SPSS Inc. this week will roll out its PredictiveMarketing analytic application, making a technology originally developed as an add-on to Siebel Systems Inc.s CRM applications available as a stand-alone product.
A longtime provider of data mining and statistical analysis software, SPSS is continuing its efforts to reach less-technical business users with this release. The Chicago-based company first announced an analytical customer relationship management business unit nearly two years ago. It released PredictiveMarketing for Siebel late last year.
Although users of the stand-alone version of PredictiveMarketing will not be required to run Siebel software, they will need to do integration work to use it with non-Siebel CRM applications, SPSS officials said.
PredictiveMarketing is designed to help marketers improve customer targeting and increase response rates by finding patterns of customer behavior in data generated by operational CRM systems.
Results that predict customer response rates, purchasing behavior and churn are delivered visually through a Web-based interface. These results incorporate techniques for determining how recently customer contact was made, how frequently it occurs and how much customers spend as well as add multidimensional customer behavior and demographic characteristics.
PredictiveMarketing includes configurable templates for building these analyses. It can also be used with Clementine, SPSS flagship data mining workbench for more advanced analytics.
BankFinancial Federal Savings Bank, in Hazel Crest, Ill., plans to deploy SPSS PredictiveMarketing to manage customer churn, according to William Connerty, assistant vice president for market research at the bank. Churn—customers continually opening and closing accounts—is an ongoing issue for the bank, which sees 1,000 to 1,500 accounts closed per month, Connerty said. The application will identify customers deemed at risk for closing their accounts, then alert the bank. Branch managers will then contact the customer to attempt to retain the customers business, Connerty said.
SPSS is “providing an easier interface and a more automated interface to deploy useful market research and data mining information,” Connerty said. “I dont have five people on staff to crank out data mining. The key is the operational efficiencies were gaining.”
Pricing for PredictiveMarketing starts at $80,000.