CRM -- CDC adds customer feedback |
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By Barney Beal, News Director
19 Feb 2007 | SearchCRM.com |
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CDC Software Corp. has become the latest CRM software vendor to buy its way into enterprise feedback management systems.
Hong Kong-based CDC, which acquired Pivotal in 2004, last week added to its portfolio Respond Group Ltd., a European provider of customer feedback software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
U.K.-based Respond serves 800 customers, primarily in the financial services industry, including AXA Insurance and Barclays. Respond will provide opportunities to cross-sell and upsell CDC's Pivotal CRM application to its existing financial services customer base. Respond also maintains a footprint in government organizations. The acquisition is a way for CDC to build out its industry-specific capabilities with its more than 5,000 customers.
"We are clearly demonstrating that CDC Software is not taking the slash-and-burn approach of the typical consolidators," Eric Musser, president of CDC Software, said in a statement. "Rather, we are creating real value by expanding the depth of our industry applications through investments in organic innovation, as well as targeted acquisitions."
The acquisition will also bring customer surveying tools to the Pivotal product, an emerging CRM trend. In December, Witness Systems made a similar move, acquiring Amae Software and combining Web, email and interactive voice response (IVR) surveys with its call-center management software.
"This is one of the nascent areas of CRM," said Liz Roche, managing partner with Stamford, Conn.-based Customers Inc. "Enterprises are still trying to figure out what they want to know. Capturing the feedback and information is something they know they should be doing, and they get the concept of multi-channel, but the hard part is rationalizing that and injecting it back into a business process."
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