Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued) vs. PG Forsta HX Platform

IBM analytics has continued to improve upon the days of being the original core metrics. After using the updated version for quite some time, it has been great at providing the needed analytics to measure ROI and goal performance for our quarterly KPI's. It has resulted in a great increase in web engagements although we are a midsize company, smaller outfits may not need such an expensive option.

Incentivized

They have done a good job at helping us maintain the integrity of the project while transitioning to a completely new platform. Our Voice of the Customer program happens to consist of multiple surveys within one "master" so I guess logistically it could be considered complex

Incentivized

• IBM CXA comprises an acquisition called Tealeaf. This tool has deep heritage and this is evident in its present-day capabilities.
• The Universal Behaviour Exchange or UBX puts the concept of personalisation at the forefront. The ability to combine physical (analog) and digital transactions to create the complete picture of a customer journey, is a stand out benefit.
• The solution does not have to involve the purchase of software. IBM CXA can be sold as a service bundled with analytics as a service. This not only lowers the cost of ownership, it gets around one of the principal issues. Strong staff with design and analytical capability to drive the solution and deliver tangible benefits.
• The seamless integration of Watson AI services to help with the heavy lifiting. Watson reinforces the analytical focus this solution has and can learn to recognise situations specific to a company.

Incentivized

• Confirmit has a fairly shallow learning curve allowing someone with no experience to be able to create a simple survey with not much time invested in training.
• Confirmit also has the flexibility to be used in very advanced ways. Whether modifying the display/page content's layout or modifying input types with jQuery, it is incredibly adaptable.
• Confirmit (with v. 18) now collects data in a true SQL database which is far more robust and easy to administrate than some other methods of data storage.

Incentivized

• The user interface is in Flash, which can be very frustrating and slow at times. Apparently, this is to be transitioned in a future release.
• Can only segment the last 93 days of data. Any historical segmentation beyond the 93 days must be run in Explore (which is credit based, and has its own limitations with the number of credits per month, based on the initial contract with IBM).
• Reports can only display 93 days of data at a given time for custom date ranges. There are pre-programmed date ranges setup with IBM during implementation (last week, last month, last quarter etc.), but are not flexible enough to answer more specific questions.
• Certain reports cannot have segments applied, making answering some simple questions a bit more tricky. For example, I can create a segment around mobile devices and apply it to the marketing channels report, but I can't create a marketing channel segment and apply it to the mobile reports.
• Built in API calls allows for nice report design and automation.

• Ensure correct data collection. This is Confirmit's main goal, and which sometimes fails to succeed.
• Integrated data back-up service. It would be great if we could look at the data from a couple days previous.
• Interactive layout creator. Current layout creator is really "squared" as we say, it needs more flexibility with all the incoming technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3.

IBM Digital Analytics is a great solution for our clients and I believe they offer the best solution for the retail space. We have access to IBM support via email or live chat and they can answer many of the reporting questions that come up. IBM is receptive to our feedback of the product so I am confident they will continue making improvements

From my point of view Confirmit has been a key tool in our organization. Without it we can't deliver what we do at this moment. Confirmit has proved that is a reliable, stable and easy to use tool. The few issues we found (as far as I know) were sent to Confirmit support team and fix them. Patching the product has been done faster and without large downtime of the product

Very easy to implement and use.

Confirmit is a very technical tool, it takes time for someone to get used to the interface, even when it could definitely be more intuitive or user friendly, this is part of Confirmit's strenghts that makes it one of the most robust data collection technologies out there.

Never had any issues

As reports are templated, the system is pretty quick. Sometimes you have to wait a bit for a report to render. Or you might have to re-load the page. But there is no real issue here and the system is on par with other similar systems.

Overall, the level of support is very good and I would say it is a strong asset of the solution. However, you can sometimes feel that there is a difference of level among the support team.

The support team is responsive and I can tell that they are actually trying to help get to the heart of the issues before making us try every possible solution available. They ask the right questions and test things before coming back to us with proposals. I like the support team at Confirmit.

Incentivized

Online training is really great. One of the best assets that they have. Lots of great videos, pop quizzes at the end of each module. Fantastic. Other tools have similar features, but not as good.

See previous comment: reading and understanding the encyclopedic implementation guide is a must.

Should let the professionals handle implementation, don't have only the operations team at your company do it.

Incentivized

Much of the work we did in IBM Digital Analytics could have been answered through Google Analytics, a much simpler, agile and FREE solution set. Not mention, given the vast number of Google Analytics USERS, free and actionable support is simply a click away ... this compared to IBM Digital Analytics fractured and often absent support service.

Forsta has a strong product functionality and performance. Integration capabilities are fantastic and it has strong customer focus. Pre-existing relationships also helped in cracking this deal. People at Forsta are helpful and customer centric. Although cost is not highly competitive but it comes close to value for money. Competitors have quite a few functionalities but there are additional charges levied for them.

Incentivized

This solution can support large amount of data and transaction. The way that user management features are built, it shows it is meant for large organizations.

• We spend too much time trying to work around bugs on the new UI.
• We spend too much time trying to figure out how to make certain segments work because support and the knowledge center are lackluster.
• Our sales rep is very unresponsive and leaves us searching for a lot of answers on our own, including what other products we may benefit from that IBM offers.

Incentivized

• I love Confirmit, the only negative is that my experience using any other program is always terrible in comparison.
• I had Confirmit rep come into the office and was disapointed that they didn't have much informaton on how to use it as a researcher in marking research, perhaps employing more internal marketing researchers would help that.

Incentivized