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Choosing a Digital Self-Service Dev Platform (Part 1 of 2)

A handy guide to help you successfully choosing a digital self-service dev platform for your business and needs.

Digital Self-Service Enables Great CX

Leading companies know that outstanding digital customer experience (CX) drives better customer acquisition and retention. Further, study after study show that most executives believe it is the key to competitive differentiation and growth. CX leaders understand that customer service, sales and support engagements play an outsized role and are investing in tools that empower customers with basic questions and requests to get what they need fast through seamless, easy-to-use digital experiences.

This guide will help innovation leaders find the right digital self-service platform, one that will empower your team to transform customer processes into intuitive digital self-service journeys. The right platform will make it easy for your organization to respond to evolving customer needs by building, deploying, and optimizing digital experiences in less time and with fewer resources.

Here is a 6-step guide to find and deploy the right Digital Self-Service solution for your CX initiative →

1. Clearly Capture Your Challenge & Needs

No one has time or resources to integrate a Digital Self-Service platform and then have it not meet expectations – or worse – not work at all. Finding and deploying an alternative platform can create crippling delays or even derail the initiative entirely. Defining the challenge tangibly up front will set your initiative up for success.

Further, too many teams rush to tactics before they fully define their strategy. It is tempting for aggressive leaders to rush ahead with a project. Nevertheless, taking the time to evaluate and codify the requirements for your ideal Digital Self-Serve experience will lead to better choices and faster results.

We recommend convening a meeting of stakeholders with different competencies to ensure you uncover all the necessary information. Consider including the decision maker, an end user, a product lead, to and an IT resource who understands how the solution should integrate with your infrastructure. Ensure that you layout and quantify the results you expect from the initiative. Everyone should align on how to answer, “What does success look like?”

  • Challenge: Which broken journey will deliver the largest improvement to ROI and satisfaction?
  • Needs: What is the ideal experience? What are you trying to build or accomplish?
  • Challenge: Where does it happen? What are the steps? What is the output once the process is complete?
  • Needs: What specific features and capabilities are involved in your ideal experience?
  • Challenge: What compliance regulations need to be considered? What Backoffice systems need to be integrated?
  • Needs: What internal resource constraints will impact your ability to execute?

2. Outline Your Technology Requirements

You and your team are the best people to identify technology requirements for your unique situation and this will evolve throughout the initiative. However, in our experience, there are several key questions that should be asked up front to help guide your selection process when considering a Digital Self-Service platform.

  1. Are developer resources limited? Is there a long IT queue? Should you opt for no-code and/or a full-service partner
  2. How does your technology address digital adoption? Are you building a destination/app or an omni-channel solution?Are you looking to actively deflect inbound requests in high-cost channels (i.e., call center, in-branch) to digital?
  3. Do you need integrated communication tools (i.e., email, SMS notifications) to drive outbound engagement/re-engagement?
  4. What types of regulatory compliance must be considered? PCI, HIPAA, CCPA. GDPR?
  5. Which systems and web services will you need to integrate with? CRM or contact center systems? Single Sign-On?
  6. What capabilities will be required for your use case and business (i.e., authentication, approvals, forms, esign, media sharing, account management, payments, etc…)?
  7. What unique technology requirements might you have for customer experience automation?

3. Create a Vendor Consideration List

Which vendors should you consider as a customer experience team? Many people understandably begin with their existing core systems – CRM, Service Desk, cCaaS, etc. — to determine if they will suffice. The draw of an existing partnership and integration is clear; if your needs are simple, this can be a great option. However, many find these platforms lacking in their ability to deliver digital experiences.

Digital Self-Service is an innovative space with several options for delivering great experiences. FICX (obviously) believes that a no-code digital approach is the best and most versatile, but each has its own benefits. Select a prominent player in each category and conduct research to familiarize yourself with the landscape.

Once you identify a promising technology category (or two,) broaden your search within. Identify multiple leaders in the  space that encompass a broad range of capabilities for customer care teams. This approach allows you to efficiently conduct both a broad and in-depth search of the vendor landscape.

In Our Next Post for Development Teams: The final three steps of choosing a digital self-service dev platform.  

Get the FICX Digital Self-Service Development Playbook

Building digital self-service experiences should be easy. It can be. This helpful playbook explains how you can create, integrate, and deliver powerful digital self-service experiences 10X faster than with traditional/custom CX development. Get your copy now.

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