Bloomreach - Detailed Review
E-Commerce Tools
Bloomreach - Detailed Review Contents
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Bloomreach - Product Overview
Bloomreach Overview
Bloomreach is a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions that specialize in personalizing eCommerce experiences through the integration of customer and product data, driven by advanced AI technology.Primary Function
Bloomreach’s primary function is to gather, compile, and analyze customer data from various sources, including transactional, demographic, and behavioral information. This data is centralized into a Single Customer View (SCV), which enables businesses to optimize their marketing efforts, enhance customer engagement, and analyze campaign performance more effectively.Target Audience
Bloomreach is targeted at eCommerce businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Its solutions are particularly beneficial for merchandisers, marketers, and data-driven executives who aim to personalize customer interactions and drive business growth.Key Features
Data Collection and Centralization
Data Collection and Centralization: Bloomreach gathers data from multiple systems and stores it in a central database, creating a comprehensive customer profile known as the Single Customer View (SCV).AI-Driven Personalization
AI-Driven Personalization: The platform utilizes its proprietary AI, Loomi, to support greater personalization, discovery, and engagement. Loomi AI prioritizes key performance indicators (KPIs) and enhances customer journeys.Real-Time Insights and Optimization
Real-Time Insights and Optimization: Bloomreach provides real-time behavior insights, allowing businesses to understand conversion data, traffic sources, and other influential factors. The platform adapts and evolves in real-time to stay ahead of changing market trends and customer preferences.Customer Segmentation and Loyalty
Customer Segmentation and Loyalty: Businesses can segment their customer base, visualize trends, and identify serial returners to tailor messaging and campaign strategies. The platform also includes a customer loyalty dashboard to monitor retention and loyalty.Connected Orchestration
Connected Orchestration: Bloomreach connects every touchpoint of the digital customer journey via a single platform, ensuring a cohesive and personalized experience across websites, emails, and advertisements.Marketing Intelligence and Analytics
Marketing Intelligence and Analytics: The platform offers advanced marketing analytics tools, enabling businesses to segment their customer base, get real-time behavior insights, and use AI to target customers with predictive marketing techniques. By leveraging these features, Bloomreach helps businesses create more engaging and relevant customer experiences, driving higher levels of engagement, conversion, and customer loyalty. Bloomreach - User Interface and Experience
User Interface Overview
The user interface of Bloomreach, particularly in its AI-driven ecommerce personalization tools, is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, making it accessible to a wide range of users.
Ease of Use
Bloomreach boasts a user-friendly dashboard that simplifies the process of setting up and managing personalized ecommerce experiences. Users can define goals and set up personalized experiences with just a few clicks, leveraging drag-and-drop features and prebuilt templates that require no coding knowledge.
User Interface Features
- Drag-and-Drop Functionality: This feature allows users to build their first personalized campaign easily, without needing any technical expertise.
- Prebuilt Templates: These templates help in creating campaigns quickly, reducing the time and effort required to get started.
- User-Friendly Asset and Email Builders: The platform includes tools that make it easy to create and edit templates, and view automated dashboards for each campaign.
Omnichannel Communication
Bloomreach enables seamless customer experiences across all channels through its powerful scenario handling and omnichannel communication capabilities. This means users can manage and orchestrate customer interactions across various touchpoints, including websites, emails, SMS, apps, and ads, all from a single platform.
Data Collection and Analytics
The platform offers excellent first-party data collection and analytical capabilities, providing valuable insights into customer behavior. Users can receive clear performance insights to refine their strategies and maximize results. The reports, although sometimes found overwhelming, are highly customizable to meet specific business needs.
Integration and Support
Bloomreach is easy to integrate with existing systems, and it provides reliable and stable performance. The support team is responsive and helpful, assisting users in resolving any issues they might encounter. Additionally, the Open UI feature allows solution partners to integrate external systems into the Bloomreach interface, streamlining daily workflows.
Learning Curve
While the platform is generally user-friendly, some users have noted a steep learning curve, especially for new users. However, the help center and customer support are available to assist in overcoming these challenges. Some users also appreciate the documentation and the flexibility the platform offers, despite the need for more practical tutorials and user flow tools.
Conclusion
Overall, Bloomreach’s user interface is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, making it a valuable tool for ecommerce personalization. It balances simplicity with powerful features, ensuring that users can create and manage personalized campaigns effectively.
Bloomreach - Key Features and Functionality
Introduction
Bloomreach is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that leverages AI to personalize and enhance the shopping experience. Here are the main features and how they work:Real-Time Data Integration
Bloomreach integrates real-time customer and product data, which is crucial for creating personalized experiences. This integration allows businesses to unify data from various sources, ensuring that the information is up-to-date and accurate. This real-time data helps in making AI-powered predictions about consumer decisions and behaviors.Loomi AI for Ecommerce
Loomi AI is Bloomreach’s proprietary AI engine, specifically built for commerce. It prioritizes key performance indicators (KPIs) and enhances customer journeys by analyzing over 15 years of customer and product data. Loomi AI enables businesses to automate and optimize personalization across the customer journey, including marketing automation, search, and merchandising.Personalized Marketing and Content
Bloomreach’s Engagement platform is a marketing automation tool that uses Loomi AI to create and launch personalized marketing campaigns. With Loomi AI, marketers can generate entire campaigns in minutes, significantly reducing the time from ideation to launch. This feature ensures that marketing efforts are highly relevant and responsive to customer needs.Conversational Shopping – Bloomreach Clarity
Bloomreach Clarity is an AI-powered conversational shopping tool that engages with shoppers to deliver personalized, human-like product expertise. It connects conversations directly to product catalogs and integrates across various channels, including websites, chat, SMS, and more. This feature helps in moving customers further along the sales funnel in a natural and engaging way.Hyper-Relevant Search – Bloomreach Discovery
Bloomreach Discovery is an e-commerce search solution powered by Loomi Search , a hybrid vector search engine built on model intelligence from Google and NVIDIA. This search engine returns both precise results and broad recall sets for complex or long-tail queries made in natural language, enabling 1:1 personalization in search results.Omnichannel Campaigns
Bloomreach allows businesses to run omnichannel campaigns that incorporate data and consumer information from multiple sources. This ensures a consistent and personalized experience across all touchpoints, whether it’s through ads, retargeting campaigns, or other marketing efforts.Headless Content Management System (CMS)
Bloomreach Content is a headless CMS that provides flexibility in managing and delivering content across various channels. This system helps in creating a unified content strategy that aligns with the personalized experiences offered by Bloomreach’s other tools.Connected Orchestration
Bloomreach connects every touchpoint of the digital customer journey via a single platform. This connected orchestration ensures that the e-commerce experience is seamless and profitable, reflecting the changing needs of customers as they shop.Conclusion
In summary, Bloomreach’s AI-driven features work together to provide a highly personalized and engaging e-commerce experience. By integrating real-time data, automating marketing and search functions, and enabling conversational shopping, Bloomreach helps businesses drive profitable growth and enhance customer satisfaction. Bloomreach - Performance and Accuracy
Performance
Bloomreach is renowned for its real-time capabilities, which significantly enhance its performance. Here are some highlights:Real-Time Reporting and Analytics
Bloomreach provides instant access to key metrics, allowing businesses to react swiftly to customer behavior shifts and optimize campaigns in real-time.Personalization
The platform dynamically adjusts product recommendations, search results, and content based on live customer behavior and product data. This ensures each interaction is relevant and engaging, driving customer engagement and conversions.Integration
Bloomreach seamlessly integrates with various data sources, providing a comprehensive view of performance from multiple angles. This integration is crucial for omnichannel campaigns and ensuring data consistency across different touchpoints.Accuracy
The accuracy of Bloomreach is bolstered by its advanced AI technologies:Loomi AI
This AI is specifically designed for commerce and prioritizes key performance indicators (KPIs), enhancing customer journeys and providing accurate insights into customer behavior and purchasing trends.Generative AI and Large Language Models
Bloomreach Clarity, a recent innovation, uses generative AI and large language models to deliver personalized, human-like product expertise. This is trained on over a decade of commerce data, ensuring high accuracy in understanding customer preferences and product performance.Machine Learning
The platform employs machine learning to gather and analyze data from multiple sources, making accurate predictions about consumer decisions and improving the display of personalized content.Limitations and Areas for Improvement
While Bloomreach offers exceptional performance and accuracy, there are a few areas to consider:Comparison with Algolia
While Bloomreach excels in real-time personalization, Algolia surpasses it in terms of pure search speed. Algolia’s search infrastructure is optimized for delivering fast, accurate search results in milliseconds, which might be a consideration for businesses prioritizing search performance.Depth of Search Capabilities
Although Bloomreach offers advanced product discovery and search capabilities, it may not match the speed and immediacy of Algolia’s search-as-you-type feature. Businesses needing ultra-fast search responses might find Algolia more suitable in this specific aspect. In summary, Bloomreach stands out for its real-time analytics, AI-driven personalization, and comprehensive integration capabilities, making it highly effective in enhancing customer engagement and driving business growth. However, it may have some limitations in terms of search speed compared to specialized search solutions like Algolia. Bloomreach - Pricing and Plans
The Pricing Structure of Bloomreach
Bloomreach, an AI-driven e-commerce personalization platform, customizes its pricing based on several key factors, including the size of the business, the number of customers, and the specific features required.
Custom Annual Subscriptions
Bloomreach does not publicly disclose its pricing on its website, but here are some key points about its pricing model:
- Module and Usage Fees: The pricing consists of a module fee for the features you choose and a usage fee that scales with your usage. The more you use the platform, the lower your per-unit price becomes.
Products and Plans
Bloomreach offers three main products, each with its own set of features and pricing:
Bloomreach Engagement
- This product provides data-driven marketing automation across email, advertising, website, and SMS channels.
- It includes an Enterprise Engagement plan, which is an omnichannel marketing solution that manages all customer data and marketing channels from a single place.
- Pricing for the Engagement plan on Shopify starts at $19,020 per year per module. For retailers not on Shopify, you need to contact Bloomreach for a quote.
Bloomreach Discovery
- This product is focused on product discovery and includes an e-commerce site search that personalizes search results for each customer.
- It has three modules: Site Search (required), Merchandising, and Recommendations, each of which must be paid for separately.
- Users have noted that the cost structure for Discovery is higher than competitors, and negotiations may be necessary to lower the cost.
Bloomreach Content
- This is a headless CMS that personalizes the customer experience across multiple devices.
- It has three modules: Grow, Scale, and Enterprise. The Enterprise plan allows for custom business logic, website customization with Java, and access to a private cloud.
- Implementing Bloomreach Content can be complex and time-consuming.
Free Trials and Demos
- Bloomreach offers a few free trial options:
- A 30-day free trial for their SMS features on the Shopify App Store, which includes 500,000 messages.
- A 60-day free trial for their Real-Time Insights feature, providing access to AI-powered customer insights and reports.
- General free trials or demos are also available for users to explore the software’s capabilities before committing to a purchase.
Additional Costs
- There is a set-up cost for Bloomreach, starting at $4,000, which can increase depending on the number of modules you set up.
- Annual commitments are available, which can offer better rates and pricing flexibility.
General Pricing
- The overall pricing can range from around $2,500 per month to several thousand dollars per month, depending on the level of customization and features required.
Given the customized nature of Bloomreach’s pricing, it is essential to contact them directly for a quote that aligns with your specific business needs and budget.
Bloomreach - Integration and Compatibility
Integrating Bloomreach with Other Tools
Integrating Bloomreach with other tools and ensuring compatibility across various platforms and devices is a crucial aspect of its functionality in the e-commerce sector.
Integration with CommerceTools
One of the key integrations is with CommerceTools, a modern headless commerce platform. Bloomreach has developed a productized integration known as the Bloomreach Starter Store, which is fully documented and supported. This integration uses the BRIEF (Bloomreach Integration & Enrichment Framework) to connect with REST API-enabled commerce platforms. It ensures that data is not duplicated but rather referenced, so any changes to product information in CommerceTools are immediately reflected in Bloomreach, maintaining data accuracy and consistency.
Data Flow and Process Streamlining
The integration between Bloomreach and CommerceTools simplifies data flow between the customer data platform and the headless commerce platform. It streamlines critical processes, boosts operational efficiency, and provides valuable insights from integrated data for informed decision-making. This integration also helps in delivering personalized customer experiences, reducing data silos, and enhancing collaboration between teams.
Compatibility and Scalability
To ensure successful integration, it is essential to analyze the compatibility and scalability of the integration within the existing technology stack. This involves carefully mapping data fields, workflows, and synchronization processes, as well as implementing a robust integration architecture. The integration must also be tested rigorously to ensure it meets the desired outcomes and is scalable for future needs.
General Integrations
Bloomreach offers a wide range of integrations to connect with various technologies and systems. It has a robust ecosystem of tools and platforms that allow businesses to easily connect and move data between different systems. This includes integrations with marketing automation tools, product discovery platforms, and unified data platforms, all aimed at enhancing the digital experience and personalizing customer interactions.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Bloomreach’s integrations are designed to be flexible and adaptable across different platforms and devices. For instance, the Bloomreach Starter Store integration with CommerceTools allows businesses to build commerce experiences that can be accessed through various frontends and applications, ensuring a seamless customer experience regardless of the device or platform used.
Data Security and Compliance
Ensuring data security and compliance with relevant regulations is a critical aspect of any integration. Bloomreach’s integrations, such as the one with CommerceTools, are built with data security in mind, using frameworks like BRIEF to manage data integration touchpoints securely and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements.
Conclusion
In summary, Bloomreach integrates seamlessly with various e-commerce tools, particularly with headless commerce platforms like CommerceTools, to enhance operational efficiency, personalize customer experiences, and ensure data security and compliance. These integrations are designed to be scalable and compatible across different platforms and devices, making Bloomreach a versatile and reliable solution for e-commerce personalization.
Bloomreach - Customer Support and Resources
Bloomreach Customer Support Overview
Bloomreach offers a comprehensive suite of customer support options and additional resources to support its AI-driven e-commerce tools.Support Channels and Response Times
Bloomreach provides multiple channels for customers to report incidents or seek support. Customers can submit errors or abnormal behavior in the system, known as “Incidents,” via email, phone, or through the support portal. Here are the priority levels and corresponding response times:- Priority 1 (P1): Critical production issues with no workaround available. Response times are 30 minutes for Standard Support, and 20 minutes for Premium and Premium Plus Support, available 24/7.
- Priority 2 (P2): Production issues with degraded performance or potential impact on business operations. Response times vary from 4 hours (24×5 or 24×7) depending on the support level.
- Priority 3 (P3): Non-critical issues with no business impact but potential impact on user experience. Response times are 1 business day (8×5) for Standard Support and 8 hours (24×5 or 24×7) for Premium and Premium Plus Support.
Incident Reporting and Cooperation
When reporting incidents, customers are required to provide detailed information, including:- Steps leading to the incident
- Description of the operation that did not perform properly
- Actual and expected results
- Any modifications to the software related to the incident
- Relevant log files or data and error messages.
Business Hours and Support Continuity
Bloomreach’s support business hours are based on the customer’s headquarters location. Support services are generally provided online, but telephone communication may be used if deemed appropriate by Bloomreach.Additional Resources
Conversational Commerce Tools
Bloomreach offers advanced conversational commerce tools, such as Bloomreach Clarity, which uses AI and machine learning to provide personalized customer experiences. This tool engages shoppers with human-like product expertise across various channels, including websites, chat, and SMS. It helps businesses gather valuable customer data and personalize future interactions, enhancing customer loyalty and driving business growth.Documentation and Guides
While specific documentation and guides are not detailed in the provided sources, Bloomreach likely offers comprehensive documentation and guides to help customers set up and use their products effectively. This would typically include user manuals, setup guides, and troubleshooting tips.Case Studies and Testimonials
Bloomreach provides case studies and testimonials from existing customers, which can serve as valuable resources for prospective clients. These case studies highlight how different businesses have successfully implemented Bloomreach solutions to improve their e-commerce experiences and achieve better results. By leveraging these support options and resources, customers can ensure they get the most out of Bloomreach’s AI-driven e-commerce tools and maintain a smooth, efficient operation. Bloomreach - Pros and Cons
Advantages of Bloomreach
Bloomreach offers several significant advantages in the e-commerce tools AI-driven product category:Powerful Scenario Handling and Omnichannel Marketing
Bloomreach provides powerful scenario handling, including omnichannel communication, which enables a seamless customer experience across all channels. This feature allows businesses to engage customers consistently and effectively through various touchpoints.Personalization Capabilities
The platform leverages the Jinja language and AI-driven insights to offer extensive personalization possibilities. This allows businesses to display personalized content and create tailored experiences based on customer behavior, preferences, and past interactions.Excellent Data Collection and Analytical Capabilities
Bloomreach excels in first-party data collection and analytical capabilities, providing valuable insights into customer behavior. This data-driven approach helps businesses make informed decisions and optimize their marketing strategies.Reliable and Stable Platform
Users have found Bloomreach to be a reliable and stable platform, which is crucial for large-scale retail businesses. It is easy to integrate and offers excellent support, contributing to business development, revenue growth, and customer retention.User-Friendly Interface
Despite some learning curve, the platform is generally user-friendly and easy to use. It simplifies tasks such as setting up email marketing campaigns and analyzing results, and it includes a user-friendly asset builder and email builder.Comprehensive Features
Bloomreach includes a wide range of features such as real-time personalization, AI-driven insights, omnichannel marketing automation, advanced product discovery, and comprehensive content management. These features make it a versatile tool for both marketing and merchandising teams.Disadvantages of Bloomreach
While Bloomreach offers many benefits, there are also some notable drawbacks:Basic Single Customer View Card
The Single Customer View card is quite basic and lacks detailed information about customer value, which can be a limitation for businesses needing more in-depth customer insights.Complexity in Report Building
Some users find building reports on the platform somewhat complex, although improvements are being made to address this issue.Lack of Practical Tutorials and User Flow/Funnel Tools
Bloomreach lacks practical tutorials and proper user flow/funnel tools, which can make it complex and frustrating for some users to navigate and utilize the platform effectively.Steep Learning Curve
New users may experience a steep learning curve due to the many tools and functionalities available. This can make it challenging to get started and find solutions to issues quickly.Lack of Predefined Templates
The platform does not offer predefined templates for various use cases, requiring users to create everything from scratch. This can be time-consuming and may require additional resources.Email and SMS Tool Limitations
While Bloomreach offers a wide range of features, its email and SMS tools are not as intuitive or easy to manage as those in other solutions like Klaviyo. Additionally, the SMS capabilities are rated slightly lower than Klaviyo’s. By considering these pros and cons, businesses can make a more informed decision about whether Bloomreach aligns with their specific needs and capabilities. Bloomreach - Comparison with Competitors
When comparing Bloomreach to other AI-driven e-commerce tools
Several key features and differences stand out.
Bloomreach Unique Features
- Bloomreach integrates real-time customer and product data into its AI engine, enabling personalized marketing, product discovery, content, and conversational shopping. This comprehensive approach sets it apart by combining rich customer and product data in one solution.
- Its Loomi AI is specifically designed for commerce, prioritizing KPIs and enhancing customer journeys through real-time segmentation and dynamic content delivery.
- Bloomreach offers a composable personalization cloud that connects every touchpoint of the digital customer journey, facilitating profitable growth through a single platform.
Alternatives and Comparisons
Nosto
- Nosto is another powerful AI-driven platform that creates personalized shopping experiences. It uses big data, artificial intelligence, and dynamic targeting to analyze customer behavior and preferences. Unlike Bloomreach, Nosto focuses more on balancing automation and control, and it is known for its speedy setup via API or pre-built templates.
- Pricing: Nosto offers custom pricing based on business needs, which may differ from Bloomreach’s more structured pricing models.
Adobe Sensei
- Adobe Sensei is integrated with Adobe Commerce and provides tools for optimization and personalization. It offers features like personalized product recommendations, predictive search, and automated catalog management. While it is highly integrated with Adobe products, it may not offer the same level of real-time customer and product data integration as Bloomreach.
- Pricing: Prices are based on specific business needs, similar to Nosto.
Lyro AI Chatbot
- Lyro AI Chatbot is focused on customer support and shopping assistance, using natural language processing (NLP) to provide 24/7 support. This is more specialized compared to Bloomreach’s broader personalization and marketing capabilities. Lyro AI is known for its simple setup and ability to handle a wide range of customer queries.
- Pricing: Lyro AI offers a free subscription and various paid plans starting at $42/month, which is generally more affordable than Bloomreach.
OptiMonk AI
- OptiMonk AI enhances website engagement and conversion rates by segmenting visitors based on their actions and presenting relevant offers. While it is strong in real-time visitor segmentation and personalized content, it does not offer the same breadth of features as Bloomreach, such as comprehensive customer and product data integration.
- Pricing: OptiMonk AI starts at $249/month, which is higher than some of the other alternatives but still different from Bloomreach’s pricing structure.
User Experience and Integration
- Bloomreach is praised for its user-friendly interface and high-quality customer support, but reviewers note a high entry barrier due to the platform’s complexity and the time-consuming initial integration process.
- In contrast, tools like Nosto and Lyro AI are known for their speedy and simple setup processes, which might be more appealing to businesses looking for quicker implementation.
Conclusion
Bloomreach stands out for its comprehensive integration of real-time customer and product data, making it a powerful tool for personalized marketing and customer experiences. However, businesses may find alternatives like Nosto, Adobe Sensei, Lyro AI Chatbot, or OptiMonk AI more suitable depending on their specific needs, such as faster setup times or more specialized functionalities. Each tool has its unique strengths, and the choice ultimately depends on the business’s requirements and resources.
Bloomreach - Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions about Bloomreach
What is Bloomreach and what does it do?
Bloomreach is a platform that specializes in personalizing the e-commerce experience. It uses advanced AI, particularly its proprietary Loomi AI, to unify real-time customer and product data. This helps businesses create a more personalized and engaging shopping experience across various channels.How does Bloomreach gather and use customer data?
Bloomreach gathers transactional, demographic, and behavioral information from multiple systems and sources, compiling it into a central database. This data is then used to create a comprehensive customer profile known as the Single Customer View (SCV), which can be shared with other technology solutions to optimize marketing efforts and increase personalization.What are the key features of Bloomreach’s Loomi AI?
Loomi AI is a core component of the Bloomreach platform, supporting greater personalization, discovery, and engagement. It includes features such as marketing automation, search and merchandising optimization, and conversational commerce. Recent updates include AI Studio for customizing search ranking algorithms, Visual Search for image-based product queries, and support for 33 languages.How does Bloomreach enhance search and product discovery?
Bloomreach enhances search and product discovery through its Loomi AI-powered tools. For example, the Visual Search feature allows customers to upload images instead of typing queries, delivering precise and personalized results. Additionally, the AI Studio enables merchandisers to customize and refine search ranking algorithms without needing coding expertise.What analytics capabilities does Bloomreach offer?
Bloomreach provides a suite of AI-powered e-commerce analytics tools that go beyond traditional web analytics. These tools offer real-time reporting, customer behavior tracking, sales performance analysis, and customizable dashboards. This allows businesses to make data-driven decisions and optimize their campaigns quickly.How does Bloomreach integrate with other data sources and systems?
Bloomreach seamlessly integrates with various data sources, enabling businesses to get a full view of their performance from all angles. Tools like Nexla help automate the process of aggregating product and customer information from hundreds of sources, ensuring high-quality data is fed into Bloomreach’s AI models.What types of businesses use Bloomreach?
Bloomreach powers personalized experiences for a significant portion of e-commerce websites in the US and UK, including major brands like CVS, Staples, Williams-Sonoma, Bosch, Puma, and Marks & Spencer. It serves over 1,400 global brands.What specific products and solutions does Bloomreach offer?
Bloomreach offers several products, including Engagement (a marketing automation platform), Discovery (an e-commerce search solution), Content (a headless CMS), and Clarity (AI-powered conversational shopping). These solutions are designed to enhance various aspects of the e-commerce experience.How does Bloomreach handle large volumes of heterogeneous data?
Bloomreach uses tools like Nexla to automate the process of aggregating and processing large volumes of heterogeneous data from multiple sources. This ensures that high-quality data is consistently fed into its AI models, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of its personalized content and search results.What kind of support and resources does Bloomreach provide?
While specific details on support resources are not provided in the sources, Bloomreach typically offers documentation, FAQs, and likely customer support services to help users effectively use their platform. For more detailed information, it would be best to contact Bloomreach directly or check their official website.Additional Inquiries
If you have more specific questions or need further details, it’s always a good idea to reach out to Bloomreach’s customer support or schedule a demo to get a deeper understanding of their offerings.