Sitecore has announced a set of new public cloud products and services at the Sitecore Symposium 2022 in Chicago. The company says that the aim of the products is to create deeper customer engagement. The solutions are Sitecore Search, Content Hub One and Sitecore Connect. The company also announced further enhancements to its XM Cloud solution.
Sitecore’s focus on the new products is to reset the current CX status quo. It believes that companies are failing to get the level of engagement that they want with customers. The problem that they face in getting that level of engagement is the way their current tools work.
Tools often struggle with the problem of dirty data and data locked in silos. This makes it hard to search for information on customers. That spread of data also leads to significant issues regarding the cleanliness and completeness of data. As a result, organisations struggle to get the accurate and context-rich data they need.
It leads to another issue, that of getting the right content to customers. Customers don’t want to do complex searching for content. They expect it to be delivered seamlessly to them. Dirty data means that is hard to do. The problem is not just about customers. Content creators can struggle to create engaging and relevant content if they don’t know who it is targeted at.
From a technology perspective, there is also can also be an issue with integrating cloud-based applications into core technology stacks. Sitecore wants to make that easier for companies, and that is why it is introducing a technology stack optimiser.
Three new products to transform CX
The three new products to address the issues above are:
Sitecore Search
This is a content discovery tool that addresses changes in how customers want to search across multiple content types. The evolution of content means people are no longer searching for text. They want to search images, audio and video. Sitecore’s solution is to implement an AI-engine that understands different content types.
The AI-engine looks at context and amplifies content based on what a user is looking for. That allows it to deliver results far quicker as it learns from the customer and seeks to predict their search requirements.
It does not require companies to recreate their content. It is delivered as a plug-and-play solution that can be added to a website in a matter of hours.
Content Hub One
Content Hub One is a headless CMS system that allows companies to create, launch and manage experiences on all their digital channels. That means it can be deployed across the web, mobile, voice assistants and other channels as required.
What will appeal to a lot of organisations is that this is a platform for everyone. Content creators can work in parallel with marketers to define, create and release content. This parallel workflow is critical to ensuring that time is not wasted on content that is not relevant to customers.
Importantly, Sitecore says that it will act as an entry to the wider Sitecore content portfolio. Customers can deploy Content Hub One to start projects and then integrate that into the wider Content Hub as they require.
Sitecore Connect
Modern application stacks are designed to be composable, and Sitecore Connect has been developed with that in mind. Rather than require complex developer projects, it allows Sitecore products to be dragged and dropped into existing technology stacks.
The product also comes with its own low code / no code interface. This will allow companies to build their own content pipelines that can be quickly deployed across the enterprise. It means that content teams in different regions can tune their workflow to match their digital channel and content type. Once created, those content creation recipes can be replicated across the entire organisation as required.
XM Cloud
XM Cloud is Sitecore’s main cloud-based CMS. At the Symposium, Sitecore announced a number of updates that will be delivered with its upcoming release. Those updates include new editing interfaces, native personalisation and testing capabilities. It will be interesting to see these once they are available.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
There is a big shakeout going on in the marketing space when it comes to customer engagement. The mantra for several years has been personalisation. However, without increasing amounts of personal data, it is hard to get that personalisation right. In addition, customers realise what is required, and as they become more privacy aware, they are pushing back.
For enterprises, personalisation has come at a cost. Systems are often slow, and the siloed data makes it hard to deliver a faster, more efficient service. Compounding this, siloed and often dirty data makes it difficult to predict what customers want, which limits the way that content can be served.
What Sitecore is looking to do with these announcements is change the conversation. It wants to change how content is created and put the power back to creators and marketing teams. It is providing them with the tools to speed up their processes and the collaboration tools to work together.
Sitecore also wants to fix that customer experience problem. Key to that is Sitecore Search. If the AI-engine performs as expected, it will reduce the problems from siloed data and data. It will mean that customers see a marked difference in how content is selected and served to them.
