This page details the Terminology that will be mentioned in the documentation and within the Behavioral Engagement Platform™️.

Table of Contents

Summary

The Symend Platform is a self-service platform with some managed services and professional offerings. As a managed service, we were able to use our own language and could coach new team members about our unique use of terms and how to interpret them. Now offering both options, we aim to ease the adoption of our product by using terminology that is familiar and accepted within the Customer Engagement industry.

Symend has many moving parts throughout our customer engagement solution. We want to ensure you know all about the terms, acronyms, and features of our Platform. This includes using the Platform, Playbooks, Content, Reporting and Insights, and much more.

Trademarks

There are several protected phrases associated with our brand. They are as follows:

• The Science of Engagement

• Behavioral Engagement Platform

• Behavioral Engagement Playbooks

• Engage with Empathy

• Lead with Empathy

• Empower with Insight

• Adapt as Customers Change

Platform Terminology

Account

Account n. – The identifying number of a Customer (an entity that pays for and uses the services provided by a Client of Symend).

Preferred term “Customer”

An Account is usually one individual but can sometimes represent one business entity. Although this term can be found codified throughout the Symend platform, the term “Customer” is preferred because it brings a greater sense of empathy, helping Symenders stay aligned with our values.

Usage examples

1. What are the Account numbers of the customers that received this outreach?

See “Customer”

Audience

Audience n. – The collection of Customers (of a Client Organization) who enter the Symend Platform.

This includes Customers being actively engaged and past Customers who have entered and/or exited the Platform.

Usage examples

1. The Horizon Media audience grew by 25,000 customers last month.

2. What do we know about the audience from Horizon Mobile?

Audience Segment, Segment

Audience Segment n. – A subset of the Audience that matches specific criteria set forth to sort the Audience.

Segments (for short) can be further subdivided into smaller Segments (which are still called Segments). And, although it is less common, it is completely reasonable that the Segment includes the entire Audience.

This replaces the current hyper-specific “Sub-segmentation”, “Risk segmentation”, “Behavioral segmentation” with a more generic and common term.

Usage examples

1. The “Pretenders” audience segment will respond well to this kind of language.

2. We should experiment with an audience segment that lives in rural areas of the western US and only send them SMS.

Audience Segment examples (demonstration purposes only)

1. All Customers with a behavioral classification of “Pretender”.

2. All Customers with a Risk Code of “Low”, a behavioral classification of “Secure”, and have been overdue for more than 21 days.

3. All Customers with a Type category of “Business”, a Risk Code of “High”, an overdue balance of more than $1000, and an Address in “Alberta”.

Behavioral Engagement Platform

Behavioral Engagement Platform n. – An online platform that uses behavioral science and engagement tactics to communicate with end-user customers, track data, and enable experimentation for the best results.

Symend’s platform uses behavioral science and data-driven insights to empower clients with strategies, communication channels, an more to engage with their customers to:

• Resolve past due bills, utilizing empathy and other behavioral tactics

• Sign up for loyalty, reward, or retention programs

This is under trademark protection.

Behavioral Engagement Playbook

Behavioral Engagement Playbook n. – A Symend Playbook that helps describe the paths and communication channels customers will receive depending on their audience segment, the engagement clients want to have with that customer, and the results to achieve (for example, resolving past due bills).

This is the full marketable term expressing the value (and intellectual property) behind a Playbook. Within the app, we shorten this to “Playbook” and we will have templates in future releases for Playbooks in different verticals.

This is under trademark protection.

There are a number of filters that we can apply to our Playbook library. The importance of filters will grow as the number of Playbooks grows. Possible filters include but are not limited to the following:

• Filter by Collection (Past Due (Symend Cure), Retention (Symend Care))

• Filter by Series (Entry to Expert)

• Filter by Industry (Communications Service Providers, Financial Services, Energy)

• Filter by Line of Business (Consumer, Business)

• Future: Filter by Region (North America, CALA)

Campaign

Campaign n. – A plan that orchestrates the order, timing, and type of messages used to engage with an Audience Segment to encourage action.

A Campaign can be used for “Treatment” within the Symend Cure product and “Engagement” and/or “Audience Growth” in the Symend Grow product. Additional use cases for Campaigns may arise.

Usage examples

• Let’s try a shorter treatment campaign for the “Secure” audience segment that is on their first delinquency.

• This campaign is proving very effective in the Financial institution industry.

• “Treatment campaign”, “Retention campaign”, “Growth campaign”, etc.

Replaces “Treatment Plan” and “Treatment Path”.

See also “Audience Segment”, “Playbook”

Channel

Channel n. – The medium of communication used to deliver Content to a recipient. E.g. SMS, Email, Letter mail, Chat, Landing Pages, etc.

Usage examples

• What channels are you using to reach the under 40 audience segment?

• This isn’t working. We should use a different channel and see how that affects cure rates.

Client, Client Organization

Client Organization n. – A business that pays for and uses the Symend Platform to engage with their customers.

It’s understood that, by definition, a Client Organization is a “customer” of Symend because they purchase products and services from us. But, in order to differentiate “our customers” from “our customers' customers”, we have introduced the term “Client Organization”.

• Accepted abbreviations: “Client,” “Organization,” or, occasionally, “Brand”.

• Accepted IN-APP abbreviations: “Organization”

This replaces the current “Vendor”. (Because in our Clients' eyes, Symend is the vendor!)

Usage examples

• We have 8 active client organizations of the Symend Platform.

• Which organizations are we onboarding next quarter?

• [In-app usage:] Provision new Organization

• [In-app usage:] Switch Organization

Cohort

Cohort n. – An Audience Segment who experienced a common event within a defined time frame.

Be aware that “cohort” is a generalized term that should always include details that describe the criteria of who is included and when. There are examples of non-specific usage of the term “cohort” in code or UI of the Symend Platform that will need further clarification.

Usage examples

1. How many customers are in the cohort that were placed on Feb 16, 2021?

2. Let’s explore the High-risk cohort that all received a Payment Reminder last week.

3. The cohort of all Horizon Mobile customers that were placed between Mar 1 - 10 all exited within 24 days.

Relates to “Audience Segment”

Reference only:

There are many varied definitions that no longer align with our evolved understanding of how we should be segmenting our audiences and reporting on them. Specifically, it does not seem to bring value to evaluate or report on Customer batches related to their “Cohort”. It’s far less interesting to measure aggregate Customer progress based on a fixed date than it is to measure aggregate Customer progress based on the number-of-days since placement. As such, “Cohorts” play far less an important role than we used to believe.

This term is heavily codified in numerous processes and locations. Deprecating or aligning it will take time.

• An Ingest Cohort is the total batch of Account records that we receive each day from our Clients, representing the combination of new Accounts entering treatment, Accounts with no changes, and/or Accounts that have had changes based on the Account’s actions, trigger dates or other Client-specific rationale.

• Episode cohort is a group of customers that began an episode on the same date (e.g. placement date or delinquency date).

Content

Content n. – Text, images, and interactive experiences that Customers receive as part of a Campaign. This material is typically composed by the Behavioral Sciences team and employs targeted tactics to motivate a recipient.

This replaces the current “(Message) Templates” and “Copy”.

Customer

Customer n. – A person or business that pays for and uses the services provided by a Client of Symend.

Usage examples

1. How many Horizon Finance customers did this email go to?

2. When writing content for emails, SMS, and landing pages, we should use language that customers will understand.

Synonyms: Account (as in: Customer Account)

Relates to “Audience”, “Client”

Customer Attribute

Customer Attribute n. – Information about a Customer that can be used to build Audience Segments and/or used in Personalization.

A Customer Attribute can be:

• Provided to Symend by clients (e.g. Risk Code), or

• A Symend manufactured data point based on data science (e.g. Behavior Code) or based on simple logic (e.g. 3^rd Episode, Overdue-Balance-within-some-threshold, etc.).

Symend is evolving to see the majority of information we collect as Customer Attributes. These attributes can then be combined using the Segment product feature to compose rules for Audience Segments.

Usage examples

1. What were the Customer Attributes used for the first Audience Segment?

2. Let’s discuss the Customer Attributes used by our NLP algorithms that lead to high confidence in results.

Relates to “Audience”, “Audience Segment”, “Customer”

Customer Journey

Customer Journey n. – The sequence of Episodes that an Account has been through during their time with the Client, including all activity upstream and downstream of the current Symend Cure product.

Usage examples

• This group of Customers have had a rocky Journey with our Client. We have a hypothesis; let’s apply data science to determine if the relevant features support the hypothesis.

• We have found that analyzing the full Customer Journey provides interesting insights into their behavior.

Synonyms: shortened to “Journey” occasionally

Relates to “Episode”

Episode

Episode n. – A single, unique occurrence of a specific Customer Account entering a Playbook. A new Episode is triggered when the attributes of a Customer Account match a given Playbook’s Entry Criteria and the Customer Account enters the Playbook. An Episode is part of a larger series of events called a “Customer Journey”.

When a Customer Account is received by Symend but does not match the Entry Criteria for any of the published Playbooks, that account is said to be “unassigned” and no Episodes will be created.

Usage examples

1. How many Episodes has this Customer Account been through?

2. Let’s consider using number-of-episodes as a Customer Attribute for the Segment Designer.

Relates to “Customer Journey”

Exit

Exit v. – The act of a Customer leaving the current Episode.

Exit n. – The outcome of an Episode. An exit that results in the desired Customer behaviour is described as a “Successful exit”. An exit that results in the Customer taking no action or taking an undesirable action is described as an “Unsuccessful exit”.

Replaces “cure” in the context of an Episode.

Historically, “cure” and “cure rate” have been used to represent the successful exits from a campaign where the customer took the desired action. However, the term “cure” is tightly coupled with “treatment” (a deprecated term) and is applicable only to the Symend Cure product. We are striving to find terminology that can extend to Symend Grow and future products and have chosen to qualify “exits” as successful or unsuccessful.

Usage examples

1. We have seen an increase in Customers successfully exiting after accepting a Payment Reminder.

2. The ratio of successful to unsuccessful exits is 4:1.

3. Customers with at least one unsuccessful exit are more likely to return for another episode.

Landing Page

Landing Page n. - A Symend hosted, client branded standalone web page that provides information and self-service options to customers under treatment.

A unique domain name is required to provide a publicly accessible URL for email Call-to-action links and treatment options.

Outreach

Outreach n. – A message sent to a Customer on any Channel from the Symend Platform on behalf of a Client. It is mandatory to identify the Channel when describing an Outreach (e.g. email outreach, SMS outreach) to ensure clarity.

Usage examples

1. This email outreach uses the “FOMO” tactic.

2. How long did it take to send all of the SMS outreaches today for our Horizon Media org?

Path

Path n. – An ordered sequence of Outreaches. One or more Paths are combined to form a Campaign. A Path can be split into two or more paths and we call this “branching”. When it helps to differentiate, a Path that has been split from another Path is called a Branch.

Usage examples

1. There are 8 outreaches on this path.

2. If a customer engages with a landing page, they’ll move onto this branch.

This combines and replaces “Drip Path” and “Nurture Path”.

Playbook, Standard Playbook

Playbook n. – A coordinated strategy that brings together a collection of Campaigns.

Standard Playbook n. – A pre-packaged Playbook designed by Symend Behavioral Scientists and optimized for an industry or business vertical.

Engagement Science Playbook n. – The marketable term expressing the value (and intellectual property) behind a Playbook.

Usage examples

• We developed a standard playbook for the North American telecommunications industry.

• Let’s use a behavior-based playbook for this client.

Replaces the “Strategic Plan” or “Treatment Plan” and evolves the capabilities.

Relates to “Audience Segment”, “Campaign”

Professional Services

Professional Services n. – Professional Services is an overarching term for a variety of services provided by Symend. From onboarding to custom playbook adaptation, the Professional Services catalogue details many options to meet our clients’ needs.

Risk Group

Replaces “Risk Segment”

Risk Group n. – The risk bracket, classification, or categorization of the Customer according to the Client's risk profiling method.

Usage examples

• Which Risk Groups did the Client provide during onboarding?

• Let’s try an Audience Segment using Risk Groups “A” through “C”.

Because of the new definition of Audience Segment (and Segment for short), we have stopped using “Risk Segment” to avoid confusion.

Stage

Stage n. – The standing of the Customer services in the eyes of the Client, reflected by the level of service offered to the Customer by the Client.

The following are the recognized Stages at this time:

• Overdue – A Customer is past due on a bill. This is generally the starting stage for an Episode in Symend Cure.

• Partially Suspended (sometimes “Ladex”)  – Most services are suspended, but the Customer’s account remains active exclusively for the purpose of client communication with the Customer.

• Suspended – All services for the Customer account are suspended.

• Customer Cancelled – Customer opts to cancel services and close their Account. This is a Customer-initiated cancellation.

• Cancelled – Client cancels services for the Customer account. This is a Client-initiated cancellation.

• Suspended Offer – Client suspends the special offer related to a Customer account.

• Written off – A written off or charged off account is a debt that has become seriously delinquent, and the Client has given up on being paid by the Customer.

Usage examples

• We should offer the Stage in the Segment Designer as a Customer Attribute.

• Stage changes are an important event in our Playbooks.

Symend Care

Symend Care n. – Symend has solutions for various industries looking to engage with their customers in different stages of their lifecycle. Symend Care is our solution for customer retention. It is comprised of a library of Behavioral Engagement Playbooks. It is powered by the Symend Platform.

Symend Cure

Symend Cure n. – Symend has solutions for various industries looking to engage with their customers in different stages of their lifecycle. Symend Cure is our solution for the past due customer use case. It is comprised of a library of Behavioral Engagement Playbooks. It is powered by the Symend Platform.

Symend Platform

Symend Platform n. – See “Behavioral Engagement Platform”.

The description is the same as the “Behavioral Engagement Platform”. This is another acceptable term that describes our whole application system.

Playbook & Content Terminology

Account Number Masking

Account Number Masking v. – Account masking rules apply to every customer to protect personally identifiable information (PII).

Additional Language Outreach

Additional Language Outreach n. – Engage with your customers in the language they prefer. Contact us to add-on language options.

Additional SMS Short-Codes

Additional SMS Short-Codes n. – Ramp up for high-volume and time-sensitive messaging. Shortcode is not subject to carrier filtering or suspension for heavy traffic resulting in faster delivery of customer messages.

Already Paid

Already Paid n. – Designation in the Playbook for users who have paid their bills.

Quickly resolve any discrepancies for customers that have already paid with this feature. The back-end reporting will help you reconcile between paid and outstanding invoices.

Behavioral Science Engagement Strategy

Behavioral Science Engagement Strategy n. – Our advanced behavioral techniques and segmentation developed in our strategic playbooks is integrated into our treatment outreach.

This unique treatment methodology guides messaging and is foundational for personalized messaging that resonates with target segments

Conditional Messaging

Conditional Messaging v. – Provide unique email messaging and call-to-actions for those tagged with specific conditions, such as eligibility for payment arrangements and other rules.

Custom Data Transformation

Custom Data Transformation n. – A data transformation tool to convert and format your daily account data so it's ready to begin the prescribed treatment.

Daily Optimization

Daily Optimization v. – Daily treatment re-evaluation per customer, based on either their interactions or key dates, risk profiles or days into their treatment.

Data Exports

Data Exports v. – The steps of taking data from an organization's Symend Platform attributes and exported back to that client, with the event sources of that organization's customer data in the Platform.

This data is set with an export frequency (once a day default), time of day, file settings, column headings, event sources, and delivery method (SFTP default). This ensures clients can receive the current updates with their most recent customer data from Symend's Platform Attributes.

Email Automation

Email Automation v. – Real-time automated email communication to provide information on the next steps for customers.

Email Brand Builder

Email Brand Builder n. – A brand tool to easily collaborate, approve and publish email communications that are customized with logos, colors, call-to-action presentations and images.

File and Data Encryption

File and Data Encryption v. – File encryption protects individual files or file systems by encrypting them with a specific key, making them accessible only to the keyholder. The goal is to prevent malicious or unauthorized parties from accessing files.

Symend securely encrypts files and data.

Landing Page Brand Builder

Landing Page Brand Builder n. – A brand tool to easily collaborate, approve and publish your website “landing pages” that are customized with logos, colors, call-to-action presentations, and images.

Letter Services

Letter Services n. – The ability to send physical letter mail to customers using the national postal services.

Load Balancing

Load Balancing v. – A methodical and efficient sequencing of customer outreach traffic to balance outreach distribution across the span of the day, ensuring contact centers are able to handle any inquiries that result from outreach.

Long Term Outreach Archiving

Long Term Outreach Archiving n. – To help you adhere to regulatory and compliance standards we offer a long-term archive for every email and SMS outreach for up to 2 years.

Multiple Delinquency

Multiple Delinquency n. – Configure the Playbook multi-stage delinquency including overdue, partial suspend, suspend, cancellation to write off. Manage messages and outreaches to all these stages in a daily cohort.

Multi-Variate Testing

Multi-Variate Testing v. – Keep tuned into progress as customers move through each treatment cycle.

Key engagement metrics including opens, clicks, balance changes, stage changes, holds and sends, that can be tested for a set of customers.

Personalization

Personalization n. – The action of designing or producing something to meet a user’s individual requirements.

Maximize the impact email outreaches with merge tags to create truly personalized treatment messages. Standard merge tag examples include name, account numbers, balances, and key dates. Layer on dynamic data fields for subject line, pre-header, and email content.

Payment Options

Payment Options v. – A way that customers pay their balance owing, by giving them a choice for the whole amount, a schedule of payments and more.

Remove payment friction by presenting your customers with a choice of payment options.

Payment Reminders

Payment Reminders v. – A method sent to customers to prompt them to pay their owing or overdue amount.

Personalize the customer experience by understanding and tailoring the reminder to pay, helping customers to pay their invoices on time and adopt better behaviors in the future.

Playbooks, Playbook Settings

Playbooks, Playbook Settings n. – Your treatment campaign is executed in real-time, tracking data movement for all types of paths and moving customers into new Playbooks or Campaigns when they engage with an outreach/landing page, using controls on each path, until they exit a campaign, or entirely exit a playbook.

Restricted Dates

Restricted Dates n. – Selected dates in the system where the Playbook instructions will not be executed.

Configure send days of your choice or hold outreaches on weekends, special occasions, and any custom dates your business operations require. With new options, you can schedule triggers to find the best date to send before or after restricted dates.

Risk Profile Segmentation

Risk Profile Segmentation v. – A descriptive summary of the size, needs, behaviors and preferences of customers within a particular market segment, with the goal of evaluating segment attractiveness and developing suitable strategies.

Unique risk profiling such as payment history all change per delinquency cycle and treatment paths are adjusted accordingly.

Same Day Compliance

Same Day Compliance n. – Adhere to regulatory requirements around Same Day compliance for message outreaches (US only).

Secure Data Transfers

Secure Data Transfers v. – The transfer of data such as confidential or proprietary information over a secure channel that requires a method of encryption.

Symend secures data transfers through automated and seamless uploads using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

Send Window

Send Window n. – A configurable Playbook setting to tailor the customer journey and account for the clients preferred outreach sending days/times. Playbook Designers can set both recurring and non-recurring restricted days and send windows that apply to all audience members.

Sender Authentication

Sender Authentication v. – A collection of authentication functions including sub domains, link branding and email security so that all sending of customer outreaches is authorized through you and will minimize any barriers to delivery.

Short Term Outreach Archiving

Short Term Outreach Archiving v. – To help you adhere to regulatory and compliance standards we offer a short term archive for every email and SMS outreach for up to 30 days.

Single Delinquency

Single Delinquency n. – Segment your at-risk customers and provide a standard treatment path with single cohort.

Text message (SMS) Personalization

Text message (SMS) Personalization n. – Connect with more customers through personalized text messages over SMS. Just like emails, text messages include merge tags for personalized communication.