Upgraded Bridgepointe Platform Tackles Customer Buying Intent, AI-Based Product Recommendations

National technology advisory firm Bridgepointe Technologies expanded the capabilities of its Signal platform to give its IT strategists more tactical resources for selling to end customers.

Bridgepointe at its recent annual Tech Summit and highlighted the increasing number of features in The Signal, Bridgepoint's partner and supplier portal and CRM. The Signal now includes an buyer intent data collection product, a PartnerTap-based co-sell product and a machine-learning based recommendation engine for technology sourcing.

Bridgepointe works with hundreds of independent IT strategists who leverage the company's brand to consult on technology for midmarket and enterprise customers. Bridgepointe counts as a tech services distributor (TSD) in the sense that it owns contracts with technology suppliers and service providers on behalf of its agents/strategists. But Bridgepointe differs in part because its advisors are using Bridgepointe's own CRM and "running their plays out of our system," chief strategy officer Scott Kinka told Channel Futures.

"If we're all operating under the same brand, if we could live in the same system and get people to adopt working our way, then we can unlock the value of operating like organization," Kinka said.

Bridgepointe is also unique among the TSDs in that its brand is customer-facing. And that proximity creates insights and data that The Signal can harness on behalf of strategists, chief operations officer Michael Sterl said.

Related:Bridgepointe Touts Organic Growth, Big-Name Clients at Annual Tech Summit

Bridgepointe's Michael Sterl

"We're so much closer to the end customer that the faster we can deliver different information, we can guide the IT strategists and our client advisors. We can tell them what to go think about, what messaging is needed. Is there a different campaign that's needed? Should we build a go-to-market around customers? Should we think about product insights or recommendation from our up-sell, cross-sell? And ultimately, just trying to say, 'How do we improve the overall customer roadmap at whatever level we're in the customer with?'" Sterl told Channel Futures.

Intent Data: BPT Synergy

The first pillar of The Signal tackles customer buying intent. Bridgepointe has integrated market intelligence provider ZoomInfo's platform into The Signal in a product called BPT Synergy. Synergy tracks customer activity on behalf of partners using a variety of inputs. Synergy keeps tabs of when a client or prospective client watches content Bridgepointe has produced, be it a podcast or a social media post, and informs the relevant IT strategist. ZoomInfo and Synergy also triangulate inputs from third-party surveys, review sites and websites of other technology providers

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The result, Sterl said, is a nudge from Synergy to the IT strategist that its client is researching a particular type of technology.

"There's not enough hours in the day for the humans to touch every customer or every prospect. So use the digital touch to at least be aware of what's going on," Sterl said. "And that happens in two ways. I have a customer that I know they're doing activity, or I have a prospect that I'm already selling something to. Why don't I take a moment to see what are they downloading and see how that correlates to the product that I'm already selling them or trying to sell them? It's just additional information prompting the strategist to have a discussion – to be aware of what their customer behavior is."

The trend is well-documented that younger IT buyers conduct heavy research on products and vendors before consulting an advisor. The new features can help Bridgepointe's IT strategists keep pace, IT strategist Brandon Gentry said.

"Buyers aren't just reaching out to you when they think they have an opportunity. They're doing 80% of their research before even engaging a supplier," said Gentry. "So what do you do for that 80% of the time? How do you stay in front of them? Bridgepointe is trying to enable the agent to stay in front of the prospect for when they do decide to start looking."

Co-Sell: BPT Connect

Co-selling platform PartnerTap has arrived on the TSD scene in the last two years, notably working with two large telcos to match technology advisor partners with direct sellers on mutual accounts. Bridgepointe has launched BPT Connect, a co-selling function in partnership with PartnerTap housed inside of The Signal. Sterl said three service providers are currently in beta mode with the program.

Sterl said embedding the co-selling function within Bridgepointe's own platform will streamline the process of account mapping. While some advisors across the industry have indicated their interest in account mapping, often they have needed to surface those opportunities in a "fragmented, third-party system," Sterl said. Bringing PartnerTap into The Signal allows Bridgepointe and its strategists to navigate funnel and pipeline more efficiently, he said.

"For us, it was important to get buy-in from suppliers we're working with, unite that community, prioritize the relationships – both from a supplier and a strategist – and then over time, we can monitor the strategists that raise their hand to say, 'Hey, I'm interested,'" Sterl told Channel Futures.

Increasing visibility is important, he said.

"We put all those deal alerts in The Signal, so now the supplier channel manager and the strategist can see them, as well as our Bridgepointe sales team and our Bridgepointe supplier management team. So now we have four sets of eyes making sure these handoffs are working properly," he said.

Recommendation Engine: BPT Amplify

The firm has also launched Amplify, a machine-learning based engine to give IT strategists personalized product recommendations for their customers. Amplify seeks to perform three different functions: suggesting to the advisor what the next logical product fit will be for their customer, using historical data to benchmark pricing and help customers optimize spend, thirdly optimizing technical performance.

Sterl compared it to what Amazon does for consumers on its marketplace.

"You bought a widget, and Amazon says, 'Other profiles bought these things,' or, 'Here's a better fit for that widget you bought,' or, 'When we see that widget purchased, we see these next two things being purchased.' It's the same deal," he said.

Sterl said Bridgepointe has been working on the training model and foundational inputs for the last year. Its data inputs include Bridgepointe's CRM, commission data, tech stack data from different providers and other sources of data. There's a "crawl-walk-run" component to this product, Sterl said, and Amplify is currently in the crawl stage.

"We have to deliver this in bite-sized chunks to our strategists, because it could become quickly overwhelming. We're not running out and saying machine learning or recommendation engines or AI, is going to solve everything," he said. "But we are saying we are going to get to a point where we can be more proactive with our strategists in helping them understand where to focus and win."

Bridgepointe has been making heavy investments in people and platforms since securing its partnership with Charlesbank Capital Partners. Sterl himself is one of the high-profile executives Bridgepointe has brought over the last two years. Sterl said that Bridgepointe's investments in platform will continue to couple with investments in personnel and services.

"We're going to continue to invest in our engineers, our field reps. We're going to continue to invest what services we can actually sell with you. And we're going to continue to invest in our platform in order to enable you throughout the entire customer journey," he said.