Allegiance and Maritz Research combine to help organizations increase customer retention, conversion, and lifetime value by infusing customer experience intelligence and actions in the DNA of business operations
ST. LOUIS and SALT LAKE CITY – November 5, 2014 – Maritz Holdings Inc. (MHI) and Allegiance Software, Inc. (Allegiance) today announced the intent to create a new independent company, MaritzCX™, through the acquisition of Allegiance and subsequent combination with Maritz Research Inc. The new stand-alone company will bring together the award-winning software innovation of Allegiance with the market research expertise of Maritz Research.
MaritzCX is forging a new path for the multi-billion dollar customer experience (CX) industry from a profitable beginning with revenue nearing $200 million in its first year. With an unmatched combination of four key elements: CX software, data and research science, deep vertical market expertise, and managed program services, MaritzCX will deliver the world’s broadest end-to-end CX software platform and services business.
“The impact of customer-churn is measured in billions of dollars, so the ability to see, sense, and act upon the experience of every customer is critical,” said Carine Clark, current president and CEO of Allegiance and future president and CEO of MaritzCX.
“As MaritzCX, we will accelerate the flow of CX intelligence from months to minutes, on an organization-wide scale. We will automate actions and influence the triggers of customer happiness over the lifetime of relationships. The MaritzCX SaaS-based software and services approach is poised for growth and will become as vital to business performance as a financial, CRM, or ERP system,” Clark added.
“In today’s connected world, learning from and engaging with our customers is critical to delivering the very best customer experience,” said Martin Burke, head of customer quality, Volkswagen Group. “We need business partners that think clearly, respond quickly and constantly innovate. I believe MaritzCX has the potential to lead the way with insight and action, research and technology – all in one place.”
“Enterprise apps such as CRM and ERP have helped companies streamline their operations, but they’re missing a key piece,” said Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner, Temkin Group. “To compete in the future, companies need an infrastructure for understanding and taking action on customer needs. This requires a strong mix of technology, analytics, operations, and market research capabilities.”
“The CX industry is growing at a staggering rate,” said Steve Maritz, chairman of MHI and the largest investor in MaritzCX. “People can interact with companies in a matter of seconds. One bad experience can influence millions of people and cost millions of dollars. Our clients are asking for more help to keep up and get ahead. As the pace of business steadily increases, we have to turn customer experience programs into operational business processes that run in real time.”
Key Facts:
• MaritzCX will have 900+ full-time employees in 18 offices and five global regions.
• MaritzCX will serve 500 clients and one million users in 100 countries speaking 60 languages.
• MaritzCX clients will range from mid-sized to the world’s largest companies.
• The MaritzCX platform – to be called the Allegiance platform – will provide flexible, self-service capabilities that allow clients to create or change reports on their own, and will integrate with Salesforce.com, Adobe, and other popular data systems.
• MaritzCX will offer a SaaS-based CX software platform that delivers a big-data architecture based on Hadoop and Elastic Search, allowing analysis and management of multiple survey programs and customer data sets in a single platform.
• The MaritzCX platform will include Spotlight® data mining; the first data mining product specifically created for the CX industry, and will offer integrated survey software, dashboards and reports, case management, and text analytics.
• MaritzCX will build on Maritz Research’s 40-year history of customer satisfaction innovation, CX strategy and design, consultative services, program management and data collection expertise.
• MaritzCX will make significant investments in product research and development to fuel fast company growth.
About MaritzCX LLC
MaritzCX believes organizations should be able to see, sense and act on the experiences and desires of every customer, at every touch point, as it happens. The company helps organizations increase customer retention, conversion and lifetime value by ingraining customer experience intelligence and action systems into the DNA of business operations. MaritzCX is the combination of the Allegiance award-winning CX platform and Maritz Research strategic consulting services. For more information, visit www.maritzcx.com.
About Allegiance Software Inc.
Allegiance, Inc. is a software company that helps businesses systematically reduce the time it takes to listen, understand and respond to customers’ needs and problems, creating customers for life. The company’s retention management solutions, powered by its Voice of Customer (VoC) technology platform, help organizations to increase retention rates up to 25% while improving the customer experience and performance management. The Allegiance open architecture platform is offered in a variety of turnkey solutions and is fully integrated with an industry-leading partner network.
About Maritz Research Inc.
As one of the world’s largest marketing research firms, Maritz Research helps many of today’s most successful companies improve performance through a deep understanding of their customers, employees, and channel partners. Founded in 1973, it offers a range of strategic and tactical solutions concentrating primarily in the automotive, financial services, hospitality, technology, telecommunications, restaurant, and retail industries.
About Maritz Holdings Incorporated
St. Louis-based Maritz Holdings is a sales and marketing services company, which helps companies achieve their full potential through understanding, engaging and motivating employees, channel partners and customers. Maritz provides market and customer research, communications, incentive initiatives, rewards and recognition, effective meeting, event and incentive management services and customer loyalty programs. Maritz has key offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. For more information, visit maritz.com or contact us at 1-877-4MARITZ.
