What are Customer Experience Platforms?

A customer experience platform (CXP) gathers, analyzes, and responds to customer interactions in order to optimize the overall customer journey. The CXP sector has grown into a significant market, worth $11.4 billion in 2023 and expected to expand to $20.4 billion by 2028 (Report Linker).

Quick links:

Key features

Benefits

Types of CXP

How to choose

How to track the impact of CXP

The best platforms

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Features of CX Platforms

Many customer experience platforms have unique tools they tout. But if you really want to get the most value out of your solution—all the advantages it can deliver—look for these key features.

Multichannel support. A robust CX platform should support multiple communication channels, such as phone, email, chat, social media, and in-person interactions.
Customer journey mapping. Look for a CX platform that allows you to map and visualize the customer journey from start to finish. This feature helps you understand the customer’s interactions, pain points, and opportunities for improvement, enabling you to create a more cohesive and satisfying experience.
Personalization capabilities. Seek a CX platform that offers advanced personalization features. This includes the ability to segment customers based on their behavior, preferences, and demographics, allowing you to deliver tailored experiences and targeted marketing campaigns.
Real-time analytics. These analytics allow you to monitor key metrics, track customer satisfaction levels, and gain actionable insights to make informed decisions and improvements on the fly.
Automation and workflow management. Look for automation capabilities within the CX platform that can streamline processes and workflows. These can be automated routing of customer inquiries, self-service options, and automated follow-ups that reduce response times and enhance efficiency.
Customer feedback and surveys. A valuable CX platform should include tools for collecting and analyzing customer feedback. You can use surveys, feedback forms, or sentiment analysis.
Integration with existing systems Choose a CX platform that integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) or marketing automation tools. This integration ensures a unified view of customer data, streamlined processes, and consistent messaging across different platforms.
Scalability and flexibility. The right CX platform should be able to adapt to changing requirements and integrate new features or channels as your organization expands.
Mobile optimization. The CX platform should be optimized for mobile devices. This ensures that customers can easily interact and engage with your brand across various mobile channels, enhancing their overall experience.
Security and data privacy. Prioritize a CX platform that emphasizes security and data privacy. It should adhere to industry standards and regulations, employ encryption techniques, and have robust access controls to protect sensitive customer information.

Key Benefits of CX Platforms

The right CXP can positively impact your business and customer relationships. Here are the key benefits of using a CXP.

Increased Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

A CX platform allows you to deliver seamless, personalized experiences across all touchpoints. You can also resolve customer issues quickly and provide more proactive support. As a result, you will get a stronger emotional connection with your customers, and your brand affinity will be at scale.

Improved Customer Loyalty and Retention

With a positive customer experience, your customers are more likely to remain loyal and continue doing business with you. If you foster trust, demonstrate attentiveness, and consistently deliver value, you will build stronger customer relationships. This results in improved customer retention rates.

Increased Customer Engagement

CX platforms facilitate meaningful interactions with customers as they let you engage with them at different stages of the customer journey. With personalized recommendations, targeted promotions, and relevant content, you can captivate their attention, increase engagement levels, and encourage repeat interactions.

Streamlined Processes and Efficiency

CX platforms often incorporate automation and workflow management capabilities that streamline processes and reduce manual efforts. By automating repetitive tasks, routing customer inquiries, and optimizing workflows, you can enhance operational efficiency, allocate resources more effectively, and provide faster response times.

Data-Driven Insights and Decision Making

CXPs collect and analyze vast amounts of customer data and generate valuable insights into their behavior, preferences, and satisfaction levels. These insights enable data-driven decision-making and allow you to identify trends, make informed improvements, and optimize your overall customer experience strategy.

Competitive Advantage

A well-implemented CX platform can differentiate your business from competitors. If you consistently deliver exceptional experiences, you can stand out in the market, attract new customers, and retain existing ones. Positive word-of-mouth and customer advocacy further contribute to building a strong competitive advantage.

Increased Revenue and Business Growth

Satisfied and loyal customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, engage in upselling or cross-selling opportunities, and refer others to your brand. Focus on customer experiences through a CX platform, so you can drive revenue growth, increase customer lifetime value, and expand your customer base.

Different Types of CXP

Here are some of the common types of customer experience platforms.

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)

CDPs collect, organize, and unify customer data from different sources into a single, comprehensive view. They provide a centralized data repository that allows you to understand customer behavior, preferences, and interactions across different channels. CDPs often integrate with other marketing and customer experience tools to deliver personalized experiences based on customer insights.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM platforms are software solutions that help you manage interactions with current and potential customers. These platforms offer advanced features for organizing customer data, tracking sales leads, managing marketing campaigns, and providing customer support.

Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs)

DXPs deliver seamless and consistent digital experiences across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile apps, social media, and email. They provide content management, personalization, and optimization capabilities to allow you to create and manage engaging digital experiences for their customers.

Customer Engagement Platforms (CEPs)

CEPs facilitate and manage customer interactions and engagement across different touchpoints. These platforms often include omnichannel communication, customer journey mapping, real-time messaging, and feedback management. CEPs aim to enhance customer satisfaction, drive engagement, and foster long-term customer relationships.

Voice of the Customer Platforms (VoC)

VoC platforms enable you to capture, analyze, and act upon customer feedback and sentiment. They provide tools for surveying customers, collecting feedback from customers, sentiment analysis, and reporting. VoC platforms help you understand customer perceptions, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes to enhance the overall customer experience.

Social Media ManagementPlatforms (SMM)

SMM platforms manage and monitor social media interactions and engagements. They help you listen to customer conversations, respond to inquiries or comments, and track brand mentions and sentiments on social media platforms. SMM platforms let you actively engage with customers, address issues, and leverage social media for brand building and customer support.

E-commerce Experience Platforms

These platforms cater to businesses operating in the e-commerce space. They provide features such as product catalogs, personalized recommendations, shopping cart management, payment integrations, and order fulfillment. E-commerce experience platforms aim to optimize the online shopping experience, increase conversions, and drive customer loyalty.

Contact Center Experience Platforms

These platforms manage customer interactions and support through call centers or contact centers. They provide features such as call routing, agent management, self-service options, and integration with customer data. Contact center experience platforms aim to streamline customer support operations, improve response times, and deliver consistent service across communication channels.

How to Choose the Right CX Platform

Follow these steps to choose the right CXP:

Define your CX goals. Determine what you want to achieve with your CX strategy and the role the platform will play in achieving those objectives. For example, do you want to improve customer satisfaction scores, increase customer retention, or enhance self-service capabilities?
Identify your requirements. Make a list of the specific requirements and features you need in a CX platform. Consider factors such as omnichannel support (supporting multiple channels like web, mobile, social media, etc.), personalization capabilities, analytics and reporting, automation, integration with existing systems, and scalability.
Assess vendor reputation and expertise. Look for vendors with a strong industry presence, positive customer reviews, and a proven track record of delivering successful CX solutions. Consider their expertise in your industry and their ability to understand and address your unique business needs.
Evaluate platform functionality. Check the platform’s user interface, ease of use, and overall functionality. Consider how intuitive and user-friendly the platform is for both customers and your internal teams. Ensure that the platform aligns with your business processes and can handle your specific use cases.
Integration capabilities. Determine the platform’s integration capabilities with your existing systems such as CRM, marketing automation, or helpdesk software. Seamless integration is essential for sharing customer data and insights across your organization and providing a consistent customer experience.
Scalability and flexibility. Consider your future growth plans and evaluate whether the CX platform can scale and adapt to your evolving needs. Ensure that the platform can accommodate increasing customer volumes, new channels, and emerging technologies.
Security and compliance. Evaluate the platform’s security measures, data encryption, access controls, and compliance with relevant regulations such as GDPR or CCPA.
Total cost of ownership. Evaluate not only the upfront costs but also ongoing maintenance, licensing fees, training, and support costs. Ensure that the platform provides a good return on investment (ROI) and aligns with your budgetary constraints.
Vendor support and roadmap. Evaluate the vendor’s customer support services, including training, implementation assistance, and ongoing technical support. Also, review the vendor’s product roadmap to understand their commitment to innovation and whether they align with your future CX strategy.

Feeling overwhelmed? Contact us and let us help you scope out a CXP that suits your business needs.

How to Track the Impact of CXP

To assess the effectiveness of a CX platform investment, you should track the following key performance metrics and KPIs:

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures overall customer satisfaction with the experiences delivered through the CX platform. This can be captured through surveys, ratings, and feedback across different touchpoints.
Net promoter score (NPS) tracks customer’s likelihood of recommending the brand or products to others. NPS is a strong indicator of customer loyalty and advocacy.
Customer effort score (CES) measures the ease of interactions and transactions for customers using the CX platform. This provides insights into the friction points in the customer journey.
Customer retention/churn rate monitors the rate at which customers continue to engage with the brand or products over time. A decrease in churn can indicate the positive impact of the CX platform.
Customer lifetime value (CLV) analyzes the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with the brand. Improvements in CLV can demonstrate the long-term value of CX investments.
Conversion rates track the effectiveness of the CX platform in driving desired customer actions, such as purchases, sign-ups, or content engagement.
Customer behavior metrics Observe and analyze customer interactions, navigation patterns, and engagement levels within the CX platform. This can uncover opportunities for optimization.
Operational efficiency monitors the impact of the CX platform on internal processes, such as reduced call volumes, faster response times, and lower support costs.

The Best Customer Experience Platforms

Not all customer experience platforms are the same. What works for others, may not be the best choice for you. The best platform for your business depends on your specific requirements and objectives.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a leading CX platform that allows businesses to deliver great customer service and experiences across multiple channels. It provides tools for ticketing, self-service, live chat, and customer feedback to enhance customer satisfaction.

Zendesk is well-suited for enterprise businesses.

Salesforce Customer 360

Salesforce offers a comprehensive CX platform that includes CRM, marketing automation, service cloud, and other tools to deliver personalized and connected customer experiences.

Salesforce helps businesses unify marketing and sales teams, and customer support into a single platform for consistent experiences.

Adobe Experience Cloud Platform

Adobe’s CX platform provides many marketing, analytics, advertising, and commerce tools to create engaging and consistent experiences across channels.

Adobe platform is well-suited for mid-to-enterprise-sized organizations that need advanced customer data management and analytics.

Oracle CX Cloud

Oracle’s CX platform includes tools for marketing, sales, service, and commerce, with a focus on providing a unified customer experience.

Oracle offers industry-specific CX cloud applications for sectors such as communications, financial services, high-tech, manufacturing, consumer goods, and the public sector.

Qualtrics CustomerXM

Qualtrics CustomerXM is a “listening engine” that helps businesses collect and analyze customer feedback across channels. It offers features such as predictive analytics, real-time feedback capture, and integrations with CRM and other tools.

Qualtrics provides a holistic view of the customer experience to enable optimization.

CEM Platforms vs. CXP

Both customer experience management (CEM) platforms and customer experience platforms help organizations improve the customer experience, but they have some key differences.

Focus

Customer experience management software captures and manages customer feedback and data across all touchpoints to understand the overall customer experience.

A CXP orchestrates and optimizes the entire customer journey across marketing, sales, and service.

Capabilities

CEM platforms collect and analyze customer feedback through surveys, social media, and support interactions. They provide insights into customer sentiment and pain points.

CX platforms integrate customer data from multiple sources and enable journey mapping, personalization, and real-time customer engagement across channels.

Integration

CEM platforms often integrate with CRM systems to combine customer data and feedback. They help bridge the gap between CRM and the actual customer experience.

CX platforms typically have deeper integrations across the technology stack, connecting marketing, sales, service, and commerce systems to provide a unified view of the customer.

Outcomes

CEM platforms aim to improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy by optimizing the customer experience based on feedback.

CX platforms drive broader business outcomes like increased revenue, higher customer lifetime value, and better operational efficiency through enhanced customer experiences.

With both customer experience management software and CXPs, your business can easily understand your customers, optimize touchpoints, and drive continuous improvements in the overall customer experience.

About Symplicity

We’re here to help you supercharge your CX program. Here are the key areas we can help:

Identify CX shortfalls and opportunities
Map the journey and pain points of your customers
Implement automation, business intelligence, and contact center (CCaaS) solutions
Audit and streamline your spending on technology, including customer experience tech
Ensure you’re getting the very best solutions for the very best price

With our expertise, guidance, and ongoing support, we ensure your CX implementation is seamless and efficient and provides peace of mind that your devices and data are secure.

We can also help you with your managed IT, business intelligence, SIP trunking, business automation, disaster recovery, and mobile device management needs.

See our solutions page for the full range of services we offer.

CXP FAQ

What are the four components of customer experience?

The four key components of customer experience are:

Customer interactions. The quality and consistency of customer touchpoints across different channels, both digital and physical.
Customer emotions. The feelings and sentiments customers develop about a brand based on their experiences.
Customer perceptions. The way customers perceive and judge the brand, products, and services based on their interactions and emotions.
Customer outcomes. The results and benefits customers achieve through their engagement with the brand, such as problem resolution, value delivery, and loyalty.

What is the difference between CX and UX?

Customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) are related but distinct concepts. CX encompasses the entire customer journey and all interactions with a brand, while UX focuses specifically on the design and usability of a particular product or service.

CX takes a broader, 360-degree view of the customer, considering factors such as customer service, marketing, and overall brand perception, whereas UX is more narrowly focused on the user’s interaction with a specific digital or physical interface.

Is CX the same as customer service?

While excellent customer service is an important element of CX, CX goes beyond customer service. It encompasses the entire customer journey, including all interactions and touchpoints with a brand. Customer service is just one component of CX that focuses on the support and assistance provided to customers.

Is HubSpot a CX platform?

HubSpot is a CX platform. HubSpot offers a wide range of tools that help businesses manage the entire customer lifecycle and deliver a unified, personalized customer experience.

Is customer success the same as CX?

Customer success and CX are related but distinct concepts. Customer success ensures customers achieve their desired outcomes when using a product or service. CX is a broader term that encompasses the entire customer journey and all interactions.

How can digital channels impact customer experience?

Digital channels shape the customer experience. With digital touchpoints such as websites, mobile apps, and social media, organizations can provide customers with convenient, personalized, and real-time interactions. Digital channels allow for features such as self-service portals, chatbots, and online reviews that can enhance customer communication, improve issue resolution, and foster stronger relationships with customers.

Effective integration of digital channels into the overall customer experience strategy can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.