BOSTON — Before Ken Tingle started working as the first vice president and business intelligence manager at The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod, he had already spent seven years working with customer experience management systems. He was particularly familiar with Salesforce’s ubiquitous CRM platform.
He was certain that he would stay with Salesforce and did not at first consider other options.
However, when a representative from AI-native CRM and business process management vendor Creatio — which is based in Boston — contacted him, Tingle changed his mind.
“What impressed me about the group, overall, was that it really was more of a tailored, custom-crafted solution, versus something that was more globally oriented,” Tingle said in an interview with AI Business during Creatio’s No-Code Day conference on Sept. 18.
The way Tingle saw it, Salesforce had grown so big, to the point where it had come to dominate the CRM market, that personalization had become difficult for the CRM and CX giant.
A Personalized Experience
With Creatio, Tingle said it felt like the bank’s voice would be heard.
“We’re going to be able to have a say at the table, which is super important in an industry — not only financial services but even on the tech side — that is moving so rapidly that it’s hard to find any sort of consistency or voice,” he said.
The need for personalization that The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod experienced when choosing between a big CRM vendor such as Salesforce or a smaller vendor like Creatio reflects an emerging dynamic in the fast-moving AI market. The vendors that succeed in the AI race could include not just those with the fanciest tools but also those that can work most closely with enterprise customers to determine the best applications.
For Creatio, founded in 2014 as Bpm’online Ltd., personalization is both a culture and a technology strategy.
“We have this kind of core central tenet to our organization around genuine care,” Jason Olkowski, Creatio’s chief strategy and transformation officer, said in an interview. “That really connects with a lot of customers. Maybe they’re passionate the same way about their customers or have found themselves locked out when trying to deal with some of the big players out there.”
Avidia Bank and No Code
The personalization challenge is also one of reasons why commercial bank Avidia switched from Salesforce to Creatio.
For example, while Salesforce’s partner network is extensive and provides a lot of choice, it also means that the vendor might not have as big a stake in smaller customers, said John O’Connor, CIO and senior vice president at Avidia Bank, in an interview.
“It was like you sign a contract, and then maybe your partner network works out, maybe it doesn’t,” O’Connor said. However, Avidia Bank switched from Salesforce because of cost considerations and Creatio’s no-code approach to AI technology within its CRM platform.
AI technology is now a must-have for CRMs, O’Connor said. He added that while Salesforce had long had its own Einstein AI platform, in recent years it has adopted and promoted Microsoft’s Copilot AI system, which was more challenging and expensive for the bank to use.
“Really, the no-code is probably the biggest selling point,” he said, adding that a year ago, it was tough to visualize how the bank would use generative AI (GenAI) technology. The bank is now looking at implementing GenAI as part of its data strategy. It also plans to use it to power an assistant for customer service agents.
“It’s going to be fully integrated over the next couple of years and do everything that bankers do now,” O’Connor continued. “We weren’t taking a step back, moving away from Salesforce; we were taking a step forward because we had better people and processes behind us.”
Tingle said no-code was also a big selling point for The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod.
“It makes it feel like I can get involved without all of that technical jargon or experience necessary for you to get your foot through the door,” he said.
Creatio’s no-code approach enables users to build and automate applications. It also simplifies enterprise application maintenance, according to Olkowski
“That maintaining over time is where folks have felt tremendous pain,” he said. He added that addressing this challenge is a way that Creatio has been able to stay competitive.
A Fast-Moving Technology
But addressing just one source of trouble is not enough in a market where AI technology and GenAI are moving so fast.
For this problem, Creatio tries to stay close to its customers so that they can make informed choices.
“The industry is going fast, but organizations and leaders need some time to understand how to reason and make those decisions,” said Andie Dovgan, chief growth officer at Creatio. He added that Creatio is focused on AI automation that adds value. “You can build different agents and do different things, but I think it’s important for any organization to understand why they apply AI and how it will make their life easier.”
For Avidia, the most pressing use case for agentic AI is with its telephone channel.
“We have thousands of calls a month,” O’Connor said. “Eighty percent of those calls can get addressed with agentic AI. Not only can they save the time we spend paying a human being, but they’re going to provide customer service faster. So, the customer wins and we win.”
Despite the praise it receives from its customers, and the momentum it is currently receiving, Creatio still faces the battle of competing against larger, established vendors such as Oracle, HubSpot and Zendesk. The vendor also faces not having as much visibility in the market.
Salesforce declined to comment.
link