The 2017 CRM Service Rising Stars: Jive Talking—and Listening
Since its founding in 2001, Jive Software has made a name for itself with software that applies powerful technology to help employees, partners, and customers work better together. A number of acquisitions—including Filtrbox, OffiSync, Producteev, Meetings.io, CLARA, and StreamOnce—have fueled the company’s growth over the years. Following each deal, Jive proved adept at integrating the companies’ capabilities into its own platform.
But while a large part of its growth has come from acquisitions, more notable has been Jive’s organic product development, with some of its best product innovations appearing in the past year.
The vendor’s most significant release, Jive for Customer Engagement, launched in March 2016, uses behavioral analytics to help companies take action across the entire customer life cycle. Its interface, which can accommodate images and videos, features an events center complete with a performance dashboard that tracks the number of attendees and engagement, as well as post-event success metrics.
Jive for Customer Engagement can increase call deflection and decrease support costs by providing Q&A features and helping companies connect customers with relevant content and experts. Key integrations were built with Salesforce.com, Marketo, Zendesk, and ServiceNow, and expanded Jive-x analytics were incorporated to help identify influencers and trending topics while optimizing communities.
“Businesses need to solve a wider range of problems, working with more kinds of information and more kinds of people, at a velocity that was once unimaginable,” said Elisa Steele, CEO of Jive Software, in a statement upon the release. “More than ever, success demands a collaborative work environment. It comes from tapping the work styles, brainpower, and experience of every employee, regardless of role or location. It comes from taking an outside-in view, closely engaging with partners and channeling the voice of customers to align company actions to customer needs.”
Another significant release was Jive for Employee Engagement, an HR platform that features sentiment analysis, an engagement dashboard, and tools for employee recognition. Subsequent updates to the solution included simplified content publishing for blogs, images, and videos, auto-subscribed targeted news streams, and a configurable news page, as well as personalized email digests.
Jive also launched social listening integration with Sysomos, enabling companies to listen and respond to more than a billion conversations online in real time and then route the relevant conversations directly in their Jive-x communities. “We know that the amplification of social conversations directly correlates with the overall reputation of a brand,” said Mark Young, chief marketing officer at Sysomos, in a statement. “Our integration with Jive Software allows users to monitor conversations on social media and proactively engage with prospects, customers, and partners in real time. Ultimately, the combined solutions increase brand awareness and affinity and foster the customers’ journey with the brand.”
Jive also optimized the processes in many of its internal and external community products. Added features include peer-to-peer recognition, improved SEO, and global translation capabilities through popular translation services like Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, and Lionbridge.
This past year also saw the vendor introduce Identity Service, which brings people, teams, and communities together in a secure business network that provides greater control over user accounts. Additionally, Jive-x support centers now integrate with ServiceNow’s ticket management system, providing community members with a single experience to search existing knowledge, ask the community for help, and work with support personnel.
“We continue to innovate employee and customer engagement experiences that are at the core of a great business, whether by connecting 30,000 employees across the world, improving collaboration among a small team, or creating stronger relationships with millions of prospects, customers, and partners,” said Ofer Ben-David, executive vice president of engineering at Jive, at the 2016 JiveWorld user conference.
JIVE
CEO: Elisa Steele
Founded: 2001
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Revenue: $195.8 million
Employees: 658
Customer Count: N/A