Q4 tech enhancements round out 2020 with SMG’s continued focus on experience management platform innovation

The tech enhancements released over the last quarter of 2020 were designed to inspire smart changes in our clients’ business. From our expanding integration partnerships to improved visualizations in our text analytics reporting, this latest round of enhancements represents SMG’s dedication to providing brands with robust, intuitive tools that maximize the impact of their experience management (XM) program. Here are a few of Q4’s notable updates:

Strategic partner integrations | Strengthening the connection between brand + customer

With a focus on feedback innovation, the following partnerships enable brands to drive customer engagement while simultaneously receiving richer feedback and deeper insights:

• Olo – Our new partner integration with Olo provides a more holistic view of the customer experience by soliciting personalized, digital feedback and analyzing this data alongside XM data. Olo provides more than 300 multi-location restaurant brands with a white-label platform for on-demand ordering and delivery. SMG is integrating Olo data for a host of restaurant brands, including Pizza Patrón. Through the integration, the pizza franchise has streamlined the feedback process for customers while increasing response rates and surfacing richer insights about its digital experience.
• WhatsApp – This partnership enables brands to send survey invitations in-app via WhatsApp messaging and makes survey entry simpler for the customer by leveraging a familiar, intuitive touchpoint.

• Microsoft Dynamics – With a new bi-directional case integration, we’re able to bring visibility to cases generated outside of the SMG platform to clients using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system. This enables team members to action issues from a central location and helps raise greater awareness and accountability for location-specific issues.

Text analytics enhancements | Turning open-ended feedback into business-changing insight

While the quantitative data from an experience management program is invaluable, it’s often the customer comments that help answer questions brands never thought to ask. That’s why our AI-powered text analytics platform is one of our top priorities and an area where we’ll continue to invest. The latest updates include:

• Subcategory filtering – This addition to the text analytics comment report offers a responsive way for users to surface insights below the category level—resulting in an easier, faster path to actionable insights by eliminating the need to read numerous comments. More than 30 industry-specific subcategories are available today, and more will be added throughout 2021.
• Top topics default view – It’s now possible to set a default view of products or categories in the text analytics top topics card, which means users have faster access to their most important information.

• Variance comparisons for sentiment by region – See period-over-period comparisons in the text analytics sentiment by region card to understand how score sentiment has changed and reveal which areas need attention.

Improvements with access + usability | Creating a holistic view of company performance

With intuitive navigation and easy-to-read visualizations of real-time data, the smg360® reporting platform is designed for customizable, role-based data views. With our enhanced executive dashboard view, power users can access intuitive analysis and prescriptive information across the enterprise.

• Executive dashboard as default view – Users can now set the new executive dashboard as their default and land directly on this holistic view of company performance that features KPIs alongside text analytics, ratings + reviews, case management, and other available datasets.

What’s next?

We’ve made enormous progress in 2020—rolling out more new and advanced features than ever before—and we’re excited to bring you even more meaningful enhancements this year. To really get a jump on what’s to come, check out our 2021 industry trend reports. These reports use 8 months of consumer research in identifying 4 forward-looking trends to watch and act on in 2021.   

If you have questions about any of these platform updates—or are seeking additional support in serving your customers + employees in the new year—please reach out.