PR-Shackled CRI Makes Some Cryptic Noise About A Renewal Deal With Whale Retail Client

April 29, 2022 by Dave Haynes

Winning business with whale clients is always good news for service providers in digital signage, or just about any industry, but it is only rarely news that can get shared around for marketing benefit.

That explains the somewhat cryptic news from solutions provider Creative Realities that it has re-upped its business for another three years with a long-standing whale client in the retail sector, “to continue delivering software as a service to its vast fleet of store locations throughout the U.S.”

As is often the case, the client won’t let the service provider make any formal hay about the deal, hence the vague reference to a retailer with a vast number of stores. But CRI is a traded company, so it understandably is doing what it can to tell investors good things are happening, particularly in the wake of acquiring competitor Reflect Systems.

“A consecutive 3-year term is an unusual occurrence in our business. This is a clear indication of our customer’s comfort level with our combined team, and our commitment to improving the ways software can be utilized to spark new ways to solve problems,” says CRI CEO Rick Mills in PR.

I’m not sure it is all that unusual to get a renewal, and less so these days as digital signage technology is more widely used. Certainly, there were a lot of replacement deals two or three years after end-users made bad, uneducated provider choices when they first got into digital signage. But once they settled on something and are happy, they’re less likely to go through the considerable work and cost to switch again. The “if it ain’t broke …” maxim tends to apply.

I have my thoughts on who this whale client is, but not gonna speculate in writing.

“We embarked on a custom development journey to achieve specific goals unique to this client ecosystem, allowing our client to test and learn, with or without our assistance. We’re thrilled we lived up to our client’s high expectations and, in doing so, earned the trust than continues to foster our service culture,” adds Mills.

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