Working with IBM Corp, it is offering its customers complete retail bundles comprising software, hardware, plus financing if necessary, geared towards helping retailers increase customer loyalty and reduce costs.

One of the difficulties retailers face is identifying their most valuable customers in order to offer increased service levels or target them with appropriate offers and beyond that to interact with them in a bid to retain their custom. While data mining has been used in the past, it has tended to be coarse grained, identifying customer groups rather than individuals, with the analysis carried out off-line resulting in missed opportunities.

With its bundles Blue Martini hopes to address the real time, personalized aspect of retail marketing and sales. By offering technology for all channels, including the under-addressed point of sale operations within bricks and mortar outlets, the company, which is headquartered in San Mateo, California, can take CRM to the edges of the enterprise.

There are four bundles on offer, each of which combines Blue Martini’s Retail CRM applications with IBM’s technology offerings, namely the eServer pSeries hardware platform and WebSphere Portal. The Clienteling bundles provides for automated implementation of retail best practice of high-touch customer service and provides sales associates with the ability to target customers with timely messages, targeted promotions, event details and suggested merchandise through store-based kiosks, point of sale (POS) devices, personal computers, and wireless handheld devices. Blue Martini is one of the few CRM vendors to concentrate on bringing retail outlets into the CRM environment.

It also offers the Gift Registry bundle, which features a multi-channel wish list that is synchronized between the store, web site, kiosks, wireless devices and call centers in real time, integration with wireless devices; Loyalty Marketing which is designed to enhance loyalty programs by automating event-driven loyalty actions; and the Relationship Marketing version enables marketing and merchandising teams to roll out event-triggered, multi-step campaigns across all sales channels

Blue Martini is one of several CRM vendors that are struggling to make headway in the current environment. However, it has two things in its favor. One is its retail focus, the second is its partnership with IBM, which was ramped up throughout 2002, and was partially designed to boost its credibility. On current showing, it is obvious that it is more than a marketing alliance.

Source: Computerwire