Verint Systems is moving deeper into customer engagement with the purchase of OpinionLab, which offers a system for collecting customer feedback in real time. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Here are the key details from Verint's announcement this week:
Voice of the Customer (VoC) solutions are becoming a strategic imperative, helping organizations measure and enhance experiences, satisfaction and loyalty. As more customer engagements follow a “digital-first” approach for conducting research and performing transactions, as well as solving problems, companies need to measure their customers’ digital experiences and quickly act on those insights to enhance both the customer experience and business performance.
“OpinionLab is very pleased to join forces with Verint, a market leader in customer engagement that shares a vision for the importance of listening to customers on their terms, and responding quickly and effectively on the feedback they share,” notes Sean Fallon, CEO, OpinionLab. “Now, if a customer can say it, write it or click it, Verint and OpinionLab voice of the customer solutions can collect, analyze and enable organizations to take action on it.”
Verint's customer engagement portfolio now includes capabilities for collecting and analyzing customer and employee feedback across voice, email, text messages, websites and mobile devices. The latter two areas are OpinionLab's specialty.
There are many alternatives to OpinionLab, such as UserVoice, GetFeedback, Qualtrics and ForeSee. With OpinionLab and its other products, Verint is pushing the value of a single-vendor suite covering all aspects of customer engagement.
Historically, Verint has sold speech analysis and video surveillance technologies to law enforcement agencies. It took a pivot toward CRM and customer engagement in 2014, buying the assets of Kana Software for $514 million.
Its move to bring OpinionLab into the fold is timely, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Dr. Natalie Petouhoff.
"The ability to measure and act on digital customer experiences in the moment is table stakes," she says. "Today brands need to be able to listen, analyze and act on the voice of the customer across all channels—whether it be text, digital, social as well as voice."
However, what will differentiate brands is to detect at each moment of interaction how a customer is feeling towards the brand and then take appropriate action, Petouhoff adds. "The sum of all moments of interaction need to be a positive sentiment towards the brand," she says. "Where the sentiment is negative, the brand needs to look at that feedback and change whatever is not currently working towards a customer centric, positive customer experience."
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