From ordering dinner to buying a house, how customers interact with brands is changing rapidly. With so many different brands, channels, and platforms to interact with a brand while customers are feeling empowered, they’re also feeling overwhelmed and experiencing frustrations like never before. With more touch-points customers are frustrated by the need to repeat basic information, confused by inconsistent pricing, and overwhelmed by multiple offers to entice them into making a purchase. At the same time, customer empowerment is creating some anxiety among businesses. Not only is their ability to orchestrate the customer journey more diffuse, but they are still held accountable for customer retention and improving customer lifetime value.
But according to Alex Thompson, Product Director for Real-Time CX at Alterian, marketers don’t need to feel this anxiety. With the smart application of real-time customer experience technologies, CX Professionals can orchestrate this customer journey and help their customers move from consideration to purchase without frustration and confusion. “The customer journey is the path that the customer finds themselves on trying to get to an end goal,” shared Thompson. “Whether they’re buying dinner or a house, they’re on a decision-making journey and the job of a marketer is to get them to their end goal with a positive experience. The idea of orchestrating that customer journey is simply the opportunity to improve the customer’s path to desired outcome.”
While the goal of journey orchestration might appear simple, it requires some adept actions by CX Professionals behind the scenes. “Customers expect immediacy and personalization from their interactions with brands these days,” said Thompson. “Not only do CX Professionals have to contend with that, but if the experience is less than satisfactory, they have to mitigate the impact of negative online reviews, loss of revenue, and customer churn. A customer who’s had an exceptional experience with a brand, on the other hand is an invaluable opportunity for a business to retain them and grow their lifetime value.”
