Seven Features That You Should Look For In A Customer Experience Platform

What comes to your mind when you think about entertainment?

What comes to your mind when you think about sportswear?

Or What comes to your mind when you think about streaming services?

What comes to your mind when you think about eCommerce?

You would think about brands that you like in each of these categories. Why do you like these brands?

It is not because of the products they sell, but it is because of the experiences they offer.

Let us assume that you have to choose between two companies that meet your needs. They sell the same product at the same price with the same features.

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Which one would you choose?

More often than not, the deciding factor isn’t the product but the experience you have while interacting with the brand.

In short, customer experience is the new product.

Now that we have spoken about the significance of customer experience let us define it.

What is customer experience?

Customer experience is the sum total of all interactions a customer has with your brand.

Assume that you want to buy a car.

For most people, this is a significant investment. These are the steps you would follow:

Step 1: You would research all the cars within your budget.
Step 2: You would visit the brand’s website to check out its available models, variants, and features.
Step 3: You would set up an appointment with the nearest dealer
Step 4: You would visit the dealer and do a test drive of all the models and variants you have chosen
Step 5: Get all your doubts clarified
Step 6: Go through the financing and payment options available
Step 7: Book the vehicle
Step 8: Take delivery
Step 9: Post-sales service

When you look at it, you are interacting with different interfaces and people at each of these steps. Friction in any of these steps will mean a poor customer experience and may not result in a relationship.

So, it is important that each of these steps is customer-centric and the experience you offer is consistent across all the defined steps.

You have customer experience platforms that help ensure consistency and exceptional customer experiences across all interactions.

What is a customer experience (CX) platform?

Imagine you’re a retail store.

A customer bought a pair of shoes online but received the wrong size.

They reach out via chat to report the issue.

With a CX platform in place, the agent instantly sees the order history, delivery details, and the previous chat where the customer requested a size change.

Now, the agent doesn’t have to start from scratch; instead, the agent can acknowledge the earlier request, provide a quick resolution, and offer a discount for the inconvenience. This would help create a seamless and personalized experience.

This context helps us understand and define a CX platform.

A CX platform is a comprehensive solution that allows businesses to manage, analyze, and enhance every interaction with their customers across multiple channels like email, phone, chat, SMS, chatbots, web, mobile, social, and in-person interactions.

A CX platform helps ensure consistency in customer interactions across channels besides personalizing each interaction based on past interactions, behavior, and preferences.

The seven must-have features in choosing the right CX platform

Here are seven must-have features to consider while choosing a CX platform.

#1 Omnichannel support

Customers can reach you via any of the channels available based on their preferences. It can be for delivery, product recall, returns, or quality issues. With omnichannel contact center capabilities, your agents have a single view of all the customer interactions across all channels, which allows them to understand the context.

This would prevent customers from repeating their issues multiple times across different channels.

Ensure that your CX platform has omnichannel capabilities.

#2 Unified dashboard

Let us take the example of a travel agency. You are managing bookings, cancellations, and reschedules.

A single dashboard that shows all customer interactions across all channels will allow agents to handle requests faster without switching between channels. This will reduce response time and improve resolution rates.

This is more like housekeeping for any CX platform.

#3 Real-time insights

How do you identify which customers of yours are going to churn?

With real-time analytics of your CX platform, you can analyze past interactions with customers, identify red flags, spot frustration in their voice and tone, and pull them out as possible candidates for churn.

This would prompt agents to offer those customers retention offers, which increases the chances of keeping those customers.

Do you have real-time analytics as a functionality of your CX platform?

#4 Automated workflows

Imagine you are calling thousands of customers every day as a debt collection agency. Follow-ups need to be done on each of those calls.

With automated workflows, you get reminders via email and SMS. This reduces agent effort and ensures consistency in communication.

Does your CX platform offer you automated workflows that are easily customizable and configurable?

#5 Scalability

No business functions linearly, and there would also be peaks and lows of customer interactions. Some of them are related to holiday shopping or increased engagement during product launches or specific promotional campaigns.

Does your platform allow you to scale up and down the resources and functionality per your business needs?

Does it ensure that all the customer queries are addressed without crashing, even during peak loads?

How easy is it for you to scale up and down? Is it done with the click of a button, or do you need help from people, or does it involve a long process?

You have to be aware of all these while signing up for a CX platform.

#6 Compliance and security

This is extremely crucial if you are in a regulated industry like banking, insurance, or healthcare.

How you handle sensitive customer data is key to your business’s success.

Does your CX platform comply with industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, TCPA, CCPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC, Reg-F, FDCPA, DoT, and ISAE 3402 specifications?

If you’re operating in India or serving Indian consumers, it’s equally important to ensure compliance with TRAI regulations in contact center operations, which govern how telecom and customer interactions are managed.

In addition, does your CX platform provider include security features like vulnerability assessments, OS hardening, and regular patching as part of their managed services?

These measures ensure your customer data remains secure and your operations stay compliant with both global and regional regulatory standards.

#7 Integrations

Does your CX platform integrate with CRM, helpdesk, and other best-of-breed solutions? Does it support API integrations?

And Does it have pre-built integrations with industry-leading CRM and helpdesk software?

How easy is it to integrate AI-powered bots and assistants as a part of your CX infrastructure?

All of these are crucial for you to offer exceptional customer experiences.

We live in an era where every product is easily replicable. Besides, any innovation that you come up with today becomes a commodity in due course of time. Even a price advantage doesn’t last long, and eventually, you become one another provider in the sea of me-too’s.

The only way by which you can differentiate in a crowded and commoditized marketplace is through the experience you offer your customers.

Customer experience is the only true differentiator, and having the right platform is crucial to managing and enhancing that experience.

You have to ensure that your platform has all the must-haves listed in this article. This would ensure that every customer touchpoint is elevated into a memorable experience.

You should start thinking about the experience. If you haven’t already, then the time is now.

Also Read: HRMS Globex: Revolutionising Human Resource Management