SPSS Introduces CustomerCentric CRM Solution

Today consumers are savvier than ever. They have more choices, more access to information and as a result, higher expectations of retailers. To be successful in this environment, a company must have a deep understanding of its customers and the ability to fulfill their needs at every point of interaction, whether it is on the Web, at a store, through a call center or via direct marketing. To enable companies to increase their bottom line by improving customer relationships, SPSS Inc introduces CustomerCentric, a comprehensive analytical customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

CustomerCentric applies advanced data mining techniques to provide organizations with an end-to-end customer intelligence system for more effective and profitable decisions at every point of customer contact. CustomerCentric distributes data-derived scores to operational CRM systems to drive personalized content delivery. In addition, it enables companies to deploy customer insight to managers and executives so that they can make informed, data-driven decisions.

"CustomerCentric is the key to SPSS' future success," said Jack Noonan, SPSS Inc. president and CEO. "We have a 31-year history in data analysis which gives us a tremendous breadth and depth of analytical products and services. SPSS is especially experienced in analyzing customer-related information in thousands of companies around the world. This longevity and expertise gives us a definitive advantage in a market where the demand for a comprehensive analytical CRM solution is increasing dramatically. CustomerCentric is our answer for this demand. It gives our customers a sustainable competitive advantage: the ability to discover what their customers want and predict what they'll do."

"Corporations are striving to build an effective CRM plan that includes analytics as the cornerstone for predicting, analyzing, measuring and planning customer relationships", said Mark A. Smith, Application Delivery Strategies, META Group. "Solutions like SPSS CustomerCentric enable companies to have better understanding and insight and enable sales, service and marketing to optimize their customer interactions."

Both customers and those throughout the enterprise benefit from CustomerCentric:

• Customers receive highly personalized, valuable content that is tailored to their needs.
• Executives and management receive customer insight and intelligence and the ability to monitor the entire CRM process with key performance indicators and alerts.
• Analysts have the ability to build precise and accurate models. CustomerCentric includes a system that enables analysts to constantly evaluate their models and then replace them with more refined models as required.
• IT can regularly collect data from critical business systems without effecting the performance of those systems. CustomerCentric offers software agents that enable maintenance of the analytic system.

Based on SPSS' proven analytical technology, CustomerCentric is a customizable solution that includes a series of pre-built, industry-specific models, reports and key performance indicators. Users can leverage SPSS analytical CRM expertise to quickly begin working with their customer data. The SPSS consulting team works closely with business managers, analysts and information technology professionals to help companies use CustomerCentric in ways that are most useful for achieving business objectives. In addition, the team deploys CustomerCentric to ensure the company is getting the most beneficial view of customers possible.

"By combining CustomerCentric analytics with operational CRM systems - which manage transactions and deliver content - we are closing the CRM loop," said David Cody, senior marketing manager for SPSS. "This fixed price, fixed length solution brings together customer data from all of a company's data sources to provide a holistic view of their customers. CustomerCentric is a total analytic solution from data integration through prediction. In addition, it offers the ability to manage and maintain the system as well as evaluate through key CRM performance measurements."

CustomerCentric provides companies with the full range of analysis required for effective CRM, including:

• Customer profiling, segmentation, affinities -giving a 360 degree view of a customer based on behavior and demographic information
• Market basket analysis - determine relationships and affinities from one product to another, likely product bundling and promotional offers
• Web analysis - clickstream and sequence analysis, provide e-commerce metrics and rankings (most popular pages, least popular pages)

"Understanding our customers and interacting with them on a consistent, personal basis is critical to our success," said William A. Todd, president of Todd and Holland Tea Merchants, a CustomerCentric prototype installation. "We chose to work with SPSS because of their deep analytical solution and CRM expertise. CustomerCentric offers us a single analytical solution to understand our customers and provide them with one-to-one service at all touchpoints."

The initial version of CustomerCentric contains functionality for multichannel and online retailers. SPSS is seeking development partners and additional charter customers for this solution, which is available immediately. The deployment of CustomerCentric is customized to a company's individual needs, however an installation of the entire solution is expected to cost approximately $1.2 million. Organizations interested in becoming a charter customer can contact David Cody at dcody@spss.com for more information.

About SPSS

SPSS Inc provides solutions that discover what customers want and predict what they will do. As a result, SPSS' customers interact with their customers more profitably. SPSS' solutions integrate and analyze marketing, customer and operational data in key vertical markets worldwide including: telecommunications, health care, banking, finance, insurance, manufacturing, retail, consumer packaged goods, market research and the public sector.

Founded in 1968, the company has more than 40 offices, over 900 employees and 1999 revenues of $142 million. The company also has won the following awards: No. 70 on Forbes 1999 list of the "200 best small companies" and as the 22nd most profitable company on the Nasdaq exchange by Equities magazine; 1999 World Class Solution award in business intelligence and named "best decision support system for business intelligence" in the 1999 RealWare award competition; No. 14 in DM Review's 1999 Data Warehouse Top 100; placed No. 23 on the 1999 Soft-letter 100, a ranking of the top 100 personal computer software companies in the United States; and No. 97 in the 1999 Software 500, a ranking of the world's largest software vendors by Software Magazine. Headquartered in Chicago, SPSS has offices and distributors around the world. For more information, visit www.spss.com.

Contact SPSS Susan Kalell, 800-525-4980 pr@spss.com.