Xchange Makes Quantum Leap in Customer Software with Introduction of Xchange(tm)8
Xchange 8 Helps Large Global Companies Deliver More Profits Per Customer Interaction By Capturing Value in Play(tm) Through Real-Time, Multi-Channel Customer Conversations
Boston, Mass. - October 23, 2001 - Xchange, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXAP), which specializes in helping businesses capture more profit in each customer interaction, today announced Xchange 8 to strengthen the company`s leadership position in serving large global businesses. The company highlighted the Xchange 8 platform`s ease of use, improved integration of marketing analytics with all inbound and outbound customer functions, expanded platform support including IBM MQ Series and IBM WebSphere, enhanced J2EE platform support for unmatched extensibility, and real-time enterprise-wide coordination of customer touchpoints.
"Xchange 8 enables large global companies to lower costs and maximize profits through continuous customer conversations across all inbound/outbound channels including the Web, email, call center, stores, branch offices, and direct mail," said J. Chris Wagner, president and CEO of Xchange. "For the first time, companies using Xchange 8 can understand the profitability of each customer, identify profit opportunities and divert investments to tailored customer interactions that generate the highest return," he stated.
MAJOR NEW FEATURES BEING DELIVERED IN THE XCHANGE 8 SERIES
New Value in Play(tm) analytics for better opportunity identification and execution;
Increased support of major best-of-breed business intelligence platforms;
Enhanced J2EE platform support for the IBM WebSphere application server;
New platform support at the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) layer for IBM MQ and Java Messaging Service (JMS);
Added Dynamic Value Proposition to dynamically calculate offers in real-time;
Redesigned Master console with new Master Calendar View and Scheduling; and
Improved ability to run on existing customer databases.
"IBM is excited about Xchange 8`s new support for these IBM platforms and is pleased to present it as a key part of our global customer loyalty offering," said Bryan Lee, Customer Loyalty Solutions Leader at IBM Financial Services. "This means our global sales force will offer technology to clients that enables them to identify and capture opportunities that increase the economic value of their customer relationships, all of which will occur on IBM`s platforms."
XCHANGE 8 Integrates Online and Offline Customer Channels in Real-Time
A key new feature of the Xchange 8 platform is the coupling of online and offline channels. The Xchange solution adds the brains to existing operational CRM systems, complementing and enhancing the capabilities offered by Siebel, Peoplesoft and others. This makes it easier for Xchange customers to increase sales and profits per customer interaction.
In the October 1, 2001 issue of InformationWeek, Xchange customer Allstate Insurance Company commented on its on-going CRM initiatives, "We want to make the right offer to the right customer through the right channel at the right time," says Allstate Vice President Dennis DeGregor. "That`s really the Holy Grail of CRM. Like most financial services companies, we have a wealth of customer information in our back-office systems. The InformationWeek article also continued, "the best-of-breed approach won out because applications from Xchange . . . were judged to have more
depth of functionality . . ."
"Xchange now makes it easier than ever for our 300 global customers, alliance partners, and resellers to deliver critical, real-time market analysis to gauge the effectiveness of each marketing and call center initiative," said Michael J. Collins, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Xchange. "With the launch of Xchange 8, we have packaged our individual product and service components into a platform that will be much easier for our customers to implement and use. The key is that as we make this step we have maintained our industry-leading edge required by large global companies in usability, scalability and extensibility."
XCHANGE 8 BREAKS DOWN SILOS
Xchange 8 unifies all customer data collected from disparate channels in real time, analyzes the data to generate recommendations that will increase customer value, and distributes those recommendations consistently to each customer channel. In addition, Xchange 8 features consulting services and methodologies to develop measurements, best practices and business processes to create a customer-centric, sales focused environment throughout all levels of an organization.
"Xchange 8 takes customer interactions to a place they have never been, by making it straightforward to deploy in a way that directly enhances business performance," said Steve Morse, Vice President of Product Marketing at Xchange. "We`ve broken down the silos that hinder consistent customer treatment as customers move between channels, like calling the call center in response to an email offer for example. Xchange 8 drives treatment across all channels based on a unified, real time view of the customer and their current behavior at a touch point. Users are capable for the first time, of true, enterprise-wide, customer interaction management, and have the economic analysis capabilities to manage interactions toward more value for the bottom line," he said.
CAPTURING VALUE IN PLAY
Every single customer interaction costs money and makes the customer worth more or less to a business organization. "The `value in play` each time a company interacts with a customer is the amount of profit captured minus the cost of the interaction," said Xchange Chairman and Founder Andy Frawley. "It doesn`t matter if a company initiates contact or responds to a customer inquiry, Xchange 8 inbound and outbound customer interaction functionality improves customer value. That could mean cross selling or up selling certain products, or in some cases, encouraging attrition by an unprofitable customer," he continued. Xchange 8 identifies profit opportunities, shows where value is at risk, presents potential value upside, and illustrates where to invest to capture that value," he explained.
According to a recent report from leading industry analyst Gartner, titled "Real Time, Cross-Channel Personalization: An Elusive Goal," July 2, 2001, "One of the critical components for delivering on a customer intimacy strategy is real-time, cross channel personalization." The report continues, saying "to enable this real time, cross channel personalization, enterprises must be able to gather information about any customer interaction, at any channel, at any time it occurs. They must also be able to make that information immediately available to all other channel touchpoints so that any additional customer interactions can be appropriately tailored."
MAJOR COMPONENTS OF XCHANGE 8
Multi-channel marketing automation - Xchange 8 enables marketers to conduct inbound and outbound customer communications that send the right message to the right customer at the right time through the right channel to make the customer more profitable. Best of all, its ease of use minimizes the work and cost of IT support so marketers can market.
Advanced Analytics - Xchange 8 focuses on simple, useable analysis for targeting opportunities with the most value potential by providing the most effective reports for each client`s business. The Xchange 8 platform comes standard with built-in Value in Play analytics and Return on Investment (ROI) reports
Business Intelligence Adapters - As part of its unmatched openness Xchange 8 supports audience definition for targeting through open integration with the industry`s leading best-of-breed business intelligence tools.
Real-time touch point integration - Xchange 8 can drive communications on any touchpoint including Web, call center, email, ATM, branch or agents in real time. This capability is also crucial to maximizing customer value, because it enables a consistent, economics-driven conversation from one channel to the next. This ensures that all available information is utilized effectively, and drives the value of existing CRM infrastructure by delivering content to disparate front office systems like Siebel, PeopleSoft, Broadvision or Vignette.
Better data, better decisions and better value all in real time - Xchange 8 ensures consistent outbound and inbound communications by combining information from three essential sources: internal, external and in-session data, regardless of how a customer contacts a company or a company the customer. With Xchange 8, a company can change a customer offer in real time based on data gathered during an interaction. Xchange 8 can also deliver this insight to personnel, and establish automated responses to customer behavior in real time.
EMessaging ASP - Xchange 8 features easy plug-ins to eMessaging applications that facilitates personalized outbound online communications to market to customers.
Consulting Services - One of Xchange`s greatest competitive advantages lies in the proven depth and strength of its value-added consulting. Xchange`s consulting services team features many of the industry`s foremost thought leaders on ROI assessments, training and education classes, implementation services, front line profit methodology, development of customer analytic reportpaks and pilot project consulting.
"Customers today demand consistent, personalized treatment across the various channels through which they interact with companies," said Sam Clark, Program Director Application Delivery Strategies at META Group. "To meet their customer`s needs efficiently and profitably, enterprises demand that CRM offerings break down channel barriers by providing a single, real time view of customers," he added. "Also enterprises increasingly recognize that analytics and reporting must be present from the start of a CRM program to ensure better understanding of the return they are getting from their customer interactions."
XCHANGE 8 DISTINGUISHED BY USABILITY, SCALABILITY AND EXTENSIBILITY
Usability - Xchange 8 features an easy-to-use interface for the suite of offerings and includes workflow wizards. Quick installation and simplified reports that are specific to the user`s business needs, means that marketers can rapidly manage millions of enterprise wide customer relationships toward higher value within days of going live with an implementation.
Scalability - Unlike other offerings on the market, Xchange 8 is designed to handle explosive business growth with a scalable architecture equipped to manage hundreds of millions of customers or prospects. Xchange 8 is a great solution for companies that outgrow home grown or other vendors` CRM systems. After all, nothing damages relationships more than a system that fails to function properly at high volumes.
Extensibility - Enhanced J2EE support, and an open platform enable Xchange 8 to integrate with existing business intelligence and data mining tools and leverage legacy or homegrown systems in the back office and front office to drive profitable customer communications. By leveraging existing systems that were previously unable to communicate with one another, Xchange 8 can save companies millions of dollars in system replacement costs, and save time and money by enabling users to capitalize on their existing knowledge and tools.
"Deloitte & Touche and Xchange have teamed to provide clients with a powerful combination of technology and services enabling clients to improve the bottom line and increase customer value," said Dean Nelson, partner at Deloitte & Touche. "Xchange provides industry leading technology to help companies plan, coordinate and execute customer communications, this partnership enhances Deloitte & Touche`s ability to rapidly extract value from client`s existing CRM investments."
Pricing and Availability
Xchange 8 can be purchased immediately and begins shipping in late Q4 2001, with scheduled releases throughout 2002. Xchange`s latest solution can be purchased as part of an upgrade package for existing clients or based on application usage by new clients. The Xchange 8 solution list price starts at $475,000 plus associated consulting services. For additional information, please contact the Xchange sales team at 1-877-714-0288 or on the Web at sales@xchange.com.
About Xchange
Xchange solutions enable large global companies to lower costs and maximize profits by Capturing Value in Play through continuous customer conversations across all channels. Xchange 8 features the depth and open architecture large companies require to extract more value from their existing CRM investments by synchronizing online and offline multi-channel customer campaigns that are integrated with call centers and all other customer touch-points in real-time. This smarter, analytical approach to each customer interaction delivers strategic customer insight and profits. For more information on Xchange or to learn about our customer-focused software and services solutions, visit our Web site at www.xchange.com.
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Xchange, the Xchange logo, Relationships are good. Profits are better., and Capturing Value in Play are trademarks or registered trademarks of Xchange, Inc. All other product or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Copyright Xchange, Inc., 2001 All rights reserved.
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