The Market

Parsing unstructured data remains a buzzed-about problem area in the enterprise feedback management (EFM) market, and with the field becoming increasingly competitive, we witnessed a significant shake-up on our leaderboard this year. While most EFM systems can easily process traditional customer feedback and offer businesses value, data collected from social media and multimedia channels still presents a challenge. Difficult to attribute and analyze, unstructured data is often of limited use to those tasked with managing customer experience, leaving vendors racing to develop solutions that will bridge the gap between feedback management and customer experience and ultimately make the data more actionable. 

The Leaders

On our leaderboard for the first time since 2009, Confirmit secured its spot with a 4.0 in the company direction category and 3.7s for depth of functionality and customer satisfaction. The company made a name for itself after acquiring CustomerStat from MarketTools last year; the acquisition “moved it from a generalist to a specialist in satisfaction and loyalty tracking for service organizations,” John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research at the Technology Services Industry Association, says. Confirmit has also seen tremendous growth stemming from its partner community, which is “quite mature among its competitors,” Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, adds.

A newcomer to the leaderboard, Medallia worked its way up after being named our One to Watch last year. Earning a 3.6 for company direction, Medallia is “growing like gangbusters and is drawing the attention of partners looking to complete their customer centricity offerings,” Wang says. The company is garnering attention among analysts as it builds up a solid list of clients across the travel, financial services, insurance, and retail verticals and continues to keep those clients happy, earning it a score of 3.8 in the customer satisfaction category. The company also scored a respectable 3.7 for depth of functionality. 

Though Vovici shared our coveted winner’s crown with IBM last year, the vendor slipped on our leaderboard this year after dropping from a 3.8 to a 3.2 in depth of functionality. Vovici also received a 3.7 in company direction, which Wang says reflects the confusion customers are feeling after Verint’s acquisition of the company. “Customers who purchased Vovici are happy with the solution but unclear on the overall Verint strategy,” he says. After purchasing Kana Software in January, Verint may be making a move toward strengthening its commitment to customer experience. Though it’s too early to tell, the Kana acquisition might affect Verint’s Vovici strategy in the long run, some analysts agree. 

The Winner

Edging out the competition, IBM returned as our winner for the second year in a row for its SPSS Data Collection—a solution that enables organizations to collect and manage attitudinal data, eventually combining it with other customer information to improve support processes. With SPSS Data Collection 7, IBM made improvements with integration to Cognos, and delivered updates to its mobile interviewing capability, call center history report feature, and survey galleries. “Overall, the product has improved in ease of use. Customers are pleased with the flexibility in adding pluggable interface components and HTML 5 customization capabilities,” Wang says. As a result, the company performed well across the board, scoring a 4.1 for company direction versus last year’s 3.6, and earning 4.0s for customer satisfaction and depth of functionality.

IBM made a series of announcements in the first quarter of 2014, all of which point to the company’s continued commitment to big data analytics. In January, IBM introduced its new Watson Group, revealing plans to invest more than $1 billion into leveraging Watson’s power for analytics and big data, and committed roughly $1.2 billion to expanding its cloud network. The company’s busy Q1 is testament to “how important IBM is taking the world of knowledge, insight, and big data,” Paul Greenberg, president of The 56 Group, told CRM in January.  —Maria Minsker

ONE TO WATCH

Dropping off of our leaderboard by a small margin this year, Allegiance has been busy “beefing up its management ranks” and collaborating with other key players, Wang says. Partnerships with Adobe, Clarabridge, and Salesforce.com, for example, have helped the company capitalize on the movement toward customer centricity, and earned Allegiance a score of 3.6 in the customer satisfaction category. Some analysts, however, express concern over company direction, for which the company received a 3.5. “They are moving slowly, and they are also moving out of the messaging around EFM,” Greenberg says. Still, the company received an impressive 4.1 for depth of functionality and is a company to keep an eye on.  —M.M.