E-Commerce News: Deals: Genesys Acquires Real Time Capabilities With Informiam Buy

"Organizations that are striving to improve customer loyalty and customer satisfaction find this is difficult to do without good key performance indicators that measure effectiveness over efficiency," said Sheryl Kingstone, a Yankee Group analyst. "Informiam will accelerate the Genesys ability to deliver on its Dynamic Contact Center vision."

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Genesys is expanding its feature set with the cash acquisition of Informiam, a customer service performance management software provider.

The new addition will enhance the company's reporting and analytic capabilities. Financial terms of the acquisition of the privately held company were not released. Informiam, which is based in Atlanta and has a research and development operation in Toronto, Canada, will become a business unit within Genesys's Enterprise Business Group.

Informiam's application analyzes operational data in real time and then synthesizes it into actionable information for agents, supervisors and/or business managers, depending on who is the defined user. The application also reduces the so-called "issues identification time," thus speeding resolution -- a key reason for its acquisition, according to Genesys.

"In customer service, most organizations understand the advantage of having better insights to manage their operations in real time," stated Paul Segre, Genesys CEO.

"However, these are complex environments where it is difficult to quickly identify problems and potential improvements, and take immediate action to sustain service levels," he said.

Beyond the Base

The acquisition is part of Genesys' larger play of moving beyond offering just straight-up contact center functionality, Ken Landoline, an analyst with the Yankee Group, told CRM Buyer.

In many ways, Landoline added, the acquisition is analogous to Verint's acquisition of Witness Systems and Opus, albeit on a far smaller scale. Witness Systems and Opus, Landoline noted, "were two major players in the same field. Acquiring them gave Verint complementary features to add to their core strengths."

"Most companies in this space are moving to add complementary features that help clients get the proverbial 360 degree view of the customer," he said.

Dynamic Contact Centers

Genesys calls this concept "Dynamic Contact Centers" -- unified service centers that improve the strategic value of customer service operations and automatically optimize operations.

The Informiam's ability to bring in real-time information across multiple channels will be key to its goals, said Sheryl Kingstone, a Yankee Group analyst.

"Organizations that are striving to improve customer loyalty and customer satisfaction find this is difficult to do without good key performance indicators that measure effectiveness over efficiency," she said. "Informiam will accelerate the Genesys ability to deliver on its Dynamic Contact Center vision."