2020 has required brands to have a deeper understanding of customers’ individual circumstances and a heightened sense of empathy in their customer interactions. Real-time interaction management (RTIM) is a critical component in helping brands create personalized experiences across all points of interaction.

SAS has been named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Real-Time Interaction Management, Q4 2020 for SAS Customer Intelligence 360.

In the report, Forrester says that users are “demanding – and leading vendors are delivering – even more sophisticated solutions that automate and optimize CX with real-time decisioning based on enriched data sets, experience-focused artificial intelligence (AI) that incorporates empathy and ethical best practices, and journey orchestration to ensure a mutual value exchange for both customer and brand.”

Forrester also stated in the report that “SAS’ dedication to analytical decision-making gives it a competitive edge for decision arbitration, which is the heart and soul of RTIM. It continues to bolster its RTIM capabilities for business users, like journey analytics visualization and digital experience orchestration.”

Decision arbitration uses automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand customers in real time and decide the best possible customer interaction in that moment. Customer loyalty often hinges on delivering the right response in just a few seconds. For example, if a grocery chain can recognize when a first-time user of its online ordering website is having trouble and provide help in the form of simple video instructions or a pop-up chat window, it goes a long way toward showing empathy and fostering loyalty.

In the report, Forrester said “SAS delivers RTIM via SAS Customer Intelligence 360, which provides customer engagement and digital intelligence on top of SAS Intelligent Decisioning. Many customers add these capabilities to SAS environments that include its broader range of data visualization, advanced analytics, predictive modeling, AI, IoT, and event stream processing solutions.”

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 provides adaptive planning, journey activation, and an embedded real-time decision engine – all fueled by powerful analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities helping marketers to create and extend real-time, personalized customer experiences. SAS Intelligent Decisioning complements these capabilities by extending functionality beyond marketing – allowing users to automatically define real-time next best actions at scale across the thousands of daily operational decisions that comprise the entire customer experience landscape; decisions such as determining product pricing, setting credit limits or discovering fraud.

In the Forrester evaluation, SAS received the highest scores possible in the customer recognition, innovation road map, market approach, performance and partner ecosystem criteria.

“Today more than ever, engaging with customers requires real empathy, a clear understanding of customer needs and the ability to meet customers where they are in their individual journeys,” said Lisa Loftis, Principal in the Global Customer Intelligence group at SAS. “As consumers accelerate digital behaviors and willingness to adopt AI-driven and immersive tech (chatbots, smart devices, virtual, mixed and augmented reality), marketers must rethink their data management proficiency, analytical optimization processes and automated decision-making capabilities. SAS’ positioning as a leader in this report reinforces our commitment to investing in systems that help marketers to authentically and dynamically personalize customer experiences while taking advantage of emerging technologies that facilitate engagement – particularly with SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and SAS Intelligent Decisioning.”

For more information on the future of customer experience please visit Experience 2030.

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