SugarCRM Deploys Solution to Boost Sales at Australia’s Summit Homes
SugarCRM, the Silicon Valley-based CRM software company, is helping Summit Homes Group in Western Australia use AI-guided selling automation to boost sales while also furnishing homebuyers with what the company describes as inspired experiences.
One of Western Australia’s leading construction and property companies, Summit Homes Group builds, renovates, and develops homes through a portfolio of building-related businesses across realty, steel production, financial services, plumbing, ceilings, and roofing. As a SugarCRM customer for more than 12 years and with multiple brands to manage, Summit Homes Group recently upgraded to Sugar Sell Premier, SugarCRM’s flagship sales automation solution. The package offers comprehensive sales force automation capabilities with built-in AI and advanced reporting, holistic insights, and enhanced sales analytics, sales forecasting, and communication features. Its interface supports a unified view of homebuyers and a comprehensive means to manage sales engagement.
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Fabio Fusari, IT manager at Summit Homes Group, says the company is pleased to continue the automation journey of its sales force with SugarCRM. “This strategic move underscores our ongoing commitment to deliver excellence through cutting-edge technology that empowers our team with the tools necessary for success,” says Fusari. “Sugar Sell Premier will enable us to streamline our operations, enhance collaboration, and ultimately deliver even better results to our valued customers.”
Jason du Preez, SugarCRM senior vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific, expresses delight at partnering with Summit Homes Groups. “Our continued collaboration will help Summit Homes Group leverage the full potential of Sugar Sell Premier to take its sales and customer experience to the next level,” du Preez notes.
Medallia Helps Irish Bank Permanent TSB Transform Its CX and EX
Enterprise experience platform provider Medallia will be delivering its voice of the customer (VoC) and employee experience (EX) programs to Permanent TSB (PTSB), the Dublin, Ireland-based retail bank and provider of personal financial services, continuing a four-year partnership. Medallia’s enterprise experience platform will support PTSB in further embedding customer and employee engagement initiatives to promote change at the bank through positive experiences.
An institution that has been supporting communities in Ireland for more than 200 years, PTSB has an actively evolving company culture that is working to improve its CX and EX in tandem. PTSB initially selected Medallia to reimagine its CX strategy in 2019, recognizing the need for a more robust strategy to fully understand customer pain points, and realizing that a fresh approach was needed to collect and act on EX data to better support employees through all stages of their journey.
With Medallia powering Permanent TSB’s EX program, all of the bank’s employee engagement metrics are trending upward. Between 2020 and 2022, employee net promoter scores (eNPS) increased by 19 points, culture scores by 8, engagement scores by 7, and trust scores by 10. And after using employee feedback to take action that resulted in more than 1,000 positive changes, the bank is now expanding employee listening to new touchpoints, such as on-boarding, to further enhance its “Every Voice Counts” program.
Medallia was also able to conduct analysis on the bank’s data to reveal a strong connection between engaged employees and customer satisfaction. The analysis revealed a 30-point difference in customer Net Promoter Scores (NPS) between branches with higher employee engagement and those with lower engagement levels.
San Mateo, California-based Medallia provides software as a service (SaaS) customer experience management and employee experience management software to various industries, including hospitality, retail, financial services, and high-tech. Its platform captures experience signals across interactions that include voice, video, digital, IoT, social media, and corporate messaging tools.
Amdocs Expands Agreement, Modernizes Vodafone Spain’s Customer Relationship
Amdocs, a key provider of software and services to communications and media companies, is expanding an agreement with Vodafone Spain to update the mobile telecom firm’s CRM system to better manage its customer base.
Using its cloud-based open portfolio of digital solutions and services, Amdocs will provide Vodafone Spain with a modernized application infrastructure platform, enabling the Spanish firm to improve the efficiency and performance of its CRM platform and maximize the return on investment (ROI) from Vodafone Spain’s specialized and tailored customer management solution.
The modernization effort is expected to help Vodafone Spain lower its total cost of ownership (TCO), improve operational efficiency, automation and performance, and advance the company along its Tech 2025 modernization journey.
“One of the key elements of Vodafone’s Tech 2025 strategy is to ensure infrastructure and applications are reliable and modernized, in order to provide outstanding service to our consumer and enterprise customers,” says a Vodafone Spain spokesperson. “We’re delighted to have expanded our agreement with Amdocs as we look to modernize our CRM platform, and ensure our infrastructure is ready to support the future of exciting, innovative new services in the 5G era.”
Anthony Goonetilleke, group president of media, network, and technology at Amdocs, says the company is pleased to continue working alongside Vodafone Spain, especially as communications service providers worldwide embark on an accelerated journey to prepare for new services and monetization opportunities in the 5G and cloud era.
Amperity Unifies Customer Data at Forever 21
Amperity, whose customer data platforms (CDPs) use patented AI and machine learning technology to build unified views of the customer, has teamed up with Forever 21, providing a foundation for the fashion brand to maximize the value of its customer data. Through Amperity’s CDP, Forever 21 aims to reach more consumers while also enriching its advertising campaigns through insights obtained on cross-channel behavior, data science scores, and content affinities, officials from both companies say.
Although Forever 21 has a significant amount of customer data from both its digital channels and offline transactions, the brand needed a comprehensive solution to bring together and manage disparate data sources—an especially pressing matter as consumer shopping preferences and behaviors have changed with the years. However, through an Amperity-powered 360-degree unified view, Forever 21 can now consolidate, activate, and acquire new customers as well as retain existing ones.
“The future of retail lies in how well a company understands the customer journey,” says Jacob Hawkins, chief marketing, digital and omnichannel officer at Forever 21. “Amperity enables us to create unified customer profiles and actionable insights we need to scale. The company’s best-in-class platform, in combination with its significant retail industry expertise, will help us continue to fuel our growth, deepen customer loyalty, and operate at the highest level of efficiency.”
Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity, commends Forever 21 for tackling the massive challenge of unifying all its digital and transactional data into a 360-degree customer view. “With Amperity, Forever 21 will be able to deliver the level of excellence consumers expect from brands on a daily basis,” Padgett says. “We are proud to work with such a forward-thinking partner to help take its customer experience to the next level.”
Freshworks Drives Digital Transformation at Texas A&M University
Customer service software company Freshworks is helping drive digital transformation at higher education institutions across the nation, including Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, with the Freshservice solution supporting students, faculty, and staff with transit and parking-related inquiries during the school year. Aside from Texas A&M, other schools that have selected Freshservice to power their IT support and service management needs include Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington; and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The digital transformation of higher education is at hand, according to the nonprofit association Educause. Yet organizations face unique obstacles like tight budgets, strict regulations, and highly sensitive data. Texas A&M University’s Transportation Services department uses Freshservice to manage IT service tickets, transit-related inquiries, and other related inquiries received during football season. Freshservice has helped the department modernize and automate IT processes quickly, enabling it to provide students, faculty, staff, and visitors with more efficient support.
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“All higher-ed institutions are on a digital transformation journey. Freshworks has helped us centralize our IT support and improve our ticket resolution time by more than 30%,” says James Williams, system administrator for transportation services at Texas A&M. “The platform’s flexibility and scalability have allowed us to customize it to our unique needs and support our diverse user base.”
Freshservice features specifically tailored for higher education include multi-campus support, self-service portals, asset management, and incident management. The cloud-based software integrates with popular communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, enabling IT teams to collaborate and resolve issues quickly. Freshservice is also customizable, with a range of configuration options available to meet the specific needs of institutions and automate services for different departments, campuses, and colleges.
“Higher education institutions face unique challenges dealing with small teams and budgets when undergoing digital transformation,” says Prakash Ramamurthy, chief product officer at Freshworks. “Freshworks’ service management platform helps universities to do this by providing a unified student, faculty, and staff experience while enabling them to maintain the security and privacy of data for different departments.”
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
