Parature Spring '11 Boosts Social CRM Competition

The "Wild West" of social CRM has become more competitive with Parature Spring 'll, designed to leave a better impression on customers and engage with target audiences. Parature's Duke Chung said Parature differentiates by integrating social channels that customers prefer to use. Client Vovici said Parature helps resolves issues quickly.

Cloud-based customer engagement just got more competitive. That's because Parature has unveiled its latest social CRM Relevant Products/Services software.

Parature Spring '11 is designed to help customer support teams leave a better impression on customers and engage with the company's target audiences through vehicles like Twitter, Lithium communities, Facebook, chat, phone, e-mail and, of course, the web. The new version lets companies monitor, manage and resolve service issues across those channels.

Even as Duke Chung, chief strategy officer for Parature, launches Spring '11 and prepares to roll out Parature for Facebook as a stand-alone product, he sees plenty of competition on the horizon.

The Wild West of Social Software

"The social-software marketplace is still undefined to a large part -- it's like the Wild West out there," Chung said. "There are hundreds of companies that position themselves as social-software providers. Companies looking to make a purchase have to educate themselves so thoroughly and then make the decision that best fits their strategies and organization."

As Chung sees it, this process can be exhausting, confusing and lead to folks wanting to wait and see how the game pans out and who emerges as the leader. He is betting that by integrating social channels into the experience, Parature will stand out from the social-applications crowd.

With Spring '11, Parature expands its direct social-engagement model to Twitter and Lithium. The new version also offers auto-suggest and improved search features. Customers can automatically receive auto-suggested answers while submitting tickets. Parature also beefed up the analytics; developed the ability to view, report and automatically remove profane content from a Facebook page for brand security Relevant Products/Services; and added rich media support and unified management of multiple Facebook pages.

"Since last year, Parature has been focused on integrating social networks and channels into its overarching cloud-based support solutions," Chung said. "The reason being that as the web evolves to be more social and collaborative, consumers and customers are looking to their preferred channel to find the answers they need. Facebook has over 500 million members, and members spend hours at a time on the network. Customers don't want to leave their preferred channel to head elsewhere to get the answers they are looking for."

Resolving Issues More Quickly

Vovici, a survey Relevant Products/Services-software and enterprise Relevant Products/Services-feedback-solutions company, is tapping into Parature to meet the increasing demand it sees for direct communication with its clients through social channels.

"Vovici is all about customers; it's not only our business Relevant Products/Services but our internal philosophy as well," said Nancy Porte, Vovici's vice president of customer experience. "Delivering service with Parature's customer-support software enables our customers to quickly and independently resolve issues or directly engage with our support team via chat or a social network, which helps us differentiate ourselves, retain existing customers, and attract new ones."