Organizations now have an infinite quantity of customer data at their disposal for actionable insights that can be used to streamline the customer journey and deliver intelligent and contextual communications. Customers increasingly expect highly tailored and real-time engagements with companies, placing greater value on organizations that understand their preferences and communicate through their preferred channels. With the customer journey at the core of many CX projects, CEOs must also redesign their tech stack holistically.
In today’s world, customers expect highly personalized and real-time interactions with brands, placing greater value in organizations that understand their preferences and communicate through their channels of choice. According to Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, global organizations often face challenges in selecting and implementing the appropriate technology that helps them meet those customer expectations. For many organizations, their tech stack is a set of disjointed technologies cobbled together to achieve a certain objective because there isn’t a comprehensive strategy across departments. With the customer journey at the forefront of many CX initiatives, executives must also take a holistic approach to reimagine their tech stack, removing silos. Now more than ever, organizations have an endless amount of customer data available for actionable insights that they can use to streamline the customer journey and deliver intelligent and contextual communications.
Importance of Data and Personalization
Connecting data from multiple channels, touchpoints, and systems, activities supported with a CDP, provides a holistic view of the customer’s interactions to derive actionable insights. It is important to evaluate CX tools that possess robust data capabilities such as seamless integration, multi-feed ingestion, and real-time segmentation to create one unified view of the customer. Leading organizations can leverage that data to trigger omni-channel orchestration ensuring timely, relevant, and contextual information is sent to the customer.
Using a Customer Data Platform and analytics tools are only part of the solution. As we noted in the CCM Spark Matrix, automating communication workflows and providing business users with tools to design responsive, personalized communication across channels improves the customer experience. A vendor should consider the value an integrated CX platform has that includes CDP and CCM capabilities with dynamic visualization, holistic journey management and real-time orchestration. The ability to balance customer insight and bring together predictive experiences with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) strengthens the journey context. The combination of these solutions in platforms improves the ability to measure business impact. Whether enhancing brand loyalty and customer engagement, acquisition, and retention, the right platform can not only track the success of the customer journey but can also help with prioritization.
Selection Considerations
Operationally there can be challenges to adopting modern CX solutions, particularly when faced with seamlessly integrating these solutions with existing systems. Vendors should look for solutions that can easily integrate with the organization’s existing technology stack, avoiding a “rip and replace” approach. A platform designed with integration in mind, reducing deployment and operations complexities. The ease of integration also reduces implementation time, expediting the speed to value and return on investment.
With a plethora of CX technology solutions available in the market, organizations face challenges to select the right solution that will help them achieve their desired outcome. Vendors should look for solutions that help personalize communications over the customer lifecycle, bring together a mix of analytics and orchestration technologies, while providing a quick path to implementation. Quadrant Knowledge Solutions suggests vendors that offer an integrated CX technology stack, simplify the delivery of personalized, contextually relevant communications to customers at their desired time and through their preferred channel.
Partner with a Leader Customer Engagement
Quadrant reviewed CSG Xponent™ – a unified, SaaS-based customer engagement platform that brings together customer data, customer journey management and analytics, and omni-channel engagement communications – in both the Customer Communication Management (CCM) and Customer Data Platform (CDP) Spark Matrix evaluations. The Xponent platform connects customer data to deliver 1:1 personalized, proactive, and predictive experiences. Xponent understands the customers’ behaviors to proactively provide the next best experience to drive loyalty, improve customer advocacy and increase customer retention and growth.
Learn how CSG Xponent will supercharge your customer experience.
Author
Priyanka Panhale, Analyst at Quadrant Knowledge Solution
