Oracle Updates CX and Marketing Cloud, Unveils Service Logistics Cloud

Oracle recently announced sales-oriented updates for Oracle CX Cloud, updates for Oracle Marketing Cloud, the introduction of Oracle Service Logistics Cloud, and an integration between Oracle CX Cloud and Slack.

The sales updates to CX Cloud include new DataFox capabilities, new AI sales planning tools, new search capabilities, and a smarter sales assistant. DataFox provides dynamic, contextual company data and signals to sales teams with an eye on enabling them to expand their total addressable market. The new sales planning tools analyze invoiced sales actual data to model and predict future trends, with the goal of helping sales leaders optimize sales planning and forecasting. The new search capabilities are adaptive and aim to help sales teams narrow search criteria; for example, sales reps can find accounts based on prospect emails or identify key accounts that haven’t been touched recently. The smarter sales assistant aims to save time for sales teams, and includes SMS and voice skills for managing meetings, opportunities, and quotes.

“All of these [announcements] are around our vision for sales—we see B2B sales shifting from a field-first model to what we call a digital selling model. By that we mean that increasingly organizations are moving to inside sales teams that are aided by digital selling tools like Eloqua or like Slack,” says Des Cahill, head CX evangelist at Oracle. “We believe that a combination of data enrichment from DataFox and then AI and ML systems to guide employees is the future of sales.”

The Marketing Cloud updates include three new capabilities each for Eloqua and Responsys. The first one for Eloqua: The behavioral analytics and orchestration abilities of Oracle Infinity are embedded into Eloqua, allowing marketers to use a common behavioral data lake for segmentation, personalization, and orchestration. In addition, Eloqua can now integrate with Data Cloud and DataFox, with an eye on providing marketers with greater insight into intent and account behaviors. Finally, new AI and machine learning abilities within Eloqua can guide marketers in adopting best practices and help them in the creating of content.

As for Responsys, it has a new recency, frequency, and monetary dashboard that aims to allow marketers to leverage statistical models to standardize segmentation, score engagement more accurately, and identify most valuable customers. Second, its integration with Maxymiser aims to help marketers optimize the conversion funnel. Third, Responsys now includes an application development framework that enables marketers to extend existing capabilities with support for third-party apps from software vendors, integration partners, and clients.

“Increasingly, the moments that you have to market to consumers are micro-moments,” Cahill says. “Marketers are increasingly challenged to do that, so we’re taking all of the rich capabilities we have across Eloqua and Responsys and the rest of the Oracle marketing stack and integrating them together.”

The new Service Logistics Cloud aims to do four key things: provide a comprehensive, enterprise-wide service solution, optimize parts logistics, deliver a seamless customer experience, and improve field service. It eliminates information silos and allows service departments to collaborate in real time. It allows for parts to be ordered and shipped directly to customers and field technicians and manages technician trunk stock. It provides a single point-of-contact for the entire resolution process. Finally, it connects field technicians with the rest of the enterprise while ensuring that the appropriate technician with the correct part is meeting with the customer.

“Service Logistics Cloud is bringing together our supply chain application with our field service application with our customer service applications. The idea is that when [for example] you call your telecom provider for your home internet and voice and you want to get your router fixed or you just want to get your internet up and running as fast as possible,” Cahill says. “By integrating together our service cloud with our field service cloud with our supply chain system, we’re able to ensure that the right technician rolls out with the right certification, with the right training, with the right part, and that they get to your house at the right time and you’re going to be there.”

The integration between Oracle CX Cloud and Slack aims to enable sales leaders to close deals faster by improving team collaboration, one that includes account executives, sales management, product specialists, and contract managers. Additionally, it allows deals to be viewed and closed within a Slack channel or conversation. It also aims to help customer service teams solve cases more effectively by making it easier for service agents and support experts to collaborate.

“We believe that in order to provide better customer experience, our employees have to be able to collaborate internally really effectively,” Cahill says. “That’s why we’re making Slack integration a key part of Engagement Cloud and Service Cloud, so it allows sales representatives or service agents to collaborate with each other, even across departments.”