IBM To Acquire Mobile Analytics Provider TeaLeaf Technology

IBM yesterday announced a definitive agreement to acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc., a leading provider of customer experience analytics software that helps organizations to gain intelligence and react more swiftly to consumer trends in today’s digitally transformed marketplace.

Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.

The need to deliver a seamless mobile experience has become increasingly critical to CMOs with global online commerce expected to hit $1 trillion by 2014 and mobile commerce $200 billion by 2015.  Organizations today are struggling to meet the demands created by the rapidly shifting buying patterns of their customers, who increasingly turn to online, social and mobile channels to gather information, make purchases and receive services.

This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to their customers’ behaviors in order to both compete and grow. The opportunity to better understand a customer’s experience on websites and mobile devices presents a major competitive advantage for businesses.

Mobile Analytics On The Go

With this agreement, IBM extends its Smarter Commerce initiative by adding qualitative analytics capabilities that provide chief marketing officers (CMOs), e-commerce and customer service professionals with real-time and automated insights into online customer buying experiences across online and mobile devices.

As a result, organizations can gain actionable insight that allows them to improve customer support, transform site usability, tailor marketing campaigns and increase online conversion rates.

Tealeaf provides a full suite of customer experience management software, which records and analyzes a customer’s website and mobile interactions. As a result, marketers can spot patterns and address issues in website and mobile application design and provide a more streamlined online customer experience that leads to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity, and profitability.

TeaLeaf: Over 450 Customers Worldwide

Tealeaf has over 450 customers worldwide including 30 of the Fortune 100 companies. These customers are predominantly in financial services, travel, retail and communications services. Current clients include: Dell, Wells Fargo, Air Canada, GEICO, Orbitz, Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus, Expedia, Zappos, ING Direct, Best Buy, DirecTV, McKesson and StubHub.

Tealeaf will extend IBM’s leadership in Smarter Commerce by giving companies qualitative web and digital analytics capabilities, allowing them to capture and replay a customer’s web and mobile interactions to provide a more granular and richer view of a customer’s experience.

This insightful view helps marketers answer the question of “why” customers interact as they do and thus provide a more optimized online customer experience leading to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity and profitability.

Tealeaf is based in San Francisco, California with additional offices in Europe.