Digital platforms have opened up a whole new world for businesses, both big and small, to thrive in the new world. For businesses around the world, customer has become the focal point of their universe. ‘How do we get to know our customer in the best possible way?’ is a question every enterprise is trying to answer today. In times like this, a team of two serial entrepreneurs and CRM experts David Trice and Eric Bleke have created a Relationship Cloud™, ENGAGE.cx that re-defines customer relationship management (CRM). A brief look at ENGAGE.cx – The answer that e-commerce firms might be looking for !
A 360 Degree View Of Customers in Real Time
The online world has opened up huge avenues for businesses. All you need to do to reach customers is to put up your business online and you are visible to an audience across the world. However, it is also true that with each customer comes a new uncertainty. Today consumers can interact with businesses is so many different ways – through online channels, calls, SMSs, events, by walking into the store and so on, which has led to creating a lot of information about the customer – all of which is scattered. In the digital age, as the opportunities to reach more and more customers maximize, it is becoming more and more difficult to really get to know each one of your customers and this is really a big problem !
Having worked in the CRM industry for his whole career,David Trice, always found it difficult to take his CRM software to the consumer facing companies.The essence of that problem was that consumer behavior is so adhoc and so consumer driven as compared to a B2B CRM – which is largely internal sales force driven process to identify and march the company through a buying process. Consumers operate on their own terms and as a result the way B2C companies need to think about interacting with the consumers is way different than a B2B company. That is the essence of what ENGAGE.cx is trying to build , to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world, to understand who the consumer is but in real time because that is how consumers engage, whenever they want to and in real time and these consumer facing companies need to be prepared for that moment.
About ENGAGE.cx
ENGAGE.cx is a relationship cloud that sits on top of existing platforms and has a number of built in mechanisms to recognize customers no matter what channel they engage on. Whether they made a phone call, or they visited the website or they chatted with you or they came to you through a mobile app/ mobile website or whether they walked into your store, or met you at an event – ENGAGE.cx has a way to recognize the customers and thus get to really KNOW the CUSTOMERS.
Once the customer is recognized, ENGAGE.cx takes a look at all events and connects them in a way that makes sense so that organizations can follow up with customers through digital engagement or human to human engagement that is more informed and empowered to make an enriched conversation for both parties involved.
David Trice and Eric Bleke started building the product in 2013 with first release of the product coming out in Nov 2014. They relaunched in May 2015 with the notion of relationship cloud because it better describes what the company is trying to build for its customers.
Rock/Creek is one of the latest customers for the company. ENGAGE.cx is helping Rock/Creek identify who their main customers are so that they can create a unique experience for their main customers. Rock/Creek also has third party data that tells them about the interests of the customers. ENGAGE.cx is working with Rock/Creek to see how this third party data can be used to predict what the customers might want to buy from Rock/Creek .
The Founders
ENGAGE.cx is the brainchild of David Trice and Eric Blek.Both are serial entrepreneurs and are enthralled creating something of extreme value through their platform.
David Trice is the Co-Founder and CEO at ENGAGE.cx .Soon after beginning his career in technology, David saw how software could solve a complicated problem for business. Within a few years he co-founded Revenue Technologies to deliver price optimization software to industry leaders such as Motorola and UPS, which was acquired by Oracle in 2007.At Oracle, David’s vision and product management skills were recognized as he was tapped to lead the launch of Oracle’s next generation Fusion CRM. With a deep understanding about the capabilities and limitations of existing CRM platforms, David recognized a void in the ability for companies to deliver consistent, productive and personalized customer engagements across all channels of interaction spanning digital and physical – a void that could not be addressed by existing technologies. David teamed-up with Eric Bleke, and together they formed CX Technologies and soon after started building the ENGAGE.cx platform. David holds a BS from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Eric Bleke is the Co-Founder, President and COO at ENGAGE.cx. Eric has spent almost his entire career in early stage technology. Early on, Eric joined Enterprise Computer Systems where he helped computerize the retail building supply industry. He later continued through a series of successful entrepreneurial ventures. On the cusp of the arrival of the Internet, Eric co-founded Technologic, a pioneering Internet security firm that developed one of the first and most successful firewall appliances used by major corporations worldwide.After Technologic was acquired, it wasn’t long before he co-founded Catalysta Partners, a venture catalyst firm focused on providing leadership and strategy for early stage technology companies. In 2011, Eric joined StarPound Technologies as President / COO specifically to look for emerging market needs that could be addressed by the company’s cutting-edge multimedia development platform. Eric holds BS and MBA degrees from the University of Georgia.
Both partners have invested in the business along with a few super angels and have not taken institutional money as yet. The two believe that having a strong team which firmly believes in the product is one of the reasons for the success of the product.
The Focus Markets
In terms of verticals the company is currently focusing on consumer facing businesses such as retail, hospitality, financial services, sporting goods,healthcare and wellness.
In terms of markets, the USA is currently the primary market that the company is focusing on. ENGAGE.cx had plans to go global only in 2016 but has already been getting a lot of interest from brands in Australia, Israel, UK etc. Therefore global expansion is expected to happen sooner than they though. From the product perspective, the company seems more than ready for a global expansion.
The company is also looking at India as a big opportunity with a cloud based service that can sit on top of lot of infrastructure that already exists there.In 2016 the company will start actively looking for partners to venture into foreign markets.
Main Trend in E-commerce Going Forward
David believes that Personalization will be one of the main trends that will drive e-commerce in times to come. According to him this is one trend that will help drive maximum conversions going forward. From a marketing perspective there is going to be a push on trying to understand who the customer is and drive the next step of messaging as a result of that.
ENGAGE.cx is focused on the theme of personalization and is trying to create personal relationships and drive an enriched conversation.The company is focused on trying to build a 360 view of the customer relationship and helping businesses drive enrichment of the relationship going forward.
