ViewsCast updates CRM
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ViewsCast offers companies an easy way to create surveys that can be deployed over the web, phone or email. But is anyone buying it?
Customer relationship management (CRM) software has become a central element of many company's business strategies, but often they only have historical data to work with, such as a customer's transaction history. "It's very difficult for a company to know what customers think of doing business with them today," say ViewsCast CEO Roy Sheridan.
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ViewsCast's software is designed to overcome that by enabling organisations to create surveys that can be deployed over the web, telephone or email to canvass opinion on such matters. Moreover, according to Sheridan, ViewsCast's automated surveys are easy to set-up and can offer companies significant savings compared with more traditional research techniques.
According to ViewsCast, its technology is particularly well suited for use in call centres, where it can be used for conducting market research and for human resources purposes. For example, a company can use ViewsCast to find out how its employees think its customer relationship management strategies actually work in practice.
When deployed in a call centre setting, says ViewsCast, surveys can be answered via telephone keypads and companies can also choose to let consumers leave a voice recording for certain questions.
The company is considering adding digital TV to the deployment options, as well as offering more, different methods for customers to participate, such as via mobile phone short message services (SMS). It is also considering licensing speech-to-text technology for use in its software.
The system is available via a hosted service, which costs between £2,000 (€3,283) and £3,000 (€4,924) a month, depending on the number of surveys the customer wishes to conduct.
Potential customers can also choose to license ViewsCast's software, with an entry price of around £70,000 (€115,000). Although the company's ultimate goal is to generate up to half of its revenues through software licensing, only one of its 30 customers in the UK and Asia, licences it today.
ViewsCast has raised £1.3 million (€2.13m) in funding and is currently raising more than £1 million (€1.64m) in its third round. In Asia, it has partnerships with Asia Market Intelligence, one of the largest market research organisations in the region. ViewsCast is also in talks to enter the US and European markets through strategic alliances.
