What Is “CX”?

Put simply, “CX” is customer experience. Think of it as the collective experience that a customer has with your brand from start to finish. For example, imagine that you draw a new customer to your company from an online marketing campaign.

That customer’s experience with your brand starts right from that moment, including everything like:

• What they think about the advertisement
• The landing page they see and interact with when they click on the ad
• How easily the customer navigates to the product or service of their choice
• The experience the customer feels when they navigate through the checkout process
• How the customer interacts with the product return or customer support processes
• And more

In short, CX incorporates all the moments where your customer directly or indirectly interacts with your brand. It affects both whether or not a new customer will make a purchase and the impression that a customer walks away from when they are done interacting with your company.

An enjoyable, streamlined CX makes it more likely that a new customer will make a purchase, resulting in money in your business coffers. Furthermore, a solid CX makes it likely that the customer will return for another purchase and recommend your brand.

Of course, the reverse is also true! If your CX is lacking in some way, not only will you be less likely to make money for new customers. You'll be less likely to cultivate a stellar brand reputation, which would otherwise help you grow your business over time.

What Is CX Technology?

CX technology is exactly what it sounds like: technology that creates or improves customer experiences.

CX technology can take a wide variety of forms. It includes software tools, comprehensive digital platforms, customer self-service tools, mobile apps, and everything in between. The overall goal of all CX technology is the same: make it easier for customers to enjoy interacting with your brand or get what they need with a minimum of hassle or frustration.

Since many organizations sell products online, and many customers’ first interactions with brands are over the internet, CX technology is absolutely crucial. With the right technology, you can ensure your customers start having a great time with your company from the get-go. Without the right technology, however, you’ll struggle to meet your CX benchmarks and prove that your brand is ahead of the competition.

Examples of CX Technology

The best way to understand CX technology is to grasp its exact features and forms. So let’s take a look at some examples of CX technology — odds are your organization already leverages or uses some of these to some extent.

Email Automation Tools

Email automation tools are phenomenal examples of CX technology. These days, email marketing is a cornerstone of many brands’ marketing campaigns. Through email marketing, you can alert customers to new products or discounts, send personalized marketing messages, and much more.

All that work can become overwhelming, especially as you expand your customer base. Email automation tools allow you to keep up your emailing cadence and ensure that you send the right emails to the right customers without skipping a beat.

Thus, email automation tools help to enhance the customer experience by:

• Send customers personalized offers.
• Ensure that all your customers receive crucial information, such as upcoming discounts.
• Allow your customer experience agents to focus on other elements of the CX and customer journey.

Customer Self-Service Tools 

Then there are customer self-service tools. Self-service portals enable customers to access and modify their accounts, place orders, and begin refunds. When it comes to online commerce and company interactions, many customers prefer to do things themselves, at least at first.

Therefore, enhance customers’ experiences by offering self-service portals and functionalities. Give customers the tools they need to file customer support tickets or manage their orders. Not only does this take some of the workload off the shoulders of frontline employees, but it makes customers more satisfied when interacting with your brand in more ways than one.

SMS Customer Outreach Tech

If you aren’t leveraging SMS marketing tools to reach out to new customers and remind current customers about upcoming deals, you’re missing out. SMS customer outreach technology extends customer experiences to their mobile devices, ensuring your brand is never far from their minds. That’s great for brand awareness and for building brand loyalty.

Product Return Automated Tools

Product returns are a fact of business life, and you’ll never be able to stop all of them. Rather than making it difficult to return a product, ruining a customer’s experience in the process, give your customers automated return tools so they can begin return orders by themselves and don’t feel awkward doing so.

Again, this reflects positively on your organization, even if it results in a lost sale. A customer who is satisfied with a product return experience is more likely to give that company another shot than a customer that feels they had to fight tooth and nail to return a bad product.

Personalization Platforms and Software

Personalization is king in marketing, as it is in other elements of CX. The more your customers feel like you see them as individuals instead of just targets, the more likely they are to join loyalty programs, make repeat purchases, and spread positive word-of-mouth about your company.

Therefore, personalization platforms and software count as CX technology. In fact, they’re arguably the most essential type. Customers who receive personalized experiences throughout are more likely to look back on those experiences as positive, even if they run into a few hiccups.

Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms of all types are technically CX technologies. These include Facebook, Instagram, and more.

After all, social media platforms allow your brand ambassadors to connect and meet with each other, plus allow your customer experience agents to answer questions and provide other vital services. Social media platforms further serve as significant cornerstones for omnichannel marketing, allowing you to provide the same quality of service to your customers at every step of their individual journeys.

CRM Platforms

Lastly, CRM or customer relationship management platforms are vital pieces of CX Tech. CRM platforms allow you to record the personal details of your customers and clients as you bring them on board. Armed with that information, your salespeople will be much more effective at drawing those customers in to make purchases.

Customers appreciate how CRM platforms enhance their experiences, too. CRM platforms allow your company to deliver personalized experiences to its customers, thereby resulting in better results for everyone involved in a transaction or business arrangement.

Why Is CX Technology So Important?

CX technology is vital because it’s how you provide excellent customer experiences to your target audience members.

It's one thing to have a strategy or philosophy for a great CX. It's another thing to put it into action. CX technology is how you put that plan into action, plus integrate it with other plans, like an omnichannel marketing strategy.

The tools you use also affect your capabilities. For instance, say that you want to prioritize personalization for your customer experience approach in the new year. But that will be much harder if you don’t have CRM software for your salespeople to record the names and contact information of your prime clients or prospects. It’ll also be difficult if you don’t have automated email software so you can market directly to those prospects and draw them to your brand over time.

In other words, CX technology expands your ability to deliver five-star customer experiences.

The Benefits of Integrating CX Technology Into Your Brand’s CX Strategy

When you use CX technology wisely, your brand will start to see big benefits in no time.

For example, your customers will be much more loyal to your brand. If you use technology properly, your customer experiences will be that much better, resulting in improved feelings from those who make an initial purchase at your company and those who are back for yet another purchase.

Furthermore, integrating CX technology into your brand’s overall customer experience strategy means you’ll have more ways to deliver exceptional experiences to each one of your prospects. Without the right technology, your CX delivery capabilities will be severely limited.

Contact AwesomeOS Today

Ultimately, CX technology is an absolute must, but so is experience — AwesomeOS can help.

At AwesomeOS, we can offer a variety of back-office and front-office support services, ranging from customer support to web and software development and more. Even better, our partnership is available on a month-to-month basis, so you're never locked into long-term contracts.

Let's chat about customer experience and make big moves!

Sources:

Office of Customer Experience | GSA

The Era Of Personalization In Marketing Gives Way To Relevance | Forbes

Understanding Customer Experience | Harvard Business Review