Why Customer Journey Orchestration Needs to Be Customer-Led
The Gist
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Customers lead now. Shift from dictating customer paths to enabling them to design their own journeys through open-ended customer journey orchestration.
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AI enhances journeys. Leverage AI tools for predictive analytics, personalized content and automating workflows to create dynamic, customer-driven experiences.
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Break old silos. Align internal processes and platforms to remove customer roadblocks and allow seamless, personalized interactions across channels.
Remember when the height of personalized marketing was no more sophisticated than a mail merge? “Hello, [First Name]” was enough to claim you were embracing the new wave of personalized marketing. While it might have been the cutting edge at the time, it then gave way to drip email campaigns and other sequenced single-channel events.
Even a few years ago, highly pre-planned marketing automation sequences or customer journey orchestration was state of the art. Imagining and plotting complex multi-channel sequences with branching and dynamic variables allowed marketers to create a multi-faceted customer experience, despite that rather laborious task of managing integrations and potential conflicts, as well as factoring all the potential variables when creating content.
In a way, marketing started a lot like video games. Think of Pong or even Pac-Man as the first iterations. They were not easy to win, and, much like personalized emails or even highly-orchestrated marketing campaigns, there was only so much variation from one player to the next.
Much like two-dimensional games like Super Mario Brothers gave way to the open worlds of modern video gaming, so has “if this, then that” marketing given way to reaching customers in an open world of omnichannel customer experience.
There are several technologies that enable this, including a few powered by types of artificial intelligence:
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Predictive analytics helps marketers determine the next best actions for a customer to take.
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Workflow automation (sometimes referred to as robotic process automation, or RPA) strings a series of requests or sequences together.
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Generative AI helps to create near-infinite variations of personalized content based on prompts specific to each user and their context.
This means that “orchestration” as we have come to know it has now turned on its head. Companies that are leading the way are letting their customers orchestrate their journeys, and they’re equipping customers with tools and access to a wide range of potential offers, actions and experiences designed specifically for them.
Let’s explore the new possibilities that marketers and CX professionals should focus on and challenge some outdated ways of thinking that no longer fit in this evolving landscape.
Move Beyond Traditional Customer Journey Orchestration to Open-World Experiences
You may have a great understanding of your customers and their needs in relation to your products and services. But do you understand every individual customer? There aren’t enough meaningful audience segments to enable marketing teams to do this at a one-to-one scale, so personalization and customer journey orchestration tools need a way to create more variations without requiring humans to do all the work.
This means that a customer journey doesn’t look exactly the same from one customer to another.They all have preferences of products or communication channels, and they might be in different stages of the buying process. This is where a 1:1 approach is needed and where determining the next best action, offer or experience for each customer may make the difference between making the sale or not.
Wondering how this could work for your organization? There are platforms out there that can help. For instance, Treasure Data recently unveiled generative AI capabilities for its customer data platform, and it enables tasks such as crafting 1:1 email content based on real-time behaviors, survey responses or sentiment analysis. Including something like this in your omnichannel marketing stack brings you closer to achieving the ultimate goal of truly personalized customer experience in the moments that matter.
While it may be tempting to try to dictate exactly what you’d like your customers to do and when, there is simply too much variation in the way consumers behave to create a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead build multiple entry points and an open framework for customer journey orchestration so that your unique customers can take their own individual path to the desired end results you have in mind for them.
Also, be open to the idea that a customer who may seem like a good fit for one of your products or services may find that a different choice works better for them. Don’t silo your customers into a single workflow or segment with no way to get out. After all, a person may turn into a lifetime loyal customer if given the opportunity to choose their own path.
Related Article: AI in Ecommerce: True One-on-One Personalization Is Coming
Prioritize Customer Goals Over Internal Processes and Silos
How many times have you experienced frustrations as a customer because a brand’s internal processes prevented a seamless resolution to your issues? Why does a company’s org chart stand in the way of you getting what you need as a customer?
To do this better as a brand, you should build your processes around the desired end result and the customer’s experience. Fortunately there are tools that can help here. One such tool is Pega’s GenAI Blueprint, which uses generative AI to build an internal and external workflow where companies can
Just listen to how Tara DeZao, direct of product marketing at Pega explains it: “Collaborating with a generative AI-powered tool allows users to visualize the full potential of their marketing efforts, including exploring how to strengthen branding, identify new potential use cases, trigger relevant messages for customers and manage intricate and specific customer journeys. For example, a marketer can map out how to add a new product journey to their existing marketing program and socialize it within their organization to get stakeholder buy-in.”
Your company’s organizational structure — along with siloed teams, data and platforms — should never become a barrier for your customers. It may be difficult or impossible to remove those siloes altogether, but with a broader understanding of the opportunities and limitations available to teams that frequently collaborate, you can create ways of working that smooth out rough processes for your customers.
Additionally, find ways to utilize platforms and AI-based tools that can help you identify potential areas for improvement, manual processes to automate and measurements that can be used to understand how to overcome bottlenecks or other customer pain points.
Related Article: The CX Strategy for 2024
Develop Dynamic Processes and Metrics for Effective Customer Journey Orchestration
It’s easier to measure a one-size-fits-all marketing approach than it is to measure a highly personalized omnichannel experience, where customers, rather than the brand, dictate their next best action. That said, there are things you can do to be more successful in this open world scenario. For one, you can allow your team the flexibility to get detailed answers for the questions they need to understand customers in real time. Additionally, you can empower yourself and your team — who might not all be data scientists — to get these answers without the need to write Python code or SQL queries.
For example, just like someone on your team might ask ChatGPT a question, now they can do the same thing with your brand’s data. Tools like Ask Medallia allow CX or marketing team members to ask very specific questions that might take days for a data team to build queries and reports around. Instead, you can just type, “How many T-shirts did we sell in our three Austin, Texas retail locations last week?” and get a near-instantaneous reply.
It takes a different frame of mind to measure customer success in a world of near-infinite possibilities. But balancing the more immediate metrics like customer acquisition and product sales while also looking at strategic key performance indicators like customer lifetime value (CLV), loyalty and retention metrics can help you understand who your best customers are and build for their long-term needs.
The old paradigm of tightly controlled customer experiences has already shifted for many brands. Still, true omnichannel, open world customer experience still eludes most. The good news is that it’s not too late to get started, and you don’t have to build your open world all at once. You can — and should — start with some small but meaningful use cases and build from there. Look at
The future of the customer experience is a 1:1 omnichannel platform where customers orchestrate their own journeys. With the right tools in place, you can begin allowing consumers to build their own journey in this open world of customer experience.
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