Amplitude voice of the customer capability targets 'rage close'

You might not have heard of the term rage close, but you definitely know what it is: When a screen for a survey pop-up in software or a website grays out at the worst possible time. Annoyed -- maybe more than a little -- you close it as fast as possible and get on with what you were doing.

That is the problem marketing analytics vendor Amplitude -- and Command AI, a partner it acquired last October and has integrated into its platform -- is trying to solve with new voice of the customer (VOC) features rolled out on Amplitude's marketing analytics platform.

Instead of pesty pop-ups, surveys can be embedded in help guides and other less intrusive places at better moments during the user experience. Rage closes annoy end users, but they also hinder companies from gathering customer feedback that improves their products or web experiences.

Guides can be tailored to specific customer cohorts such as assistive guides for users who appear frustrated using software or a website, or informational guides for high-potential prospects who might convert to customers with a marketing nudge, said James Evans, Amplitude director and head of AI, and one of Command AI's co-founders. Generative AI is not a part of this product, but available as part of a separate chatbot product, he added.

"Pop-ups are just going to get closed, and that means you've lost the ability to use that tool -- and also, you just p--- people off," Evans said. "Our approach is, 'Let's make sure we have a pretty good understanding, or [at least] we suspect the user actually cares about this,' versus spray and pray."

The combination of Command AI and Amplitude saves time in running analytics and syncing data between the two platforms, said Rachel Strubhar, director of product growth at Homebase. The San Francisco-based software company provides scheduling, time tracking, shift management HR and labor compliance tools for more than 100,000 small businesses in a number of verticals, including restaurants and retail.

Homebase was a joint Amplitude and Command AI customer before the merger and kept both vendors after their integration, Strubhar said. The new features help Homebase's marketing efforts target the right customers at the right time, such as informational guides for break waivers, a regulatory issue with which one of Homebase's features helps users comply.

"Our customers use our product almost every day, so that's a great place for us to talk to them and to tell them how they can get more value out of the product," Strubhar said. "It's a really good place for us to talk to them, as opposed to email or other channels."

Amplitude's marketing analytics platform is in a crowded market. Some of its competitors include Mixpanel, Heap and Glassbox, as well as larger companies such as Optimizely, Qualtrics, Google and Adobe.

Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.