Monday Morning Impact – February 22

New Report Details Customer Experience Issues

In its Q4 Channel Pulse Report, 360insights, has taken a deep dive into customer experience (CX), based on a survey of more than 1,000 North American senior executives from a range of industries who directly oversee channel management.

“While the CX bar is clearly rising across industries, the struggle for differentiation remains a key theme, along with evolving juxtaposition of customer acquisition vs. retention,” said Paul Yantus, VP of Marketing at 360insights. “All-in-all, however, channel involvement in moving CX initiatives forward is essential to success,”

The overwhelming majority of respondents (94 percent) agreed that CX is a crucial part of their marketing strategy. When asked to share the biggest CX benefits, customer acquisition fell behind customer retention, with 69 percent of respondents believing that CX is more valuable for retaining customers.

More than half of respondents (52 percent) named Competitive Differentiation as their primary motive for upping their CX focus, while 71 percent rated their CX as slightly ahead of their closest competitors, with less than one-fifth significantly differentiating themselves from the competition.

Nearly 90 percent of respondents believe that channel enablement plays a big role in achieving great CX, while 59 percent said their channel cares as much about CX as they do and a quarter calling their channels “passionate advocates” of CX.

Most survey respondents are still leveraging very traditional methods to measure CX, including Surveys (33 percent), Customer Engagement Metrics (26 percent) and QBRs (23 percent). By updating measurement tools, companies can more effectively prioritize CX as a key KPI.

Based in Whitby, Ontario, 360insights is a global channel incentives company offering rebate processing, SPIFF programs, co-op advertising and channel analytics.

Channel Impact^®
The report covers today’s most critical CX themes in-depth, highlighting potential challenges and opportunities for market leaders.

Sumo Logic Deepens Customer Training Program with New SIEM Certifications

Sumo Logic, a Redwood City, California-based SIEM vendor, has announced the addition of two new free certifications in its training program, to help customers leverage real-time data analytics across Observability and Cloud SIEM.

“Since the launch of our certification program over 14,000 users have earned more than 25,000 free certifications,” said Dione Hedgpeth, Chief Customer Officer at Sumo Logic. The appetite for learning how to harness the power of real-time data analytics has never been higher, and we are very excited to expand our certification program to include Observability and Cloud SIEM, to help our customers do more with their data while becoming pros in these new and emerging technologies.”

In addition to the new training tracks on Observability and Cloud SIEM options, Sumo Logic also offers free training in Fundamentals, Security and Compliance, Advanced Metrics with Kubernetes, Search Mastery, Administration, and Metrics Mastery.

Certifications and training programs are available through virtual workshops at various times around the globe. In addition, users learn at their own pace and can take self-paced virtual certifications that can be performed in short periods of time.

According to the company, more than 700 companies have participated in the training program since its inception in 2017.

Channel Impact^®
Sumo Logic’s multi-level certification program is intended to provide users with the knowledge, skills and competencies to maximize investments in the Sumo Logic platform.

AppDirect Launches System Integrator Partner Program

AppDirect, a San Francisco-based company that offers a subscription commerce platform, has launched its new System Integrator Partner Program designed to provide system integrators with tools to help accelerate time to market with new digital sales strategies and achieve faster ROI. Support includes referral fees, technical and sales training, documentation, platform sandboxes and access to co-marketing materials.

“System integrators are essential partners for enterprises as they navigate an increasingly complex digital world where IT has to be seamlessly integrated and automated to gain competitive advantage,” said Daniel Saks, co-founder and co-CEO of AppDirect. “With our new partner program, AppDirect provides the connective tissue for SIs to support complex subscription commerce initiatives with an open, agnostic, and extensible platform.”

AppDirect’s subscription commerce platform is intended to remove the complexity of building a recurring business model by enabling integrators to sell any product through any channel, on any device—as a service. The company’s claims a customer list that includes Jaguar Land Rover, Comcast, Sage, Keller Williams, ADP, and Deutsche Telekom.

Channel Impact^®
With more diverse expertise and specialization, existing customers will have access to more vertical- and regional-specific advisors. AppDirect also sees this as an opportunity to reach new customers and markets globally and provide even more hands-on guidance with planning, implementation and management of marketplace services, supplementing its own services offering. The combined offering is expected to empower system integrators with support and capabilities to guide customers through digital transformation journeys and remove the complexity of subscription commerce.