Once high-flying CRM software developer E.piphany Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., will announce Tuesday E.piphany Service 6.0, completing its Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based suite of applications, a move it hopes will go a long way towards reversing a long-term downward trend in revenues.
E.piphany Service 6.0, the descendant of software E.piphany acquired from Octane Software two years ago, has been rewritten in J2EE, joining E.piphany apps for marketing campaign management and analytics and sales on that platform. It now shares the same user interface as those applications and can more easily share data with them as well as other applications written in J2EE or with Java APIs.
In addition, Service 6.0 includes new WYSIWYG tools designed to ease application configuration and management for both contact center application developers and designers as well as managers and administrators.
End user features include a technology called Intelligent Dialogs for scripting customer interactions through a guided user interface and a business rules engine called Intelligent Business Rules, tailored to eliminate paper procedure manuals.
But the most compelling feature of E.piphany Service 6.0 is its new architecture, completing the companys vision of interconnected sales, marketing and customer service applications. Customer service reps using Service 6.0 will have a single view of customers from all of those interactions and will be able to offer them cross-sell opportunities.
Kelly Maddern, senior director of IT and online at Hard Rock Café International in Orlando, Fla., said she expects that her companys customer service agents will be able to offer customers of the companys online merchandise store cross-sell opportunities once E.piphany Service is in place. Hard Rock uses the existing version of the software plus E.piphanys marketing campaign management and analytics apps.
“We have a lot of different data sources,” said Maddern. “The ability to put everything in one place for our customer service agents to deal with, rather than having to go back and forth between applications will allow them to deal with customers in a more effective way.”
Maddern also said the J2EE architecture was “key” as it will ease integration with other applications, such as the in-house designed point-of-sale software the Web site uses.
Pricing for E.piphany Service 6.0, expected to be available Aug. 30, starts at $250,000. Its targeted to Global 1000-2000 organizations, E.piphany officials said.
Related Stories:
- Interview: Suite Fuses CRM Functions
- E.piphany Undaunted By $2 Billion Loss