Fulcrum, a provider of database marketing tools, has upgraded its FulcrumCE offering to include segmentation models.
Version 2.0 of the company’s customer equity predictive model is designed to improve customer retention. The segmentation capabilities added to this version of FulcrumCE help improve the accuracy of predictive models. This improvement, in turn, helps marketers provide more relevant messages and offers.
“One of the specific drivers we took into account is the current economic downturn,” said David King, CEO of Fulcrum. “So one set of attributes that we now include is whether somebody is responsive to promotion or not. If, for example, we get a high-value, high-risk customer who falls into a segment that is responsive, those are worth keeping, but others don’t respond to promotions. Probably because of their value, the latter group is worth some save effort, but it’s not likely a marketer will win them. That’s something we’re taking to clients.”
FulcrumCE V2.0 is targeted mainly to retail and b-to-b marketers, but it is intended to help any marketer that relies on a voluntary customer relationship. King pointed out that targeted communications are of particular importance when a customer is not tied to a company by contract or by an account that regularly produces transactions.
“It’s not as useful for telecommunications, where people will call you angrily and tell you why they’re changing service,” he said. “We’re worried about things where customers vote with their feet and just don’t come back.”
Because the segmentation models require only a small set of data, the program can be implemented in as little as 30 days. King believes that Fulcrum is the only company offering such a model at present, but he expects competitors to offer their own segmented predictive models soon.
“I do think this is important for lots of companies, and the need is there,” he stated. “We certainly have demand on our side. We expect one of those phenomena where, once a good solution comes on the market, that will drive more demand, and I fully expect my competitors to be out there.”
