Jive Updates Intranet And Customer Collaboration Platforms

Jive is adding a number of new features to its intranet and external customer relationship collaboration platforms, promising they will enhance the way customers communicate internally and externally.

Speaking at JiveWorld 2016 in Las Vegas, Jive CEO Elise Steele said businesses of all sizes needed to adapt to changing workstyles, more demanding customers and the requirement to unlock vital company information locked in multiple repositories.

Changing world of work

“Every company in the world is either figuring out or struggling how to deal with the new world of work,” she said. “People are working in ways they never did before.

“Every company is trying to digitise their customer relationship. You must do that. But it amazes me just 30 percent of companies have a customer community.

“The changing future of work has only just begun. We’re in the early stages. Not everyone gets it yet.

“That’s why apps which are popping up are creating more silos, creating more problems to solve. That’s why monolithic platforms that claim to be a one stop shop don’t work. Collaboration isn’t an add-on, it’s where it starts.”

Interactive intranet

Jive’s products are divided into three strands – Jive-n which is an business intranet, Jive-x which is focused around customer relationships and Jive-w, a range of mobile products including Jive Daily, messaging app Chime and directory service Jive Circle.

The first announcements focus on a product in the Jive-n strand, its employee engagement platform – an ‘interactive intranet’ that lets executives and staff share information in a dynamic, multimedia environment.

A new corporate communication bundle allows employees to create blogs, add images and videos to the intranet and users are also presented with an auto-targeted news stream depending on what information they are perceived to want or need, as well as email newsletters. Admins and community managers will have access to analytics to see how workers are using the platform.

Jive has also made enhancements to the mobile version. Users can share images and locations within Jive Daily and create documents. Future improvements include localisation, more analytics options, additional security certifications and image collections.

Jive external

The latest release of Jive’s customer engagement software, part of the jive-x strand, adds a ‘new events centre’ where users can share important company news that might attract customers, providing sales and marketing staff with added information. A future update will also add social media monitoring so conversations on external platforms like Twitter and Facebook can be analysed.

Employee and customer community events have also been updated with a new dashboard which shows the number of attendees, engagement levels and post-event success levels. Jive says this feature can help companies monitor the entire lifecycle of a particular event.

More social media monitoring will be added in the future too, allowing firms to bring conversations on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms into a Jive-x community. This, Jive says will make it easier to respond to customers, boost satisfaction and lower call centre costs.

Jive 9

These updates will be released for the current generation of the platform – Jive 8. But the company teased a number of features planned for, all focused around the central pillars of ‘engage, mobilise, modernise and analyse.

The ‘news’ feature, which highlights the most important content for an individual user, will be upgraded, while Jive’s Daily, Circle and chime apps will be connected to Jive-n. User profiles will be updated, while bulk uploads of content will soon be allowed.

More powerful analytics tools will be included so community managers can identify trends among employees and how they are using the tools.

“All of the innovation we have put into Jive 9 is really transformational,” said Dilshad Simmons, vice president for products at Jive. It is unclear when Jive 9 will be released but she promised the version would be supported for at least four years.

The company generated revenues of $195.8 million (£138.4m) during 2015 – a ten percent year on year increase – however made a loss of $34.9 million (£24.5m). Steele has said the company aims to be profitable by the end of this year and believes the opportunity afforded by digitising internal and external customer communications can help achieve this.

“We know what’s demanded and what’s needed in today’s environment,” she said.

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