Customer experience platform for modern call centers

A customer experience platform is a software solution designed to help businesses manage and improve customer interactions across various channels and touchpoints. It provides a unified view of customer data and interactions, allowing companies to understand customer behavior, preferences, and needs and to deliver personalized and seamless experiences.

Customer experience management solutions serve similar purposes to digital experience platforms (DXPs) in that they leverage digital technology to enhance customer relationships. 

At FICX, we believe that the most critical task of a customer experience platform is to create a positive post-sales front-end for a company’s digital channels – one that boosts satisfaction by making it easier to get the benefits, services, and support users need. While significant progress has been made in delivering user-centric experiences in areas like content management to help brands deliver a better sales experience, customer experiences for post-sales customer service and support have lagged.

Many companies continue to rely on live support contact centers to address customer needs and problems, even though contact center costs are high. Many customers prefer faster self-service options to waiting for help from a live agent.

Delivering the best possible service through tools designed with a customer experience platform or digital experience platform is critical to growing a business. Learn more about customer experience automation in this FICX blog post.

All customer experience platforms are not the same. When choosing the right solution for your business, there are many factors to consider:

• Post-Sales Experience Focus: The customer journey is just beginning when a prospect makes their first purchase. A great customer experience platform enables you to create great customer-facing experiences that help customers get the benefits, service, and support they need. Since front-end experiences are the primary means customers form opinions and derive customer satisfaction from a brand, customer-facing digital experiences are the most valuable and essential outputs of a customer experience platform. While ensuring an inviting sales experience is also very important, pleasing existing customers should be the top priority.  
• Self-Service or Agent-Assisted Use Cases: Your CXP should make it easy to create digital experiences for use in both self-service and agent-assisted customer interaction scenarios. By making simple apps that can be used in these two critical ways, you drive maximum digital adoption, reduce contact center costs, and please more customers. 
• Multichannel Support: Look for a platform that creates experiences that can be delivered in multiple support channels, including web, mobile, visual IVR, on-premise, and other digital touchpoints. This will enable you to provide a seamless and consistent experience across all channels.
• Integration: Look for a digital customer experience platform that can integrate with the existing systems and applications within your organization, such as ERP, CRM, account management, customer data platform, call center, IVR, and e-commerce platforms. This will enable you to streamline workflows and improve operational efficiency.
• Ease of Use: The platform should be user-friendly and easy to use, with a simple, intuitive interface. This will enable your team to quickly learn and use the platform effectively. Usability is critical when you are trying to create many experiences to address issues customers face every day.
• Scalability: Look for a platform that can scale with your business as it grows, with the ability to handle increasing volumes of customer data and interactions.

By factoring these considerations into your decision, you can make a better choice that ensures the software can meet all of your needs.

Learn more about why these factors are so critical in our post on digital customer engagement. 

Empowering better post-sales customer experiences helps ensure the long-term health and vitality of your business or organization. Some of the most important reasons why include: 

First, there is customer retention. A positive post-sales experience can increase customer loyalty and retention. Customers who have a good experience after purchasing a product or service are more likely to become repeat customers, which can lead to increased revenue and profitability for the business. Data show that it is much less expensive to drive an incremental purchase from an existing customer than to convert a new one. Most businesses depend on ongoing business relationships with their customers. 

Second, customers who have a positive post-sales experience are also more likely to refer friends and family to the business. This can help generate new business and increase brand awareness. In today’s socially connected world, word-of-mouth recommendations are an important source of new business. 

Providing a positive post-sales experience can also lead to opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. Customers who have a positive experience are more likely to trust the business and consider purchasing additional products or services.

Learn more about how digital solutions help reduce average handle time (AHT).

A customer experience platform can enhance the customer service experience in several ways:

• Omnichannel support: A customer experience platform enables businesses to offer support across multiple channels, such as phone, email, chat, social media, and messaging. This lets customers choose their preferred channel and get help quickly and efficiently.
• Personalization: By collecting and analyzing customer data, a customer experience platform can personalize customer interactions. For example, it can recommend products or services based on the customer's browsing or purchase history or address the customer by name.
• Automation: The right experience tool can automate routine tasks, such as ticket routing, categorization, and prioritization. This reduces the workload for agents, freeing them up to focus on more complex issues that require human intervention.
• Self-service: A customer experience platform can enable customers to find answers to their questions through self-service options such as a knowledge base, FAQs, or chatbots. This improves customer satisfaction by providing quick and easy solutions.
• Analytics: A customer experience platform can track and analyze customer interactions, allowing businesses to identify patterns and trends. This customer feedback can improve products, services, and processes and provide proactive support to customers.

Overall, a customer experience platform can provide businesses the tools they need to deliver a seamless and personalized customer service experience, leading to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

Many forget that digital experience can be incorporated into automated clal menus. Learn more about the value of Visual IVR in this post. 

Great customer experience management software can offer self-service options customers leverage to find answers to their questions without needing to contact the call center, which reduces the volume of calls and inquiries. Such a platform can also automate routine tasks such as ticket routing, categorization, and prioritization. This reduces the workload for call center agents and frees them up to focus on more complex issues that require human intervention.

Great customer experience platforms can also create experiences that personalize interactions with customers. For example, these experiences can recommend products or services based on the customer's existing product set. 

By reducing the volume of calls and inquiries and automating routine tasks, a customer experience platform can take pressure off the call center and enable call center agents to focus on more complex and value-added tasks. This can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the call center and ultimately lead to a better customer service experience.

Get a deeper dive into call center benefits in this blog post. 

The most important features vary depending on your business needs and industry. However, here are some key features and feature areas that you should consider when selecting a customer experience platform:

Post-Sales Experience Focus: A great tool enables you to create great customer-facing experiences that help customers get the benefits, service, and support they need. These experiences are typically called “customer support.”Since front-end experiences are the primary means through which customers form opinions and derive customer satisfaction from a brand, customer-facing digital experiences are the most valuable and essential outputs of a customer experience platform. 

• Omnichannel support: A good customer experience platform should provide support across multiple channels, such as phone, email, chat, social media, and messaging. This lets customers choose their preferred channel and get help quickly and efficiently.
• Personalized Experience: The software solution should be able to collect and analyze customer data to personalize interactions and thereby individualize the customer relationship. This could include recommending products or services based on the customer's browsing or purchase history or addressing the customer by name.
• Self-service or agent-led use cases: It should create experiences that can be used in self-service or agent-led situations to maximize digital adoption and efficiency.
• Omnichannel: The right tool should provide experiences that can be delivered in multiple customer channels, including website, customer portal, mobile app, visual IVR, and agent-led interactions. 
• Integration: A robust solution should be able to integrate with other systems and tools, such as CRM software or marketing automation tools. This enables businesses to streamline their operations and provide a seamless experience for customers across multiple touchpoints.
• Analytics: Customer experience software should be able to track and analyze customer interactions, allowing businesses to identify holistic customer insight. This information can improve products, services, and processes and provide proactive support to customers.
• Security: An effective platform should be secure and comply with data protection regulations, such as HIPAA, GDPR, or CCPA, to protect sensitive customer data.

Our Call Deflection and DIversion Glossary contains explanations of many terms that can be relevant in the selection of a customer experience platform. 

The most important metrics for a customer experience platform may vary depending on your business goals and industry. However, here are some key metrics that you should consider:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): This metric measures how satisfied customers are with their overall experience. It is typically measured using surveys or feedback forms that ask customers to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Many companies track NPS and understanding the impact of experiences created with a platform on the score is often valuable.
• Abandonment Rate: This metric measures the percentage of customers who abandon their call or interaction with Visual IVR before completing their task. A high abandonment rate may indicate that the Visual IVR is difficult to use.
• First Call Resolution Rate: This percentage-based metric measures how many customer inquiries or requests are resolved on the first contact. It is typically measured as a percentage and is a key factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Self-Service Usage Rate (for Self-Service Apps): This percentage metric measures the percentage of customers who use an experience to complete their tasks without needing assistance from a call center agent. A high self-service usage rate indicates that customers are finding the Visual IVR easy to use and that it is effectively handling their needs.
• Call Deflection Rate (for Visual IVR Apps): This metric measures the percentage of calls deflected from the call center by an experience. It is a percentage measure. A high call deflection rate indicates that Visual IVR provides customers with the necessary information.
• Average Handle Time (for Apps Used in Agent-Led Calls): Average handle time assesses the average length of customer calls in which the experience is used. It helps to show how the experience adds to the efficiency of a call center team and lowers total call center costs. 
• First Call Resolution Rate (for Apps Used in Agent-Led Calls): This metric measures how many customer inquiries or requests are resolved on the first contact. It is typically measured as a percentage and is a key factor in determining customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This blog post provides even more insight into measurement as it relates to omnichannel self-service. 

Our team would be pleased to share a demo of our FICX Customer Experience Platform technology.  Just fill out this form or visit the FICX homepage. We'll also tell you how to turn your support engagements into success stories that exceed customer expectations as part of a comprehensive customer relationship management strategy.