| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JULY 26, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BUSINESS WEEK E.BIZ -- COVER STORY
E.piphany: Everything You Need to Know about Your Client E.piphany may just live up to its hifalutin name. The Palo Alto (Calif.) software maker has created programs that let data-hungry companies scarf up and analyze almost any scrap of information on their customers. That has attracted the likes of Charles Schwab, Capital BlueCross, and Hewlett-Packard. With E.piphany's $250,000 software, these companies can suddenly do what has bedeviled marketers for years: ferret out customer behavior to offer just what buyers may be looking for--on the fly. ''E.piphany is the railroad track that brings all the information that companies need,'' says Roger Siboni, E.piphany's president and CEO, who left KPMG International to join the startup. Here's how it works: The software, dubbed E.piphany e.4, pulls together E-mails from customers, questions at call centers, purchases on a company's Web site, even how a potential buyer responds to sales calls and online advertising. Businesses use that data to uncover trends and spot the best customers. For example, software maker Visio Corp. was surprised to find that consultants were responsible for 30% of the online sales of one of their software packages for diagramming and drawing. Seattle-based Visio now plans to tailor services and marketing for the consultant crowd. ''What's key is that we're able to learn about our customers in real time,'' says Michael Molendijk, Visio's director of marketing for its online site. With such testimonials, E.piphany may be helping customers see the light. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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