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June 3, 2020

Open Platform Provides Context for Customer Engagement

Staff report

As storefronts are shuttered, malls emptied and most of the retail sector moves online, the split-second requirements of customer engagement that will generate a transaction are emerging as a key differentiator.

That reality has fueled efforts by analytics vendors to make those transactions as “frictionless” as possible in order to attract and retain customers, most cooped-up for weeks under state stay-at-home orders.

Among those looking to provide retailers with insights into “customer experience” is Redpoint Global, which unveiled a new platform this week designed to merge real-time data, analytics and orchestration. The platform’s value proposition is providing retailers with “contextual understanding of each customer” in order to turn a product or brand search into a transaction.

“Customer experience has become the most important battleground for competitive differentiation, and now brands must be able to deliver that experience digitally,” said Dale Renner, CEO and co-founder of Redpoint Global, the marketing software developer based in Wellesley Hills, Mass.

The rgOne platform takes an “open garden” approach, a marketing technology designed to preserve legacy systems and data while avoiding rigid models. By contrast, traditional “walled garden” software limits business users to pre-defined technologies and pre-built data models.

The open framework then generates a “Golden Record” of individual consumers that is constantly updated. The goal is to provide retailers with real-time context for each customer transaction.

Redpoint’s platform integrates machine learning to come up with personalized “next-best” actions to smooth a product search and hasten the clicking of the “Buy” button.

The platform’s real-time capabilities are touted as providing the “proper context” for individual customers, depending on the item or service they seek. The system also generates personalized messages and helps customers navigate transactions.

In a nod to recent, high-profile data breaches among retailers, the platform also offers hybrid and private deployment options to safeguard consumer data.

“We believe in the power of harnessing consumer data to understand customer context in the moment and deliver experiences that are helpful, relevant, timely and personal,” added George Corugedo, the company’s CTO and co-founder.

Along with retailers, Redpoint Global said several healthcare organizations are also using its platform, including the scheduling of doctor’s appointments.

The company said its open garden framework, along the lines of a “customer engagement hub,” aggregates data and operational controls as a single platform. Then, the best “point solutions” are linked to the hub regardless of data type, model or velocity.

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