Customer Experience Platform: Buying Guide for CMOs
Your customers come to your website, download documents, click on emails, and connect with your sales team. The marketers would notice the engagements, the sales would note the CRM activities, while the services would notice the support interactions. What you will end up with is a fragmented customer experience journey across channels.
A good investment in CXP needs to be analyzed not only from a list of features standpoint but rather based on other factors.
This article outlines what CMOs should assess when selecting a Customer Experience Platform.
The CMO's Evaluation Framework: How to Structure a CXP Buying Process
The buying process for Customer Experience Platforms (CXP) should be outcome-driven.
1. State Your Goals Before You Evaluate the Technology
Don’t start with all the functions your technology should have. Firstly, define what you want to accomplish.
If there is an issue of high churn rates, then personalization would not be the key objective for a SaaS company.
2. Assess Core Competencies
Among the things you should consider there are:
Customer data unification
Journey orchestration
Personalization
AI recommendations
Omnichannel engagement
Analytics
Reporting and dashboards
A retail firm would emphasize real-time personalization while a financial services firm would emphasize compliance and insights.
3. Establish Success Metrics Before Vendor Selection
Metrics should include:
Customer retention rate
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Customer lifetime value
Conversion rate
Customer satisfaction scores
Engagement across channels
A company may target a 15% improvement in retention within 12 months after implementing a CXP.
4. Assess Data and Analytics Capabilities
Assess the level of depth and availability of Customer Experience Analytics.
Considerations to be made are:
Is real-time insight possible with the platform?
Is predictive analytics supported by the platform?
Are dashboards customizable?
Can business teams access data without technical support?
Telecom organizations can employ predictive analytics to find out which customers are most likely to churn and implementing customer retention programs.
5. Request Demo Examples of Use Cases
The vendor demonstration should revolve around use cases rather than product demonstrations.
Ask vendors to provide a use case demonstration about detecting a failed customer journey and initiating an appropriate response.
6. Undertake a Pilot Program Before Implementation
This will help determine the value, integration, usability, and impact to your business prior to full implementation.
The software company can run this process on its onboarding campaigns and determine improvements in customer engagement before applying full scale.
CXP vs. CDP at a Glance
Measuring ROI From a Customer Experience Platform
There are other benefits of Customer Experience Platform besides measuring customer satisfaction.
1. Determine Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Improved experiences can result in more purchases, thus increased CLV.
KPIs to measure:
Revenue per customer
Revenue from upselling and cross-selling
A financial services firm uses personalized recommendations in their CXP, thus raising their CLV.
2. Employ Analytics to Enhance Customer Experience Journey
Customer experience analytics can help businesses identify issues that customers have and those experiences that interest them.
Metrics to watch:
Journey completion rate
Drop-off points
Customer engagement scores
Channel performance
A retailer finds that many customers are dropping out of the purchase process due to several forms of authentication. Simplifying the process engages customers.
3. Connect Metrics to Revenue
Customer experience investments must be linked to business outcomes.
Measures to use:
Revenue growth
Pipeline contribution
Average order value
Revenue from retained customers
For a technology firm, CXP is used to optimize onboarding and customer engagement leading to increased renewals and new sales opportunities.
4. Determine Total Cost of Ownership
ROI calculations should consider all associated costs, not just software licensing.
Costs to include:
Platform licensing
Implementation expenses
Integration costs
Training and support
Ongoing administration
A lower-cost platform may require extensive customization, increase implementation costs and delay time to value.
5. Build an ROI Framework Before Deployment
Organizations that define success metrics before implementation are better positioned to demonstrate value.
A ROI framework includes:
Investment
Technology costs
Implementation costs
Operational costs
Returns
Revenue growth
Cost savings
Customer retention gains
Productivity improvements
A company invests in a CXP implementation and generates revenue and additional expansion revenue, creating a business case for continued investment.
The Clarity Every CMO Needs Before Entering the CXP Market
A successful evaluation process starts with defining the problems you are trying to solve and identifying the capabilities that has impact on customer engagement, retention, and revenue. CMOs also need to understand where CXP fits within the technology ecosystem. A CDP and a CXP serve different purposes but are effective when used together.
The right CXP is not another technology purchase. It is a foundation for delivering experiences.
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