Tailored to Success

Personalization is at the core of business for Genesys Conferencing. The company is a global provider of integrated Web, voice, and video conferencing. Whether connecting clients for small-scale team meetings or hosting large, high-profile online events, Genesys recognizes the importance of customized technology. The company conducts daily demos for its prospects. Once a client signs up on the Web site, a confirmation email is sent with the date and time of the client's demo, as is a reminder one hour before the scheduled appointment. Afterwards, the client will receive one of two follow-up emails--either a thank-you message, if he attended the demo, or an email stating that the customer missed the appointment, asking him to reschedule. Until recently this process was done manually, with one person responsible for uploading and executing the information necessary to send the mailings. "Analyzing whether a prospect attended in order to send the appropriate email was just too time-consuming," says Kristi Rieger, global marketing communications manager for Genesys Conferencing. Fortunately, Eloqua's hosted software cleaned up all of the messy manual work, providing Genesys Conferencing with an automated follow-up process. The software also localized email campaigns for international offices. By automatically updating customer branding on sales and marketing collateral, the Eloqua Marketing Conversion and Program Builder solutions have accellerated the launch of new services. It has enabled Genesys Conferencing to track and analyze campaign effectiveness and prospect behavior, as well as to route leads to the appropriate salespeople. Rieger notes that the solution's ability to integrate with the company's existing CRM tool has been an added plus. Emails can be matched to customer usage rates, meaning that clients will receive personalized messages that accurately reflect the number of meetings they have missed or attended. Users can also customize automated responses at each point of contact along the marketing and sales cycle. "On a day-to-day basis we find new ways to use [Eloqua]," Rieger says. "Our use has definitely increased." The use of templates also has contributed to a significant savings in the time and effort involved in sending out bulk emails. Genesys Conferencing has estimated a total annual cost savings of more than $53,000 thanks to the solution, and a full-time employee time savings of nearly 15 percent to date. In the future Genesys Conferencing will be able to use Web-site behavior to more effectively tailor offers for its daily demos. Rieger says that the company is looking rather seriously at integrating Eloqua's Hypersite solution--a program in which customers and prospects receive a postcard with a Genesys Conferencing Web-site link that includes the person's name in the URL address. "Personalization is important," Reiger says, expressing sensitivity to the unrelenting prevalence of spam email. "People are more likely to visit a site that addresses them personally." Related articles: Real Estate Company Breaks Sales Record Using CRM Customers Are Your Company's Greatest Asset

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