 release is to provide maximum backwards compatibility whilst providing access to the new modern User Interface (UI). Included in this release of SuiteCRM 8 will be the new Kanban view, which will bring a new way to visualise and track data, in a more productive way.

Read More: RTB House Launches New Dynamic AD Banner Creatives Called Snippet Ads

The traditional view of SuiteCRM will also get a face-lift within this release. The new Record view will merge Edit and Detail views into one unified Record view designed to allow the user to work with their data in a more efficient way. Finally, the new List View will be enhanced to incorporate readily available visualisation and charting functions which will provide the user with greater insights, at a glance.

The Medium Term:

SuiteCRM 8 functionality will be released iteratively throughout 2020. From a technology perspective, the introduction of a new Core framework will result in the deprecation of all residual SugarCRM contributions from the codebase leaving a leaner and more maintainable application.

From a user perspective, the transition to this new single page application will use cutting edge technology, with ‘Angular’ being a key part of the new architecture. This will open the SuiteCRM project up to new and exciting opportunities for integration and collaboration in the future.

Community:

Community engagement and support is a key part of any successful Open Source project. SalesAgility will work with our SuiteCRM community and help them adapt to the new framework and welcomes community feedback and contributions to our shared goals. We will also work with the Extensions community to ensure a smooth transition for the hundreds of third party plug-ins that are a vital and valuable part of the SuiteCRM ecosystem.

Read More: Demand Spring Launches Marketing Unplugged

ChannelAdvisor Enhancements, Including Checkout on Instagram, Enable Brands and Retailers to Strengthen Holiday Season Performance

Additional Features Include Keyword Automation, New AD Types for Amazon Advertising, and a New Comprehensive Performance Dashboard for Where to Buy

ChannelAdvisor Corporation, a leading provider of cloud-based e-commerce solutions, announced new enhancements to its powerful e-commerce platform to help brands and retailers expand their marketplace reach, optimize their online advertising, and streamline retailer data to facilitate time and cost-saving efficiencies for continued growth this holiday season and beyond.

By introducing newly launched marketplace integrations, including the in-app shopping option Checkout on Instagram, ChannelAdvisor positions its customers to capture new audiences along the buyer journey across global marketplaces, shopping, and social sites. In addition, ChannelAdvisor’s comprehensive suite of e-commerce solutions now includes Amazon Keyword Automation, enabling sellers and vendors to save time and potentially reduce wasted spend by automating keyword and negative targeting actions. Through ChannelAdvisor’s newly enhanced Where to Buy 360 Analytics dashboard, brands have faster, easier access to actionable insights, helping them to promote stronger online performance and inform tactical business decisions.

Read More: Alteryx Acquires Feature Labs To Advance Machine Learning For The Enterprise

“As our customers’ needs and business goals shift with the changing e-commerce landscape, ChannelAdvisor will continue to explore the most advanced ways to help them achieve a faster, easier path to e-commerce success,” explained Steve Frechette, Vice President, Product Management at ChannelAdvisor. “Time and resources are in limited supply in this competitive environment where a manual lift can quickly erode margin. Ahead of the busiest shopping season of the year, we’re excited to provide our customers with new selling channels and more impactful retail performance analytics for our brand customers.” With ChannelAdvisor’s continued focus on supporting its customers’ marketing, selling, and fulfillment strategies, the platform upgrades include:

New Marketplace Connections

  • Checkout on Instagram: ChannelAdvisor’s newly expanded marketplace portfolio now includes Checkout on Instagram, a premier in-app shopping channel for brands and retailers utilizing the popular social platform to reach potential buyers. Checkout on Instagram enhances the shopping experience by making the purchase simple, convenient, and secure. Shoppers will be able to place orders directly on Instagram, and payment credentials are securely saved in the app by Instagram for future purchases. Brands can approve creators to tag their products in social posts, giving consumers even more opportunities to discover their products.
  • Expanded Global Reach: Additionally, ChannelAdvisor’s customers can increase their global footprint through new international channels including AllSale (South Africa), CoEdition (US), and MoreCommerce (US).

Read More: Automation Anywhere Launches AI-Powered RPA-As-A-Service Platform To Accelerate Global RPA Adoption

Solutions for Stronger E-Commerce Performance

  • ChannelAdvisor’s Keyword Automation for Amazon Advertising: Specifically designed for first-party and third-party sellers, ChannelAdvisor can seamlessly transition sellers and vendors from time-consuming, manual processes to automated keyword optimization across Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns. Sellers can achieve greater flexibility and control through highly-targeted keywords and customized rules based on their unique performance criteria, to get ahead of wasted spend.
  • Support for Amazon Sponsored Display: Through ChannelAdvisor’s support of Amazon’s new self-service display advertising solution, sellers can use reporting to quickly compare campaign performance across all Amazon advertising types.
  • Where to Buy 360 Analytics: ChannelAdvisor now offers brands a more comprehensive view of performance data for the ‘Where to Buy’ solution from a streamlined interface. The new reporting dashboard provides brands with immediate access to data on how consumers on the brand sites are interacting with their retail partners, enabling productive brand-retailer relationships.

Read More: Enterprises Want Providers To Manage Entire Workloads

SpotX and AMC Team Up For Spooktacular OTT Monetization Now Through Halloween

AMC’s Fearfest and the Walking Dead Premiere Expected to Draw High Viewership, Allowing Media Buyers to Reach Targeted Viewers at Scale

SpotX, the leading global video advertising and monetization platform, announced an expanded partnership with AMC to power programmatic monetization for over-the-top (OTT) video throughout the Halloween season. The weeks leading up to Halloween earn high viewership for AMC, which is the #1 cable network in October thanks to “The Walking Dead” and the annual FearFest programming event, creating a once-in-a-year opportunity for media buyers to get in on the bloodcurdling action — only through SpotX.

Read More: Bidstack Launches In The US And Appoints Fisher As Head Of Sales

Horror films began airing on AMC October 1st, with FearFest running from October 13th through October 31st. FearFest will feature 104 scary titles and 400+ hours of programming, including classics like “Halloween,” “Alien,” “Leprechaun,” and “Friday the 13th.” Season 10 of “The Walking Dead” premieres on October 6th. Viewers can access AMC programming, including FearFest and “The Walking Dead” on the AMC app and website across various OTT devices including desktop, mobile, Roku, Apple TV, Xbox, and Amazon Fire.

“Last year, AMC viewership grew across digital by nearly 80% in video views and nearly 10% in reach, so this is an exciting opportunity for advertisers to reach consumers that they otherwise may not be reaching,” said David Pudjunis, director, yield management at AMC Networks. “We ultimately chose to work with SpotX because of its programmatic infrastructure, data enablement capabilities, and expert service.”

Read More: Neustar And The ANA Announce Winners Of The 2019 Genius Awards In Advanced Marketing Analytics

SpotX’s global Demand Facilitation Team works to connect media buyers with premium inventory (such as AMC’s) that runs across the SpotX platform, offering brand-safe supply in both open and private marketplaces as well as access to exclusive video inventory. SpotX also advises buyers on how to purchase media efficiently on OTT/CTV, target audiences, and activate data.

“Horror content is one of the most engaging genres for audiences because of its compelling nature and ‘lean-in’ behavior it evokes in viewers,” said Mike Evans, SVP, demand facilitation at SpotX. “We are extremely proud to offer this inventory to advertisers and look forward to supporting AMC with monetization efforts throughout October and beyond.”

Historically, the fourth quarter is a busy period for AMC’s popular programming. In addition to FearFest, the network kicks off its “Best Christmas Ever” holiday content in late November which also draws significant viewership for AMC. With nearly 50% more digital video views in this time period, it aligns perfectly with what is traditionally the highest spending quarter in the digital video industry.

Read More: BidSwitch Adopts The Trade Desk’s Unified ID Solution