While the wireless communications industry is hung up on getting more information to people no matter where they are, Categoric Software is taking a different approach, allowing customers to choose what information they receive and how they receive it, filtering out the extra information they don’t want or need.
“We believe people are getting too much information,” said John Virden, vice president of sales and marketing for North America at Categoric. “People only need information that is most important to them, and in a time frame that allows them to react to that information. The receiver of information has to decide what the important information is and how it will be received.”
Categoric’s proactive stance to limit the flow of information includes its recently released Xalerts 5.0 software, allowing users to define what information they receive, how they receive it, when they receive it and where they receive it. Xalerts provides alert notification via e-mail message, pager, cell phone, fax, Internet or personal digital assistant.
The software, designed to be used as a front-office or back-office application, integrates with corporate data, portals and personal productivity suites. The integration enables an organization’s customers, staff or partners to manage and personalize user-alerting profiles from their Wireless Application Protocol phones or on the Web.
Virden noted that Xalerts adds value to its back-office partners’ offerings, allowing them to resell applications to their customers.
For front-office applications, Xalerts features an escalation program, that enables it to take different, escalating actions if an alert is not responded to within a given time frame. For example, if a customer complaint is not answered in 15 minutes, the service can be programmed to send the complaint to different individuals who can handle the situation.
Categoric also noted that the software can be programmed to prompt the user for action. If a customer wants to be informed when a new product hits the market, Xalerts can notify the user when the event happens, and prompt the user if they want to purchase the product immediately.
In addition to helping individuals keep track of what information they receive, Xalerts’ Trend Analysis allows retail businesses to keep track of what items customers are being notified about. If there is an indication that a lot of attention is being paid to certain products, a retailer can be notified with an alert, allowing them time to take appropriate action.
“Businesses must realize that to effectively manage communications in this over-communicated society means giving their customers and staff the absolute ability to control what they receive,” said Thorgeir Einarsson, chief executive officer and co-founder of Categoric. “We’re shifting information distribution from being sender-centric, to now being receiver-centric-giving the power back to the individual.”
