Source: AIT
AIT announces the latest version of Portrait, its industry leading Customer Interaction Management software that helps companies dramatically improve the quality of their interactions with customers, while increasing efficiency and generating significant new revenues.
The new version of Portrait introduces Intelligent Prompting(tm) for the first time, along with a wide range of new Process Frameworks and Application Profiles that contain common business processes so that customers can deploy business applications faster.
The product has been successfully implemented by the Nationwide Building Society which has supplemented outbound campaigns with an ability to initiate prompted conversations for sales opportunities on inbound contacts. The system has already resulted in a significant return on investment through increased product sales.
Intelligent Prompting
Intelligent Prompts harness real-time customer data to invoke personalised interactions which are tailored to the customer, the campaign and the moment. They guide customer-facing staff in branches or call centres to cross- sell and up sell, while showing them pro-actively how to improve service. Critically, the same logic can also now be used to drive self-service screens either on the web, via kiosks or ATMs.
According to Nick Randall, AIT's CEO, the new functionality derives from Portrait's ability to deliver a comprehensive, real-time view of the customer and a powerful process and workflow engine which is Portrait Foundation(tm).
"The more you know about customers, the better you can serve them and the more effectively you can sell and market to them," he said. "Intelligent Prompts enable companies to make relevant offers and guide contact centre or branch staff to offer new products, suggest a better service or collect important data. They also determine when it's best to avoid an offer: it's probably best not to try to sell something new to a customer if he or she has just complained. Portrait now allows that type of intelligence to be built in."
"We can do it because Portrait lets business users create and deploy automated processes rapidly rather than the weeks or months it takes with most enterprise software," he continued. "Portrait manages the process flow across every channel and across the entire organisation, as well as orchestrating processes across disparate systems. That means business users are confident that their systems allow them to create, try and modify business processes easily, accelerating time to market for new products."
Portrait Frameworks and Profiles
The other major new development in Portrait is the introduction of pre-defined, automated Processes Frameworks(tm) for what AIT calls 'the five key customer interaction zones':
winning new customers (customer recruitment); getting them on board (handling applications); helping them buy more (marketing to them); serving them more efficiently (improved customer service); and keeping them for as long as possible (preventing churn).
"Nearly every business has to do these things well to flourish," said Randall. "Portrait's new Frameworks encapsulate the key business processes for these tasks, providing a toolkit of re-useable business logic and software components that speed the deployment of the most common processes."
Portrait Framework modules include: Portrait OneView(tm), Portrait Workflow(tm), Portrait LeadManagement(tm) Portrait CaseManagement(tm). Portrait ComplaintManagement(tm) and Portrait Quote(tm).
In addition, new Portrait Application Profiles(tm) are pre-configured templates for other common activities. To date, most of these are focussed on the retail financial services industry - for example Portrait Loan Apply(tm), Portrait Mortgage Apply(tm), Portrait Lost Wallet(tm) and more will be available for other sectors as time goes by.
The Framework Library will continue to grow and each process is supported by the complete range of Channel Enablers, so they can be deployed in one channel or across all channels, automatically.
Compliance
Randall also pointed to developments in Portrait's Configuration Suite that help business users with one of their most pressing challenges: compliance.
"New regulations can keep banks, insurance companies, utilities, telecommunications companies and other service providers on the back foot - forcing them to pour resources into complying instead of innovating," he said. "One of Portrait's key strengths is the ability to cope with changes to the business environment while ensuring compliance."
"Banks and others frequently let their customers down because their processes break down," added Randall. "Portrait lets users quickly create and deploy best-practice processes. A lost wallet or customer complaint, for example, can be automatically tracked through to resolution, rather than depending on inefficient manual processes. And every process, even those involving third party partners, is auditable to ensure that it complies with your own policies and with all relevant regulations.
"This compliance advantage alone can justify an investment in Portrait even before the returns of automation are factored in."