Performance Solutions is a repeat contestant; they entered CRM Idol in 2011 and did a good job of improving the product, and the message, since then.  They label their solution a social engagement and monitoring platform and the focus is on the social aspects of the solution in addition to the traditional CRM tool they offer.

Early on Blitz (the name of their product) saw an opportunity in CRM to offer what not many others were offering: a localized software package that worked the way Latin America does business.  They have a complete CRM solution, offering Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service functions across the board in a multi-channel platform.  In this last year they began to offer Social tools to complement the traditional CRM suite, a move that is more closely aligned with Social CRM than most other vendors that call their products Social CRM.

In addition to the traditional CRM and Social CRM components, they also began to focus on specific add-ons that make the tools ready for social business: gamification, loyalty, and social management.  It is in this last category that Blitz entered CRM Idol 2012.

Blitz licensed social streams from a distributor, a company that takes the many different streams (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Google+ and others) and delivers a single unified stream to their customers.  This is a smart move as it allows Blitz to offer, for example, the entire Twitter “firehose” (the real-time stream of tweets) in addition to many other networks without having to worry about one-by-one integration and allows them to grow as more networks are brought about – or changes to existing networks happen.

They take this consolidated stream and display it in a graphical, intuitive interface – which is still undergoing work (e.g. drill-down from the dashboard is not yet possible –but soon will be) to allow their clients to monitor social networks.  It also allows them to engage with the different networks from a single interface – but more importantly, it collects and identifies the customers and merges their social information with existing information.  This is what makes the tool a good Social CRM solution or at least one of the most complete functionality-wise.

Last year, when they presented to CRM Idol judges, Blitz was trying to enter the US Market.  Since then they have re-focused their efforts into expanding in the Latin American region – a move that is very prudent and smart at this time.  There are very few vendors in that region that know the needs of the customers well and there is a tremendous opportunity to leverage.

We would like to see them improve the user interface, the drill-down mentioned above is but one example, and make the application easier to use for end-users that may not be well-versed in CRM functions.  We would also like to see a simplified interface, as their current product has too many functions in one location, and a renewed effort to create a version of their solution that would work in the US Market.

A reduced set of their solution could be very well aligned with the US market needs.

Reviewed by CRM Idol 2012 Primary Judges