Managing customer relationships is not only vital for businesses, but it also represents one of their biggest challenges. Oracle, fresh off a buy of seven different software systems, has brought them all together in one package, which they will be showing off at a press event this Monday in New York.
The system in question, called Oracle Customer Experience, contains seven distinct parts, all geared toward customer engagement across a variety of different sales channels. Oracle Customer Experience is geared to work alongside both Oracle Siebel, an on-premises CRM--Customer Relationship Management--tool, and Oracle Fusion, its cloud-based equivalent. Oracle Customer Experience, in turn, is said to work in a "cross-channel" fashion.
Oracle's senior VP of CRM explained the "cross-channel" system, stating, "Multi-channel is where you try to offer a consistent experience on each channel, [whereas] cross-channel means you recognize that customers might start the experience on one channel and then choose to end on a different channel."
This is actually quite appropriate for how people have begun shopping in recent years; they may begin their experience price-hunting online, then go to a brick-and-mortar outlet to see the item in person. Or, conversely, they may find an item in a brick-and-mortar store, but then hit the Web to find the best price on that same item. Oracle Customer Experience is geared to work in just such a sales environment, providing not only dynamic content that changes according to how a customer browses a website, but also provides specific, targeted offers accordingly. It can also engage users via social media or mobile devices, which are rapidly becoming game-changers in their own right, and can also be used to fuel traffic into a physical store.
Better still, Oracle says that its Customer Experience program even offers self-help tools, allowing customers to find their own answers when the customer service apparatus can't quite fill the job. Worrying about losing customers because there aren't enough reps on the floor will likely drop as a result, and increases to profits become likely as more customers get help, more customers make purchases, and fewer dollars are needed spent in support functions.
But Oracle's full slate of offerings has yet to be seen, by some reports. Many technologies in Oracle's toolbox are said to be still waiting for full integration into the stack, so future updates of Oracle Customer Experience will likely be steadily more impressive.
While Oracle's Customer Experience will likely pay the most dividends for larger businesses more regularly engaged in customer service across multiple channels, it seems reasonably clear that the Oracle system should do good work for those companies who put it to use in their operations. With an economy still extremely hostile toward retail, and consumer confidence still lagging, it behooves the enterprise to do all it can to ensure the best possible performance on its bottom line. Services like Oracle's Customer Experience should go a long way in doing just that.
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