Gaps in Customer Experience Technology

CX TechnologyLast month, we reviewed the first segment of a free, three-part, on-demand webinar as Forrester analysts Ted Schadler and Craig Le Clair discussed gaps in customer experience. In the first segment, Schadler underscored the importance of customer experience (CX) and highlighted four common gaps in CX from the customer’s point of view: Convenience, performance, personalization, and trust. In this installment, Le Clair discusses in-depth research regarding customer experience gaps from the company’s point of view.

What emerges from the data is a clear picture of what the CX delivery gaps are, why they exist, and how companies can close them.

Research Findings

In the 14-minute segment, Le Clair, an expert on managing customer-facing communications, reviews the various ways companies communicate with customers, and then dives into the data that shows why the majority of companies are not very satisfied with their ability to manage communications across the customer journey.

Here are some of the key findings:

  • Automation: 35% of respondents reported not being able to automate all of the communications they would like because their current tools/technologies do not offer the necessary capabilities.
  • Personalization: 35% reported not being able to achieve the same degree of personalization across all of their customer communications.
  • Channels: 34% reported that not all departments are able to send communications over all of the same channels or over a given customer’s preferred channel.

These findings dovetail with customers’ perceptions that organizations are not consistently delivering convenient, quick, personalized, and trustworthy communications. Not enough companies have the tools they need to achieve their CX goals across the entire customer journey.

How to Close the GapsCX goals

Le Clair believes the root of the problem is that the people, processes, and technologies that create customer-facing communications exist in separate silos, divided by departmental lines. The research shows that these organizational artifacts create gaps in customer experience that can, and do, show through to the customer.

To bridge the organizational silos and close the CX gap, organizations need:

  • A consistent content authoring environment
  • The ability to share layouts, style sheets and assets between content publishing systems
  • An integrated review/approval/publish workflow across publishing systems
  • One audit trail of all communications sent

Le Clair concludes that the convergence of customer communications management systems and customer experience management systems would allow companies to meaningfully increase customer satisfaction, achieve consistent (and deep) personalization across channels, and measurably increase customer lifetime value.

To see and hear Craig Le Clair analyze the data, please click here.

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