1. e-consultancy Awards
Most Innovative New Technology – Tieto - ANWB
Summary of innovation
Provide a short summary of why the entry is innovative. (100 words max) No html. 105
Tieto, a North European IT Services company has booked the first success in the Dutch market with its
unique marketing analytics engine allowing customers to capitalize on their inbound interactions.
The “interaction optimizer”, offered as a SaaS on a pay-as-you-go model, is designed for medium and
large enterprises striving to manage customer relations, increase ROI on marketing campaigns and
reduce customer churn. The service with the commercial name iSuggest is an automated inbound
marketing solution, using an intelligent engine to automatically generate best-next-action
recommendations to customers in any interaction channel.
Your entry
Describe your product, service or project and explain why you believe it represents innovation in
this category. (500 words max). No html
iSuggest is a two-fold innovation because it not only provides automated inbound marketing for all
interaction channels, but its business model makes it an affordable solution for a wide range of
companies who would otherwise not consider this technology because of the costs involved.
1. Portrait’s state-of-the-art predictive analytics technology has been used to develop a
powerful engine, which automatically generates best-next-action recommendations to
customers in real-time. The recommendations are campaign-specific and include loyalty,
information, data-gathering as well as commercial offers. The engine is fed with customer
CRM data, web sessions, parallel campaigns and learnings from reactions of peer-groups,
allowing it to generate the most relevant suggestion to the customer at any interaction
point. The combination of CRM and dynamic behavioral data is a crucial functionality which
empowers companies to engage in value-adding interactions with the always connected
customer. This technology is perfectly suited to support companies in managing marketing
campaigns and interactions across all channels: web, mobile, IVR, call centre, branch, kiosk
or ATM.
2. iSuggest’s flexible business model makes automated inbound marketing also accessible to
medium-size consumer-oriented companies, who do not have the financial capacity to invest
in this technology. At the same time, it is an attractive solution for enterprises from the
telecom, transport and financial services industries, which in times of crisis strive to reduce
capital expenditure on marketing initiatives. iSuggest is hosted on the cloud and companies
pay per consumption, with a minimal initial investment threshold. This makes it an easy to
implement, completely scalable solution for medium to large companies regardless of their
campaign frequency, marketing goals and communication channels used.
Tieto uses the following roadmap for integrating iSuggest in the marketing activities of our clients.
1. First, intensive multidisciplinary sessions are organized with the client to gain a grasp of their
current situation, marketing objectives, and customer data available. (one week)

2. 2. Pilot design – marketing objectives and campaigns are used as an input. Depending on the
campaigns, a time-frame is selected. Customer profiles are created and business rules
defined which determine which customers will be targeted with suggestions. The
suggestions are defined and developed. (one week)
3. Set-up phase – a twofold technical integration. On the consumer side, there is the interface
of the channels that will be used. On the client side, the integration entails feeding the
iSuggest engine with selected CRM/customer analytics data and marketing campaign data
(providing the analytical models by which the customers will be selected) and creating the
analysis & reporting settings. The suggestions are then integrated into the selected channels
and the campaign can start. (one week)
4. Pilot - as soon as the campaign has begun, and the first trigger is activated in a specific
channel, the first suggestion is generated by the engine and shown to the customer in the
channel interface. (three to six months)
Confidential information - optional
Detail any private information which should NOT be published into the public domain but should
be considered by the judges. (800 words max). No html.
iSuggest was initially conceived as a project for a major player in the Dutch road assistance and
travel industry, which wanted to support its multiple marketing campaigns, boost retention,
leverage cross-and up-sell opportunities and automate the capture of customer data in their service
desk. It handles 1.5 million calls each year from members interested in its range of recreation,
tourism and mobility services and products.
The travel company initiated the best-next-action program by integrating Portrait Interaction
Optimizer, a part of the Customer Analytics and Interaction software suite from Pitney Bowes
Business Insight, with its Oracle Siebel CRM system. The company used these integrated platforms
and solutions to create models that drive multichannel interactions. The iSuggest engine was initially
rolled-out to support best-next-action scenarios for retention campaigns in the inbound service
desk. At a later point cross-sell campaigns in iSuggest were added and were expanded to the website
and the store.
The recommendation engine automatically generates a pre-specified number of recommendations
(usually up to 4) for each customer on each call, which are organised according to the predefined
customer personas. A customer-specific view is automatically displayed in the system interface–
this includes profile details, the products the customer already has, and the reason for the call.
Agents can select recommendations generated by iSuggest to guide them in providing commercial or
non-commercial tips for the customer, as well as asking the customer for contact information if this
is not available. The screens also prompt agents to gather important information from customers
during the call – and thus improving future recommendations (an iterative process).
This ‘best next action’ enables the customer service staff to engage in more relevant, personal and
apt customer conversations, whilst saving time and preventing confusion.

3. During the set-up phase of iSuggest for this client last year, Tieto executed the technical
implementation, training, and coaching for 150 agents in its contact centre and hosted the system.
In the first three-month phase of the program, the travel company developed churn prevention
models and subsequently added segmentation, cross-sell, upsell, and other models in the program’s
second phase, which took an additional three months to complete. Tieto, which assisted the
company in embedding iSuggest in its organization, still hosts the software. Tieto is engaged in
continuously optimizing Portrait Interaction Optimizer models for the company’s use.
iSuggest was operational within six months of contracts being signed, enabling the travel assistance
company to achieve its planned targets of a 10% conversion rate via its contact centre and a 10%
conversion rate via the web. By implementing this technology the company has increased its
retention rate by 25% and increased cross-sell revenues by 200%. In addition iSuggest has
supported rapid, effective first-call resolution.
Having achieved a considerable return on investment from iSuggest in the service desk, the travel
company has just extended the program to its web self-service channels with the point-of-sale being
the next step.
Major international companies from the financial and telecom sectors have also shown interest in
implementing this innovation for their web and mobile channels.
Supporting materials optional
Provide URLs where ALL supporting materials can be found (e.g. websites, graphics, videos etc).
(100 words max)
This presentation provides an overview of how campaign and recommendation setting occurs in the
interface of Portrait Interaction Optimizer. The client can also track the progress and performance of
campaigns (Slide 13). Slide 1 shows how the customer and service desk agent see the
recommendations in their channel interface:
http://www.slideshare.net/TietoNL/i-suggest-econsultancy-innovation-awards-2012