9 things to check when evaluating your CX technology

Keeping up with customer experience (CX) trends and technology is critical to maintaining a competitive edge for several reasons, including:

• Meeting those changing expectations.
• Improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Improving efficiency.
• Finding practical information.
• Adapting to new channels and methods of communication.
• It allows for personalization at scale.
• Building a strong brand reputation.
• Future-proof business.

Investing in CX technology is essential for any business that wants to thrive in a customer-driven economy.

Why do CX tech audits?

Ensuring you can improve customer engagement, stay engaged and deliver a seamless customer experience is a great place to start testing your CX expertise. Research allows you to:

• Find out which tools and platforms are working well or which are not working – or are outdated.
• Ensure that all tools integrate well and enable seamless data flow and a unified view of the customer.
• Stay active by assessing whether current systems can adapt to new needs, trends and expectations.
• Find opportunities to improve personalization and effective service delivery skills.
• Expose redundancy, inefficiency or outdated systems that may prevent or hinder performance.
• Ensure current technology meets compliance standards and handles customer data securely.
• Stay up to date with the latest developments and check if current tools have the required capabilities or if new tools are needed.

By constantly reviewing and refining CX tools and technologies, companies can maintain high service standards, anticipate customer needs and adapt to industry changes, ultimately driving greater customer satisfaction and business success.

Your 9-point CX technical assessment checklist

To get started with your research, start by mapping the end-to-end customer journey to identify all customer touch points and identify the technologies that support them.

Identify and list all the tools and platforms in your CX technology stack and check for overlapping functionality or other redundancies.

The following provides a checklist to guide you in evaluating the technology. It includes questions to consider and areas to explore, ensuring your CX tools are optimized for a seamless, personalized and secure customer journey.

1. Integration capabilities: Connects your CX tech stack

• Test questions
  • Are all CX tools integrated with your CRM and other customer data systems?
  • Is customer data shared across platforms in real time?
  • Do you have a unified view of the customer journey across touchpoints?
  • Are there data silos or integration issues?
• Checklist
  • Review API integration between all CX tools.
  • Ensure seamless data flow between CRM, support, marketing and sales systems.
  • Find any gaps in data sharing or synchronization.
  • Check that customers receive the same level of service in different channels.

2. AI-driven personalization and predictive analytics

• Test questions
  • Are AI tools being used to analyze customer data and deliver personalized experiences?
  • Does the system predict customer needs based on historical behavior?
  • Do you also have the power to decide?
• Checklist
  • Review the current use of AI in personalization engines.
  • Test the accuracy of predictions of customer behavior.
  • Explore the types of data used for AI-driven personalization.
  • Measure the frequency and quality of personalized product/service recommendations and next best practices.

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3. Omnichannel support and consistency

• Test questions
  • Can customers easily move between channels during their journey?
  • Is the interaction consistent in terms of messaging, tone and support across channels?
• Checklist
  • Explore the customer experience across multiple channels.
  • Conduct usability testing and collect user feedback.
  • Ensure that customer interaction histories are accessible across all channels.
  • Ensure that employees have a full view of past interactions, regardless of channel.
  • Explore consistent marketing and messaging across platforms.

4. Real-time customer information and statistics

• Test questions
  • Are you getting real-time insights into customer interactions, journeys and behaviors?
  • Can your team act on these insights quickly to improve the customer experience?
• Checklist
  • Review data collection, storage and analysis processes and dashboards for real-time data availability.
  • Check the speed of updates on customer profiles during live interactions.
  • Measure how quickly information translates into action (eg, effective access or problem solving).
  • Ensure accuracy of customer sentiment analysis.

5. Automation and efficiency of work

• Test questions
  • Are menial and repetitive tasks, eg, ticket routing or general customer inquiries, automated?
  • Are AI tools improving workflows for faster decisions?
• Checklist
  • Review the automation types that are currently available.
  • Explore the automation process of customer inquiries.
  • Find areas where automation can be reused or optimized.
  • Check whether AI tools are improving decisions or helping employees in real time.

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6. Security and compatibility

• Test questions
  • Are all systems compliant with data protection laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)?
  • Is customer data securely stored, transmitted and accessed?
• Checklist
  • Review security protocols for all CX platforms (encryption, secure access, etc.).
  • Ensure customer data is handled according to compliance standards.
  • Ensure regularity of security audits and data breach audits.
  • Ensure that customer permissions for data use are respected.

7. Flexibility and adaptability

• Test questions
  • Can the technology scale as your customer base and communication volume grow?
  • Is the platform flexible enough to accommodate future CX strategies?
• Checklist
  • Test how well the system handles increased customer interaction.
  • Review the platform’s capabilities to add new features or expand into new channels.
  • Measure system performance during peak interaction times.
  • Ensure that platform vendors provide options for scalability and flexibility.

8. Customer response methods

• Test questions
  • Are there ways to collect feedback in sensitive areas?
  • Is customer feedback integrated into your strategy and CX technology?
  • What metrics are tracked?
• Checklist
  • Review data collection, storage and analysis processes and dashboards for real-time data availability.
  • Ensure feedback is collected at key points in the customer journey.
  • Check if the feedback is used to improve processes and tools.
  • Ensure feedback loops are automatically integrated into analysis tools.

9. Employee empowerment tools

• Test questions
  • Do employees have the tools they need to help customers effectively?
  • Are AI tools in place to help employees with suggestions or workflows?
• Checklist
  • Rate the usability of the employee dashboard and the features available.
  • Check if AI tools are helping employees make faster and more accurate decisions.
  • Check if employees have access to real-time customer information during interactions.
  • Review available training tools and employee support resources.
  • Ensure high adoption rates and proper use of tools.

Next steps/action plan

Based on your research, the next steps include:

• Perform a cost benefit analysis to determine the ROI of each tool in the stack.
• Identify the tools that offer the best value for money.
• Create an action plan to address the gaps and expand your CX expertise.
• Prioritize areas that need immediate attention.
• Schedule regular reviews and updates to your CX technology stack.
• Plan future evaluations and improvements based on research findings.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest CX trends.
• Plan future upgrades and additions based on trends and customer development expectations.

Conducting extensive CX research

Use the materials presented in this article to start your own experiment. They can be customized based on your specific technology and your organization’s customer experience goals. Regularly conducting this type of audit is essential to meet the changing needs of your customers and the expectations of your employees.

Investing in and developing CX technology helps your business secure its future by making it flexible and efficient to meet changing customer needs. By focusing on the customer and using the latest technology, you can improve collaboration, build loyalty and improve long-term growth. This creates a competitive edge and ensures sustainability in an ever-changing market.

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